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Author Topic: GIF Roundup  (Read 19985 times)

Alex

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GIF Roundup
« on: April 11, 2020, 10:27:50 AM »

Blog post here.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2020, 10:29:38 AM by Alex »
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Thaago

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Re: GIF Roundup
« Reply #1 on: April 11, 2020, 10:59:11 AM »

These look like glorious [Redacted] fun!

That poor Enforcer firing its flaks at the red orb (a type of missile under the hood?) and then overloading on one hit... next time I'm building an Enforcer I'm definitely including ablative crew Talons in a makeshift hanger to crash into intercept those balls of glowing death.

With regards to player access to highly powerful weapons: Tartiflette (I'm pretty sure?) implemented an 'interference' mechanic on some of his weapons for Seeker, where if you have more than 1 installed on a ship they start to degrade the ship's stats. Something akin to that could help if you are worried about a player getting access to too many of them.
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Alex

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Re: GIF Roundup
« Reply #2 on: April 11, 2020, 11:16:54 AM »

That poor Enforcer firing its flaks at the red orb (a type of missile under the hood?) and then overloading on one hit... next time I'm building an Enforcer I'm definitely including ablative crew Talons in a makeshift hanger to crash into intercept those balls of glowing death.

(Yeah, it's a missile.)

With regards to player access to highly powerful weapons: Tartiflette (I'm pretty sure?) implemented an 'interference' mechanic on some of his weapons for Seeker, where if you have more than 1 installed on a ship they start to degrade the ship's stats. Something akin to that could help if you are worried about a player getting access to too many of them.

Hmm, interesting! I like the idea a lot; not sure if it's necessary here, but certainly something to keep in mind in case just limiting access proves insufficient.
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Jackundor

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Re: GIF Roundup
« Reply #3 on: April 11, 2020, 11:22:42 AM »

As a Warhammer 40,000 fan i can only say one thing after seeing those gifs
DEMONIC INCURSION DETECTED, CALL THE INQUISITION!!!
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Eji1700

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Re: GIF Roundup
« Reply #4 on: April 11, 2020, 12:08:01 PM »

I think my favorite thing about these is that they're clearly different from normal weapons.  Nearly every weapon in the base game is pretty straightforward.  Explosions, projectiles, and lasers being 99% of the arsenal.  These are still basically the same, in usage, but the effects aren't just "more" but different enough to really feel like you're just toying around with fallen empire tech and nowhere near its peak.
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Grievous69

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Re: GIF Roundup
« Reply #5 on: April 11, 2020, 12:18:27 PM »

I think my favorite thing about these is that they're clearly different from normal weapons.
Yup same thing. Looking at those fancy effects back when they were shown on Twitter I really wondered if any of those will be on sale somewhere like the usual weapons, but just more rare. And I don't know why but that ice ''flamethrower'' looks so damn sexy, definitely my favourite of the bunch. Btw I like the Paragon tag at the bottom, this is a clear message that Alex is annoyed so many players just spam Paragons.
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Please don't take me too seriously.

Alex

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Re: GIF Roundup
« Reply #6 on: April 11, 2020, 12:44:57 PM »

As a Warhammer 40,000 fan i can only say one thing after seeing those gifs
DEMONIC INCURSION DETECTED, CALL THE INQUISITION!!!

Hmm. Perhaps not entirely unwarranted.


I think my favorite thing about these is that they're clearly different from normal weapons.  Nearly every weapon in the base game is pretty straightforward.  Explosions, projectiles, and lasers being 99% of the arsenal.  These are still basically the same, in usage, but the effects aren't just "more" but different enough to really feel like you're just toying around with fallen empire tech and nowhere near its peak.
Yup same thing. Looking at those fancy effects back when they were shown on Twitter I really wondered if any of those will be on sale somewhere like the usual weapons, but just more rare. And I don't know why but that ice ''flamethrower'' looks so damn sexy, definitely my favourite of the bunch. Btw I like the Paragon tag at the bottom, this is a clear message that Alex is annoyed so many players just spam Paragons.

Thank you - I'm really happy this comes across! Was very much aiming for something "different".

(And, yeah, the flamer! Have to admit I'm very pleased with that one, myself. It, let's say, exceeded expectations.)
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HELMUT

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Re: GIF Roundup
« Reply #7 on: April 11, 2020, 01:56:56 PM »

I really like the black smoke effect on those missiles and that... Lightning smoke launcher thing. It feels like the kind of weapon that shouldn't be possible, and somehow here it is. Encountering it for the first time is gonna be a quite freaky experience.

I also concur with Thaago about those weapons. Yes, they'll technically be difficult to obtain, but once the player get a few of those and a Paragon, they're set for the rest of the game and there's no reason to change. The Seeker solution isn't a bad idea to prevent this, i guess it'll depend on how powerful and practical those weird guns are.

As a Warhammer 40,000 fan i can only say one thing after seeing those gifs
DEMONIC INCURSION DETECTED, CALL THE INQUISITION!!!

Hmm. Perhaps not entirely unwarranted.

