Non-bug Feedback Request

[CRourke]

I have a ton of ideas, but I'll try and keep it short and sweet.

I sympathize with others who have to put multiple rounds into rear armor to get a kill. I think the best solution is server adjustable lethality. Let the user decide if he wants to play in the unforgiving world of one shot, one kill.

Would it be possible to not visually model grass in the gunner view? While I think it looks great, I can't help but be frustrated by getting shot by bots and players (who have vegetation off) as I creep over a hill.

Finally, it would be nice if a ctrl-click didn't register as a drop request. After I choose my vehicle, I'd like to use ctrl-click to move around the map, before left-clicking and choosing the exact location. I know there are work arounds, but I think this would be more intuitive.

Anyway, great work guys. Everything about dropteam looks very promising, but possibly the most important thing I see is a dev team that solicits and considers user feedback.

Chris

[RedYama]

First of all I'd like to say, superb game. I love the slow pace and tactical gameplay. Initially I was thrown off by it and got slaughtered, but that's because I was trying to drive tanks BF2 style. I agree with the previous posters on the steering issues with Thors and Cutters. My other gripe is a minor one with the scoring system: I don't like how the death of your automated turret counts as a death for you.

However, adding a strafe function to the hovercraft might unbalance them, especially on worlds with similar physics to the ice world. One of my favourite chassis, the Tempest, can already fly rings around tanks and AFVs, as long as I stick to the flats. It's quite easy to charge a Thor at an odd angle, then swing around behind him and ionize his rear.

I personally don't think the Hurricane is too overpowered, remember this is a team game. The reload time on that thing is extremely slow, just get a buddy in a ATGM vehicle and approach from two sides.

Many of the complaints about arty and ATGMs can also be dismissed with a bit of experience and teamplay. If you park your MBT on top of a hill and don't move after every shot, then start charging forward, of course some sneaky Shrike is going to light you up. Try getting some boyos in Hermes to give you an escort. You'll appreciate the immunity to artillery and missiles, they'll appreciate you knocking out tanks.

[Battlefront.com]

Well said RedYama! I would like to emphasize your point about team play. That has always been an overriding design consideration when trying to balance stuff. Some vehicles are near useless on their own, but when someone else is providing cover... what a difference that "useless" vehicle can make!

Also remember, you guys haven't seen much yet in the way of maps, gravity, atmospheric density, etc. In some games a particular vehicle is utterly useless, then in another it dominates. Figuring out which is which is a ton of fun! Nothing like dropping a tried and true favorite to find out it is as useless as a matchstick in the rain. So you drop something you haven't used as much, if at all, and find it works like a champ.

Anyhoo... thanks for playing and sharing your thoughts! Many great suggestions and observations made so far!

Steve

[BigChiefWahoo]

Marvelous game!

My 2 cents:

Please ignore the requests for damage feedback, one-sot, one kill, etc. The fog of war effect is so much more immersive without such hoo-hahs.

ATGM's: Couple of ideas to add to the immersion of the game. 1) A noisy warning claxon indicating a lock would be very cool. You'd then be able to holler "damn the torpedoes - full steam ahead!" 2) Create some kind of ATGM countermeasures. Smoke, or large expulsions of metallic particles or something. You could have a finite number of countermeasures per vehicle - two or three maybe. The effects of the countermeasure could, for example, cause the ATGM to detonate prematurely, and thereby render minor to major mayhem to one's vehicle instead of the usual catastrophic consequences. The countermeasures could suffer tremendously in a low gravity environment. Maybe a cloud of metallic particles would disperse more rapidly in low gravity or low atmospheric density and might be gone before they would be effective against the incoming ATGM. One would have to learn timing for their use, and one could then be rewarded for having invested bunches of hours in playing the game. One's skill can improve noticeably over time. A very evil and effective way to get people addicted to any game. DropTeam does this very well already, by the way. Use of the countermeasures could be visually stimulating - and might also give one's position away.

Reduce the number of available vehicles by ~30% across the board. Increasing the value of each vehicle this way would reduce the time for all of us newbies to learn to play more effectivly. Its a lonely feeling when you're out of Thors and the bad guys aren't. It would add to the strategy stew the concept of running for an extraction position with a damaged vehicle instead of just CTRL-K-ing into a replacement.

