Re: Gamma Balancing

You brought up a valid point here in the OP, and then it turned in to "omfg lets just erase everything"

I just thought it was funny.

Just when we were proving that bases and mechanics are fine the way they are provided people are there to attack and defend.

We were just starting to have fun.

sad

Cassius wrote:

Gunner get to the point.  Wut are you rambling about?

Re: Gamma Balancing

Jita wrote:
Rage Blackout wrote:

You cant just ninja wipe peoples work and not compensate them in any way.

We cant get our RL time back, so a little reimburse will do.




Not everyone has infinity money from exploiting missions for a year.




Shadowmine wrote:

Allow terminals to auto tf underneath them upon placement. But then have a distance limitation from other structures that a terminal can be placed. 3000 km from any other structure, etc. Then you could only allow tfing within a certain radius of terminal if you so desire.


Don't reimburse tf charges, it will screw the market, and the wealth accumulated behind terraformed walls is probly more than enough to compensate anyway.

+1


-1

There is no reason to do either of these things really.  Why are we AGAIN fixing something that isn't broken?  If "something" is "broken", then let the community know what it is from the Dev's point of view that is broken and let us help you determine a balanced approach to the mechanic.

Presently, my quandry is that now that we understand that there is a significant and substantial change to end-game mechanics makes me wonder WHAT END GAME INCENTIVES FOR CONTENT ARE LEFT?

Some people play checkers, some play chess...  Once in a while you can find a guy playing GO.  The former is prey, the secondary is a teacher, and the latter is a general.

78 (edited by Celebro 2014-01-20 00:21:04)

Re: Gamma Balancing

I have to agree with Zoom here, balance is not the only problem, aesthetically it's horrible, these bases look like sand castles and the thin walls don't seem very realistic and also don't go well with the LOS.


So the problems:


Looks horrible and not realistic

LOS issues with thin walls

Terraforming blocks access to free roaming PVP

Terraforming does most of the defence coupled with turrets instead of players defending

Terminal has no limitations on how large is can be built (turret spam)

RIP PERPETUUM

79 (edited by Homer J Simpson 2014-01-20 00:28:01)

Re: Gamma Balancing

DEV Zoom wrote:
Homer J Simpson wrote:

@ Zoom: one issue i can think of tho is even if you allow for terraforming to be passable to ligh/ assault bots heres an issue i see. With the current TF plans we can make you could raise up the plan & form a "shear cliff" edge along the plan boarders thus allowing players to still  form walls.

Yes, it's certainly not an easy problem to solve. It's one thing that the server can easily validate terrain slopes, the harder part is to make the client-side terraforming tools consider the limits in real time. Or if not, then at least help you in easily resolving invalid slopes.


I thought of 3 ways to combat this...

1. If TFing plans are still used, Have the edges of the plan Auto smooth along plan boarders to Light bot Terrain Slope.

2. It might still be possible to create "cliffs tiles" thru the use of TF Beacons. to negate this instead of having a Beacon TF tile within a 100m Radius or what ever it is. Have Beacons terraform the whole Plan at once. this would require beacons to be placed on the edges of a plan & that players TFing stand outside the plane boundaries.

3. Remove TF beacon/ Tf Plans & have all TFing be done with Single Tile Terraformers. This might be an easier option as you can only target 1 tile moving it up & down. The higher or lower the tile the greater the fall off.
You could have different Ammo types for different slope grades. I could go on but i think you get the general idea of where im going. smile

As for Terminals having CPU & Grid for MPC networks it would be cool if T1 T2 T3 terminals have more CPU & Grid as u get more advanced.

Edit: +1 to every thing Celebro just said above me

Re: Gamma Balancing

Celebro wrote:
Aye Pod wrote:

Now lets hear the QQ about not wanting to reinvest time in remaking gamma .



Move to beta, mine and haul Epriton, to build it up again, yeah I'd loved to so I can mine HDT AFK.

Pew Pew! \o/
+1

Reading this signature fills you with determination.

