In the works

[bartbert]

You can find out about some of the changes we plan to implement within the next few weeks here: http://downinflamesonline.com/DiFPortal/Default.aspx?tabid=83

[Harv]

Changes? Changes! How dare you make changes? Now when (if) my copy arrives I'll really suck.

Possibly even worse than before maybe.

*sigh* Programmers. Leave 'em alone for for a year and they get into all kinds of trouble.

[bartbert]

Oh my god, look what the sheep... I mean cat dragged in. Harv must be settled in for the long winter (mouse in one hand and a bottle in the other).

Good to hear from you, Harv. Time to show these young whipper-snappers a thing or two about flying (or was that dying).

[tornado]

I just read about the changes - they will surely make things more interesting. First, thanks for keeping us all "in the loop." Secondly, when you guys "buy back" the permanant skills that we currently have, will we get the base XP value for that skill or the XP we had to expend to receive it?

[Harv]

Ah yes...whippersnappers. These young pups just don't know how easy they have it now.

Why I can remember when I wanted to play DIF I had to carry my modem uphill (both ways) through neck deep snow in the blistering heat to a dogfight, only the have the game crash! Crash I tell you! And not just little crashes, but great big Blue Screen OF DEATH crashes.

Have I told you about how the game was constantly crashing? I wonder if they hired a new programmer? Anyways...

And then when it did work, I either had to play the guy that designed it, or the guy that programmed it. Or both! So the one knows how to cheat, and the other one can (did?) make it cheat (and crash occasionally), and I had to fight just for survival, with no thought of ever actually winning a game.

Well, except for the time I smoked Dan's uber pilots {insert evil laughter}, but I digress...

Yes, it would be good to show these young 'uns how to Die-a-Lot™ with skill and panache. And screaming. Definitely need to have screaming (preferably with a whiny nasal Canuckian accent). But that will have to wait a little longer I'm afraid, as el presidente seems to have...how can I put this nicely...screwed up royally. At least I finally get to blame him for something though, so it isn't all bad.

But you can rest assured that I'll eventually be back to help everyone improve their kill totals. I hate to see this new generation experience the game without having had the pleasure of turning me into smoking wreckage a few times.

[tornado]

I'm looking forward to meeting you in the not-so-friendly skies Harv.

[tornado]

I can always use some easy kills Just kidding. If you've been around that long I'm sure you have some surprises for us "whippersnappers"

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Harv:

Ah yes...whippersnappers. These young pups just don't know how easy they have it now.

Who you calling a whippersnapper you johnny-come-lately??

Why I can remember when we had to take each byte, write it in machine code and send it seperately by morse from the top of the telegraph pole - and the nearest pole was 15 miles away .....uphill :eek: :eek:

As for the changes - they look good - not sure about the problem with "super pilots" tho -

We have come to conclusion that a lot of players have learned how to optimize their play against the AI, and consequently have managed to rack up a bunch of XP and 8 or 9 permanent skills for both their leader and wingman. Put these super-pilots in the best aircraft and you have a situation where the game system starts to come off the rails. In order to bring the game back towards the center, we will be dramatically increasing the cost of skills such that the highly experienced pilots will have only 3 or 4 permanent skills instead of 8 or 9.

I have some of these "super pilots" - and they are not trivial to train up - then when they play htey fight agaisnt equally "super" AI pilots who usually have a LONGER set of skills and lots of "Target pilot" and "draw extra card" "skills" as well.

- mine still get killed, and trying to save 4400 EXP for another skill is not a trivial exercise - My most experienced pilot has 7000 EXP's, and 7 permanent skills - his next one could be "Stay with him" at 1414, but I'm holding on for "Quick reflexes" at 4420!! :eek: He has 3 or 4 others that he could get ranging upwards from 1700 EXP's, and has 2000 saved so far - of course a couple of pilot kills and all that is lost, as is currently shown on the "Top Aces killed this month" table regularly!

His wingman has about 3800 EXP's, and also 7 permanent skills. His next one will cost at least 2652 (Leader Advice) - the other 2 possible left are Sweep tail at 2829, and distract aim at 4597!!. Any of these will take a while at 60-ish EXP a game!! He has 800 saved so far.

I don't see the game "breaking down" at these levels at all - I find myself regularly getting shot down, and occasionally there are 4 enemy a/c left undamaged on the screen and none on my side by the end of the game!!

I think your conclusion is wroing.

Either that or I haven't figured out what these "super" tactics are yet!!

[ December 03, 2005, 04:19 PM: Message edited by: Stalin's Organist ]

[Harv]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

Who you calling a whippersnapper you johnny-come-lately??

Why I can remember when we had to take each byte, write it in machine code and send it seperately by morse from the top of the telegraph pole - and the nearest pole was 15 miles away .....uphill :eek: :eek:

Ah yes, the morse code from the telegraph pole. I remember my grandpappy telling me about those days.