[Bernhardt]

Now that I played few additional hours I want to add that Hurricane isn't as overpowering as I thought. it's a quite easy target, even without teamplay.

Same goes with ATGM, those vehicles pop up after few beams from an ion cannon. As someone said, if you see a missile coming at you, just destroy the vehicle, don't try to dodge those missiles like a madman.

My point is, every tank has its strenghts and weaknesses. There is no perfect tank.

As a side note, I can't stress this enough how cool it is to be able to damage vehicles in many ways. My tires have been shot multiple times and somehow I can't stop laughing how perfect that is.

This game has been fun even without a noticeable teamplay. I wonder how fun it will become now that teamplay is coming in the picture. *drool*

[weasello]

They're not hard to control; they are hard to *learn* to control.

I love the hurri control scheme, don't change it

You can tell bots where (and what) to drop right now.

It seems bot management is too micro-managementy. I wish there was a way to say "drop here, but take whatever you want" instead of *needing* to specify something. I went to an empty server once and tried to get bots into formation and storm a base - they had trouble forming a tight formation (kept bumping into and plowing each other over), spinning in random circles, then had trouble advancing as a group. I wish I could just highlight a bunch of guys, tell them to "generally stick together", and go in "this general direction".

[Battlefront.com]

The best way to utilize bots is to have someone acting as a dedicated commander instead of someone who is trying to fight with a vehicle and command the bots at the same time.

Steve

[RiflemanIII]

As a response to the previous comments on the defender advantages, the objective-type game is quite doable. coordination is key, and don't forget about your EMP missions. They lock up the defenders, and as far as I can tell, can't be shot down by the ion towers.

[Thomm]

Very interesting game!

I love the shaded terrain!

Something that I absolutely dislike is being dropped on a slope and losing control over my vehicle instantly (roll over, etc.). Of course, in the end it is my mistake if this happens, but I think the engine should simply refuse dropping points on steep slopes!

Best regards,

Thomm

[RedYama]

Agreed Bernhardt, I cannot wait until we get some proper convoys going.I must try to get the rest of my gaming crew into this.

[Redcon-5]

I know that the THOR is not an M-1 but could we please give it better acceleration. I was trying to do berm drills with it and it just was not practical.

DONT change the top speed!!! Just bump up the acceleration. Please!?!

Oh and I understand why you loose sight of enemy vehicals when your turret is dead (Fog of War). But could you please let the driver see them if he heading right at them?

[RIPper_SVK]

so after more hours of playing (too much if you ask me , i've got more feedback:

1) you can't see minefields on the map when you drop them (e.g. in the deployment phase). this way it's hard to guess their coverage.

also to me it seems that one minefield is too small. even placing several of them probably won't produce enough of a barier which would have strong enough strategic meaning....but i didn't test them very much, so take this with a big grain of salt.

2) the percieved weak ammo performance. i think a big part in that is played by players inability to see if he hit or not, and whether the hit penetrated. i think it's too hard to see if you hit, especially with AP ammo. a real life hit with APFSDS ammo produces a strong impact effect (in the form of lots of sparks, bright flash, and dust cloud, as i wrote earlier). in the game, i have problems determining if i hit even in very close distance. with HEAT round it's easier to see the impact, but i still think the explosion should be bigger.

seeing if i hit is important to be able to apply correctures to the next shot. errors aren't only caused by player, but also by lag.

as someone else posted somewhere, it would be usefull to know if the hit penetrated (not only when you blow off the turret), so some more smoke could help. not too much smoke, and not always.

but even when i discount how hard is it to see if i hit, i still think it's too hard to kill anything with especially AP ammo. i shot at least 5 rounds from maybe 100 meters to some light buggy's side, and it contrinued to go. the same with the Thor...and i can see it from my side, it's not that uncommon to take several rounds to the side and go on fighting. i don't think the damage should be dramatically upped, but maybe with about 30%. i'm just frustrated when i get to a tactically excelent position, ambush someone (and not just a Thor, even ligher vehicles) from the side, hit him once or twice, and he just turns the turret at me and a slug-fest starts. low damage doesn't reward good position. even if some side hit makes light damage, it doesn't really make a difference because light damage doesn't really make it harder for him to fight me.