Re: Gamma Balancing

Oh one more thing Zoom, We will need to have this on the TEst server smile And this time just give us a few gamma islands not the whole bl**dy game lol. Last time gamma came out i know allot couldn't get proper testing due to short time frame & bad server smile

Re: Gamma Balancing

This reminds me about Wurm Online and they do have a limitation on terraforming gradients. Basically you dig or pour dirt to terraform, but its not done per tile, instead each 4 corners of the tile has to go up or down first if the adjacent tile is too step then you can't dig any further but its also dependent on skills. So basic premise is make tiles corners lockable so we can terraform this way.

http://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Terraforming

RIP PERPETUUM

Re: Gamma Balancing

We had another internal devtalk just now about terraforming limits. Single-tile terraforming is fine, but it seems very hard to impose limits upon the beacon/plan-method. Every time we came up with a possible solution there was a reaction of "okay, but what if they do xy. - well, damn". The complexity that makes it such a free and creative mechanic is exactly what makes it seemingly impossible to put a limit on it without any possibility for a workaround. The more complex a solution, the higher the probability that someone will break it and the reset was for nothing.

We're actually considering to abandon beacon-terraforming, and have single-tile terraforming only, while repurposing terraforming plans as a strictly visual aid for it.

edit: Yeah Homer beat me to the conclusion smile

Re: Gamma Balancing

DEV Zoom wrote:

We had another internal devtalk just now about terraforming limits. Single-tile terraforming is fine, but it seems very hard to impose limits upon the beacon/plan-method. Every time we came up with a possible solution there was a reaction of "okay, but what if they do xy. - well, damn". The complexity that makes it such a free and creative mechanic is exactly what makes it seemingly impossible to put a limit on it without any possibility for a workaround. The more complex a solution, the higher the probability that someone will break it and the reset was for nothing.

We're actually considering to abandon beacon-terraforming, and have single-tile terraforming only, while repurposing terraforming plans as a strictly visual aid for it.

edit: Yeah Homer beat me to the conclusion smile

Well damn, that's a game changer.

I would consider some boosts to single tile terraforming, or improve it in any way.

RIP PERPETUUM

85 (edited by Zortarg Calltar 2014-01-20 00:46:04)

Re: Gamma Balancing

DEV Zoom wrote:

We had another internal devtalk just now about terraforming limits. Single-tile terraforming is fine, but it seems very hard to impose limits upon the beacon/plan-method. Every time we came up with a possible solution there was a reaction of "okay, but what if they do xy. - well, damn". The complexity that makes it such a free and creative mechanic is exactly what makes it seemingly impossible to put a limit on it without any possibility for a workaround. The more complex a solution, the higher the probability that someone will break it and the reset was for nothing.

We're actually considering to abandon beacon-terraforming, and have single-tile terraforming only, while repurposing terraforming plans as a strictly visual aid for it.

edit: Yeah Homer beat me to the conclusion smile

have you considered moving the whole terraforming plan instead of the area around the beacons?

changes will be very slow to the eye, but then verything will slowly move into place.

Re: Gamma Balancing

Celebro wrote:

I would consider some boosts to single tile terraforming, or improve it in any way.

Definitely, the problem of single-tile terraforming is that it's too crude, hard to make nice ramps and stuff. Also, coordinating it among multiple people is hard, that's what a projected plan would help with maybe.

Re: Gamma Balancing

terraforming without a terraforming plan would be awful - dont give yourself too much to do. Just make the terraforming tools in the planner follow the rules you set out.

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

Re: Gamma Balancing

Burning question is Zoom -

What timescale are we talking?

Should we start to evac assets and decon now or will you do this?

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

Re: Gamma Balancing

Zortarg Calltar wrote:

have you considered moving the whole terraforming plan instead of the area around the beacons?

Yes, unfortunately the most common argument against the proposed ideas is that you can use any number of terraforming plans for the same area, and work on any of them at any time. If we only check the validity of the plan, and if you do two vastly different plans in tandem, it's possible to create impassable terrain. Unless we validate the actual terrain after every beacon cycle, but that doesn't seem feasible either since you can have impassable terrain as a starting point as well, so it would stop at the first cycle. The problem is basically the process, which can be interrupted in an invalid state and left like that.

Re: Gamma Balancing

Jita: we're looking at a few weeks here, including development, testing server etc. No need to panic just yet smile

Re: Gamma Balancing

DEV Zoom wrote:

Jita: we're looking at a few weeks here, including development, testing server etc. No need to panic just yet smile

its not the panic really, its just this change makes building defences useless and planning long sieges useless so sooner rather than later is better even if you do the wipe and then take a couple more weeks of test server testing to roll out changes

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

Re: Gamma Balancing

I understand, but I think it would be a mistake to do the reset before we have the exact plan.

edit:

Jita wrote:

terraforming without a terraforming plan would be awful - dont give yourself too much to do. Just make the terraforming tools in the planner follow the rules you set out.