Courtesy of emwattnot :

Spoiler

[close]



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SCC

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Re: GIF Roundup
« Reply #8 on: April 11, 2020, 02:24:00 PM »

You already are set for game, if you have got a Paragon. Once Alex puts some time pressure on us, we will see if it's actually worthwhile to try and get those toys.

Alex

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Re: GIF Roundup
« Reply #9 on: April 11, 2020, 02:37:22 PM »

I really like the black smoke effect on those missiles and that... Lightning smoke launcher thing. It feels like the kind of weapon that shouldn't be possible, and somehow here it is. Encountering it for the first time is gonna be a quite freaky experience.

:D

I also concur with Thaago about those weapons. Yes, they'll technically be difficult to obtain, but once the player get a few of those and a Paragon, they're set for the rest of the game and there's no reason to change. The Seeker solution isn't a bad idea to prevent this, i guess it'll depend on how powerful and practical those weird guns are.

In a sense, a higher OP cost is basically "interference". If you have a bunch of high-priced weapons on one hull, the hull is worse than it would otherwise be - if those OP were spent on vents, caps, and hullmods. So it feels like OP could still be a reasonable balancing lever here.

Courtesy of emwattnot :

Ah yeah, actually seen that one :)
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Megas

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Re: GIF Roundup
« Reply #10 on: April 11, 2020, 02:50:01 PM »

I also concur with Thaago about those weapons. Yes, they'll technically be difficult to obtain, but once the player get a few of those and a Paragon, they're set for the rest of the game and there's no reason to change. The Seeker solution isn't a bad idea to prevent this, i guess it'll depend on how powerful and practical those weird guns are.

In a sense, a higher OP cost is basically "interference". If you have a bunch of high-priced weapons on one hull, the hull is worse than it would otherwise be - if those OP were spent on vents, caps, and hullmods. So it feels like OP could still be a reasonable balancing lever here.
If they are anything like Knights' Templar weapons, then the extra OP cost will still be worth it.  It just means the ships skimp on the luxury mounts and hullmods, and/or encourage unbalanced loadouts like unarmed carriers with premium fighters and hullmods or some high tech ships (like Aurora or Odyssey) with two big guns, a ton of flux, and almost nothing else.

That purple beam with secondary black snakes or crawlers looks like an enhanced tachyon lance.
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Eji1700

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Re: GIF Roundup
« Reply #11 on: April 11, 2020, 04:27:46 PM »

Personally i've been hoping for a little more than OP to balance the weapons in general for the obvious reasons. I don't mind ragtag junk fleet, but I'd like to at least feel somewhat rewarded for staying in theme.

Having certain hulls work better with some weapons (like a more elegant/general conquest buff, but perhaps to firing rate or something) to represent the idea that it's more "compatible" seems like a decent idea.

Of course you could just do it with hull mods as well, and then maybe discount those for tech compatibility.   Something like you can fire the "black hole tac lance" thing on any ship that's got the slot and the OP for it, however it only "bounces" once.  Add the right hull mod though and it does whats in the gif?

None of this feels quite right (a little on the nose or reskinning already existing features) but I'm hoping we get something along these lines, besides story points, to maybe get away from the "Build a paragon and end the universe" linear path we've got right now. 

Naturally you can deviate for flavor but there's several hulls that are just better than the rest, and it might be more fun to let a pilot who wants to spend enough time hunting down the right stuff to bring other ships up to those levels rather than just limiting them.
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Megas

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Re: GIF Roundup
« Reply #12 on: April 11, 2020, 04:54:51 PM »

Personally i've been hoping for a little more than OP to balance the weapons in general for the obvious reasons. I don't mind ragtag junk fleet, but I'd like to at least feel somewhat rewarded for staying in theme.
I hope that unbalanced (and ugly) loadouts like unarmed carriers or one big gun gunships are not rewarded even more.  They are kind of rewarded too much already.

Not sure how I would feel if the weapons turn out to be the best and can be farmed like Sparks.  (Either I dislike it or I feel glee abusing overpowered tools for flawless victories, not sure which side I would fall on to.)  It may play like Knights Templar.  Get harder early difficulty spike against overpowered enemies, survive and steal their overpowered stuff, then crush late game opposition even more easily than before thanks to more power (and you likely exploit it better than AI).
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ahrenjb

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Re: GIF Roundup
« Reply #13 on: April 11, 2020, 05:32:50 PM »

Strong conjoiner cache weapon vibes here, is someone an Alastair Reynolds fan?
« Last Edit: April 11, 2020, 05:35:40 PM by ahrenjb »
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Alex

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Re: GIF Roundup
« Reply #14 on: April 11, 2020, 05:57:39 PM »

Balance-wise, I'm sure these will get another pass at some point. Flux costs are generally high enough that also making them highly inefficient could prove to be too much, but, well. It definitely needs more playtesting from the player side of things at some point.

@Eji1700: hmm. It seems to me that, if anything, having some high-powered weapons would incentivize using more mobile platforms. Or at least wouldn't comparatively favor using e.g. the Paragon. So I don't think this is specifically an issue related to these weapons. And, there are the skill changes to consider, which should make smaller ships somewhat more appealing overall.

Strong conjoiner cache weapon vibes here, is someone an Alastair Reynolds fan?

Excellent :D Very much intentional!

(Yes, both myself and David.)
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