i don't suggest a 1 shot to kill scenario (maybe in some mod . just a bit stronger damage, to punish bad tactics a bit more. i think you don't try to make an arcade, so you should emphatize good tactics.

lately i'm using HEAT more and more, even at below 2kms. it seems to kill more often, and for me it's easier to see hits. HEAT could have another effect. in real life, tankers are taught to shoot HEAT at light armored vehicles, because AP ammo (APFSDS) would just make a neat hole in them without much damage, if it doesn't hit anything important. that's because it relies on spalling to do the damage, and with light armor there's not enough armor to make enough spall (imagine hitting paper). so what if HEAT would cause more damage IF it penetrated. it could have less penetration than AP, but better behind armor effects. that would be usefull agains lighter vehicles.

3) missiles seem to quite be OK. it seems that they hit slow vehicles (thor) much more often that faster ones. i like the idea someone presented that "locked" missiles should warn the target, which could have some means of defense (smoke grenades?). but i think the manual steering should be done differently, more like the TOW. the missile would try to stay in the middle of your crosshair. now it tries to go to some point in the space given by your crosshair + distance. the TOW doesn't need the distance to target. this method wouldn't allow such crazy missile steering and is a bit harder, but without warning to the target it would be very usefull i think.

4) yep, tank acceleration. you can't pop up from turret down position, shoot and back up, because it takes too much time.

phew, sorry for the long post, i hope it's not all nonsense. i still think the game has great potential and is fun, but i'm somehow frustrated by damage/inability to see hits.

[yurch]

I'm pretty sure HEAT does do more catastrophic damage. I've switched to using it every time for drop ships and rear shots. AP tends to just damage more (instead of "kill"), you can often hear the guys yelling in the opposing vehicle while spraying it close up with AP.

What I'm really afraid of is the ion cannons. Although their primary purpose right now is setting alight Rune's tires, it's an instant hit weapon with seemingly no limit to it's range. (wouldn't ions dissapate in an atmosphere quickly?)

It reliably kills a target 100% through persistance, and this I can see being a problem once the game is out a long enough time and players are doing everything they can to win. This is the kind of weapon that multiplies in strength with every person that's using it, rather than a simple linear increase. A group of people working together with IC may sound like a nice teamwork goal, but I can see it (at range at least) consistantly spanking more diversified teams of greater size, simply through "focus fire", a term I'd rather see left in those crappy mainstream RTS games.

Yeah, a guy in that nightmare hovercraft could probably trash most attempts to use them in a server today, but there's something like 8 hovercraft and 20-30+ ion vehicles availible.

And, a question: how is the BOTTOM armor on the hovercraft? Is firing HE underneath them a viable option?

[Bernhardt]

I have tested those ion cannons and they terrify me too. You can do horrid things with that baby, wicked with two.

You can really snipe with those, but we have to keep in mind how helpless ion cannons become on rough surfaces, when you can take cover and lob some bombs at them. We have only seen 2 scenarios out of 21.

[Tagwyn]

Ion Cannons? Humm? Didn't Flash Gordon shoot Buck Rogers with one of those babies? Buck couldn't sit down for a week as I recall. Tag

[Netherby]

It seems vehicles may be invulnerable from the under side? Or at least very tough.. Some tank flipped on its side and I was shooting it heaps in the belly thinking that would surely be the weakest armour but I couldn't seem to damage it..

Could we get some clarification on the the underside armour strength? There are certain situations (besides them rolling over) where you can get a shot at their belly but from my experience it doesn't seem to make any difference?