That's the thing - it seems impossible to do it without leaving exploits. And then what's the point of it.

Re: Gamma Balancing

You've gotten yourself in to a big mess here.

DEV Zoom wrote:

I understand, but I think it would be a mistake to do the reset before we have the exact plan.

edit:

Jita wrote:

terraforming without a terraforming plan would be awful - dont give yourself too much to do. Just make the terraforming tools in the planner follow the rules you set out.

That's the thing - it seems impossible to do it without leaving exploits. And then what's the point of it.

Re: Gamma Balancing

If you want a great short term fix, remove gamma, reset.  Then simply have gamma's, with main termails with your said restrictions without terraforming available. 

Your looking for a short term solution, and you dont have the resources for a long term one.  Have the buildings make there own pad, without any need for terraforming.  As well as, implement the CPU, and Power restrictions that are needed to fix the sprawl.

I would also suggest that if you are looking for smaller bases with smaller footprints, then you need to boost the effectiveness of all the defenses.   I would also suggest that you reinstate OP being no closer then 2500meters from one another, and reduce how many can be on one island at one time. 

Unfortunately I believe your looking for a dynamic Gamma scene with full loot drop, and you are expecting the players to do this with no Gamma incentive at all.  This is a entirely different conversation however.

If you are looking seriously at inproving then game, and removing gamma castles, great, also think about re-adding Epi back into the mix for a better incentive to live out there, again.

The Gifter
Top  Killer 2013  - 01: 334 -- 17 -- 317  : Merkle
Top  Killer 2012  - 01: 027 -- 472 -- 445 : Merkle

Scarab Kill Count - 13

Re: Gamma Balancing

Please do not bring back Epriton to gamma islands.
Their incentives are good already, aren't they? Unique collixium, unmatched industrial capabilities, unique ct and decoder merging, best place (and the only these days) for Noralgis planting, best place for artifacting by far, place with the highest possible player influence, beacon pits!.

Re: Gamma Balancing

Merkle wrote:

Have the buildings make there own pad, without any need for terraforming.

Remember when people were terraforming with turrets? smile Not sure we want to have people feel inclined to use that kind of twisted mechanic again.

Re: Gamma Balancing

We actually had a hefty discussion just about what you have stated, the only one that I would concurr with is Nora, other then that, the openness will negate the rest.  All of which is a great thing, bringing back roaming capabilities to gamma is a great thing.

As well as the minor percentages to what is worth to what is given.

The Gifter
Top  Killer 2013  - 01: 334 -- 17 -- 317  : Merkle
Top  Killer 2012  - 01: 027 -- 472 -- 445 : Merkle

Scarab Kill Count - 13

Re: Gamma Balancing

DEV Zoom wrote:
Merkle wrote:

Have the buildings make there own pad, without any need for terraforming.

Remember when people were terraforming with turrets? smile Not sure we want to have people feel inclined to use that kind of twisted mechanic again.


I do remember, just simply undo when it is removed.

The Gifter
Top  Killer 2013  - 01: 334 -- 17 -- 317  : Merkle
Top  Killer 2012  - 01: 027 -- 472 -- 445 : Merkle

Scarab Kill Count - 13

Re: Gamma Balancing

Ho-ho-ho! 8-]
Zoom, reset world before Steam. Convert current EP to subscribe+current subscribe and let's war begin! :-D More arkhe fun on betas! :-D More newbies, no vets with 100500kkk+ EP! :-D

Re: Gamma Balancing

I would also suggest, rescaling Gamma and how you think gamma should look like. 

Personally I would like to see a smaller yet more powerful base structure.  So that everyone has the room to move and get gamma back into a fluid state.  Think harder structures to kill, rescaling Turrets to higher DPS, and harder to kill with small fleets, to reduce the amount of them. 

So you have smaller stations that allow owners to have the stability to invest into the gamma structure, and still allow the freedom of movement on the island.

I can go on, but I won't.

The Gifter
Top  Killer 2013  - 01: 334 -- 17 -- 317  : Merkle
Top  Killer 2012  - 01: 027 -- 472 -- 445 : Merkle

Scarab Kill Count - 13