[Balzac]

Ok, after much time spent playing I have one major gripe that I have not seen posted yet. I do not feel as though im driving a tank, It feels more like im driving a hot wheel. I mean that there is no feeling of weight or mass to the vehicles in the game. Lets say you have a 90 ton object in normal earth gravity, at 1/3 earth gravity your still going to weigh 30 tons so the gravity of the planet wont come into play all that much with the feeling of weight. I would like to see the vehicles act like they had weight, Instead of the sudden flips, vehicle humping (when you bump into another vehicle and it gets stuck on top of you and you cant separate), Wheel stands (hit the breaks hard at full speed on the wheeled vehicles and you will tip over the front), and wheelie's that are in there now. Also modeling in suspension would be a great addition to the game. The vehicles move too jagged across the terrain, it often feels as though your ridding across bumpy/jagged concrete on a skate board. Smoothing them out would add a nice feel to the whole experience.

[Iceman[USA]]

IRT Belzac: But most tanks really don't have suspension. You have a point in that they seem to kind of "bounce" over the terrain at times (try hitting some rocks in a hurri) so some suspension would be nice, but don't expect a smooth ride

Ok.. now my 2 cents..

First of all, excellent game. It NAILED the fun factor. It is a lot of fun to play. I got to go up against a few devs earlier today, and still got my butt whooped.

Thanks a lot for the patch too! It made the game much more stable, and fixed quite a few bugs... made the maps load faster... the list goes on. It made a HUGE difference to me. Definatly tipped the scales in favor of getting this game, since I now know you guys are on top of bugs. (I was borderline, because with the previous version, I had a few crashing/speed problems that are now fixed with this new version)

Ok... few complaints though.

1. The tanks seem very unresponsive to turning commands. Unless you've come to a very slow speed, the tanks don't seem to like turning. And when you do, you either turn very slowly, or do the instant 90 turn. This doesn't seem to be quite as bad with 0.9.41, but figured i'd point it out.

2. (biggest complaint) AGTM's are far too accurate/powerful. If you try to drop in near one, or attack one, you are pretty much guarenteed to die. (In 1 hit usually. You'll always at least loose your turret it seems)

3. This is actually a complement- The artillary is very fun to use. once you get a computer lock, the round will land almost directly where you targeted. Gets quite fun to blast bases to clear it out for a charge

4. I wanted to give you guys major kudos on the ion weapons. If you know how to use them, they can do massive damage. (I.E- try going after the tires on wheeled vehicles ) I'm sure Rune knows what i'm talking about

5. This is a request really, even though it has been posted many times.. A way to tell if a shot connected. Even something as simple as a "beep" would be nice.

and IRT Rifleman- I was on the recieving end of a EMP attack today. Good lord those are a pain. Locked up my entire team.. we got slaughtered

Well, anywho... VERY good job on the game. The modeling of damage, particularly the fact that your treads, ect can be blown out, was VERY well done. More than once i've had to extract myself mid-battle because I got my treads blown out by a stray round.

I will certainly be getting this when it comes out in full.

[RedYama]

One other gripe I have is with the ineffectiveness of the 76mm gun on the Paladin. I drove up behind an unsuspecting cutter, emptied 6-8 AP shots into his rear from point blank range, and he turns around and pops me in 2 bursts on my frontal armor. Yet, the 20mm cannons seem awesome, I managed to get around to the rear of a Thor trying to snipe while driving a Hermes, a couple of bursts sorted him out.

[Type98]

Is it possible to add in a topographic view of the map with LOS ? It may make planning a lot more interesting if the player/commander can see where hull down with the best LOS positions are.

As to the FPS portion of the game play, there seems to be a lot of "been there, done that". For example, overloading the player by having the player take on driver+gunner+vehicle commander roles simultaneously; Powerful weapons with awkward aiming system to make combat more "skill" related; Indesctructable buildings that can withstand any weapon; symmetrical gear on both factions, etc.

[yllamana]

Originally posted by Type98:

As to the FPS portion of the game play, there seems to be a lot of "been there, done that". For example, overloading the player by having the player take on driver+gunner+vehicle commander roles simultaneously...

It would be extremely cool if you could actually have two (or more) players inside the one vehicle. Seems a bit late in development to ask for such a thing, but it would rock.

Indesctructable buildings that can withstand any weapon; symmetrical gear on both factions, etc.

Take it from me when I say you simply have not found the right weapon to destroy them. The first discussion that Netherby and I have in the attacking objective game is whether or not to level the enemy base.

[ March 22, 2006, 07:55 PM: Message edited by: yllamana ]

[Type98]

It could be that I haven't found the weapon yet, however, have you tried this ?

Start Linux server version 9.4.1; take one thor with 120mm gun; select AP/HEAT/HE and aim at a tree trunk. Regardless of shell type, the shell goes right through the tree without damaging the tree. Switch to thor with mortar and aim at the same tree. One mortar shell blows the tree down.

Second, take the same mortar and aim at the fortress wall. After trying about 25+ rounds the wall is still standing. This is with two resupply of the mortar. Yes, the structures inside the Fort can be destroyed with HE, but the walls can not be breached.

[ March 23, 2006, 05:12 AM: Message edited by: Type98 ]

[yllamana]

Originally posted by Type98:

It could be that I haven't found the weapon yet, however, have you tried this ?

Start Linux server version 9.4.1; take one thor with 120mm gun; select AP/HEAT/HE and aim at a tree trunk. Regardless of shell type, the shell goes right through the tree. Switch to thor with mortar and aim at the same tree. One mortar shell blows the tree down.

Second, take the same mortar and aim at the fortress wall. After trying about 25+ rounds the wall is still standing. This is with two resupply of the mortar. Yes, the structures inside the Fort can be destroyed with HE, but the walls can not be breached.

That's a good point. My brain wasn't counting the fort wall as a building.

Maybe the fort thing could be fixed somewhat.

[Drusus]

Some suggestions. Quick command mode for the bots (or why not for other players). Press ctrl-1 to ctrl-8 to select one of the bots. Now you are in command mode, select a command with the hotkeys (v for advance and so on). Now you are in command placement mode, click somewhere on the map or "target" something, same as dropping things. Command given. Should make life a lot easier for the commander who likes to fight at the same time. One mode of playing could be with 9 vehicles, 6 controlled by AI, and then 3 team leaders, each controlling 2 bots. And waypoints in the same way too. Click quick button and there is a waypoint in the aiming point of your gun, with manual range you could easily set up waypoints where you want.

Distance circles in the minimap. So that you could easily see how far things are.

As it is now, you are always "dotted" when in LOS except if there is EWV close to you. In which case you are never dotted. Could it be possible to make this a bit less boolean (don't know a good english word for this). Maybe there could be 90 degree arc for the sensors, and your vehicle has to be for a small amount of time in the arc to be dotted, longer when further away? Firing makes you always dotted if in LOS. And a close range 360 degree sensor. Maybe some sort of a tagging mode could be fun also. You fire a dart to the enemy EWV, and after this it will be visible. Actually, maybe you could fire this dart to any vehicle, and after that they will be visible to all players? Only 3 darts per vehicle or something like that. For limited time or something. As it is I find it fun to sneak with the EWV, but it would be fun to have more things able to do this, even if in limited way. Don't know, maybe this wouldn't work. I happen to find it fun to scan manually the ground to find PseudoSimmons or Bernhardt in their EWVs...

It seems that a whole lot of things are moddable in this game. I tried to update the 76mm gun and actually it got more lethal than the 120mm gun. So the question is, will you document the xml files for the release? Am I right that the servers xml files are used (or the server uses them...), and if I have different values in my installation, everything will continue to work. This also means that getting the lethality of things right isn't that important (after all, there will be always players feeling that things aren't right as is) because we will be able to make mods that are the way we like.

Meeting engagement game mode. There is a base in the middle with non-destroyable and non-conquerable AA tower. Each team gets to deploy on their side of the map. The goal is to control the center base for as long as possible. Both teams are given points in the same way as in objective game type. In other words both teams are attackers in the beginning.

Just ideas, I am not saying that things are broken as is (except the 76mm). Feel free to comment. I haven't given these much tought so there might be "hidden" gameplay implications.

[Thomm]

Hmmmm. So the Hermes does not appear on the radar ... this does explain the 20 mm rounds coming out of nowhere!

Mental note: Read manual finally!

Best regards,

Thomm

PS: Maybe I am mistaken, but I am missing a crater texture for the shellholes. They become visible due to the terrain deformation when approaching them, but they do not seem to have a texture pasted onto them. Nor are they shaded, or are they?! I guess some textures would really look great after several arty barrages.