However, if I can remember that far back, I think my original member number was 334, which was sadly lost in the forum crash during the legendary night of the refreshing monkeys. To have my long lost three digit number back would be nice, if only to remind myself of just how long I've been without a life since discovering this place.

And as far as surprises go, I'll be quite surprised if I can survive at all against all you grizzled veterans. Especially if Brian still has the Make Harv Die code in the game.

[bartbert]

Originally posted by tornado:

I just read about the changes - they will surely make things more interesting. First, thanks for keeping us all "in the loop." Secondly, when you guys "buy back" the permanant skills that we currently have, will we get the base XP value for that skill or the XP we had to expend to receive it?

You will get the XP amount that you spent to buy the skill.

[bartbert]

I don't see the game "breaking down" at these levels at all - I find myself regularly getting shot down, and occasionally there are 4 enemy a/c left undamaged on the screen and none on my side by the end of the game!!

I think your conclusion is wroing.

It's quite possible that our conclusions are "wroing". They might even be wrong.

Seriously though, I didn't mean to imply that the AI pilots are always losing. I'm sure that the AI uber-pilots occasionally dish out some serious punishment.

The DiF system rates aircraft in some very simple categories: Air frame, horsepower, performance, and bursts (plus attack and defense for wingmen). Consequently, a +1 modifier to any one of those categories is a pretty big deal, and a +2 is huge.

When you have a leader with 7 or 8 skills, and a wingman with another 6 or 7 skills, you end up with huge number of modifiers and card additions in play. The skills overwhelm the basic system. The basic aircraft stats almost don't matter anymore because the skills have taken over. That's what I meant when I said that the game starts to "break down" at the high end.

Can we keep life interesting for your super-pilots by throwing equally super AI pilots at them? Sure. But it doesn't change the fact that the system has become kind of warped by the skills at that level.

What we're hoping is that by limiting pilots to around 3 permanent skills, the skills that you do have will matter more. And hopefully, not everyone will have the same 3 skills, providing some variety in matchups.

Also, by occasionally awarding certain skills for one-mission use as the result of flying a mission, those skills will become more special when you get them. For example, we plan to take the "In My Sights 2: Destroyed" card off the list of skills that you can purchase. If you get awarded this skill after flying a mission, you'll probably feel like you got something pretty rare.

[Guest Mike]

Try flying a souped up Gladiator agaisnt a beginner Spit XIV and tell me a/c characteristics dion't matter!! lol

Seriously - I don't see the system being warped - almost any skill you can buy can be nullified by the other guy.

I thought that was the way it was supposed to be!

By making it harder to buy skills you're going to make their effect much more apparent - because there will be fewer enemy skills nullifying them!

Also you're doing a double whammy - skills are goign to be more expensive AND experienced pilots are likely to get fewer of the EXP's that are on offer!!

I just bought "Extra Power" for a pilot for 285 pts - there were a couple of other skills available I could have bought for 285 - they will now cost 884!! When/if I bought one of those the remainder would probably got to 2000.

How the hell is that not expensive enough?

I don't have any great problems with the idea of "1 mission skills", or taking 2:d off the list of purchasables.

[ December 03, 2005, 08:40 PM: Message edited by: Stalin's Organist ]

[tornado]

Both Brain and StalinsO have good points - saving up 2000 - 4000xp to buy a permanent ability isn't a trivial matter. The chances of getting shot down BEFORE you reach your purchase goal are good. I also think Brian's point is also valid - if everyone has many, many skills the skills will offset each other and in one sense become useless. My guess is that the changes will cause players (myself included) to create "specialist pilots" by having some get all offensive capabilities, some with defensive capabilities, and some with somewhat of a mix of abilities. I am not happy about my pilots losing so many abilities, but this was designed to be a STRATEGY game hence the designers are forcing us to make choices. Brian, when do you plan to cash in the skills?

[lakespeed]

It'll surely hurt the uber-ace pilots, which I have a few of myself. Not that it's a big deal, I just play for fun anyways. I wonder how many are out there like myself that just likes playing against the bots and really for now isn't all that interested in being pushed in a direction of playing online against live opponents?

It'll be interesting but we'll have to see if the changes help or hurt.

[fej425]

I just got the full version and don't have much time on it but thought I'd ring in with some thoughts on the changes.

#1 Change sounds great

#2 and #3 I don't know...to me it will be much more fun chasing XP to get a permanent skill, not much fun getting a skill as a one time award. Are you sure the problem isn't that there aren't many players with super pilots yet? Just thinking that as more players reach these upper levels, they will take each other out more often. I'm looking forward to chasing those guys on the same set of rules they used to get where they are. Also, from a role playing aspect, there is much more satisfaction in attaining a permanent skill.

#4 Hate it. A kill is a kill, should be the same XP.

#5 is an awesome idea, although it will make it harder for us new guys to catch up in XP to the leaders. None the less, it definately makes a ton of sense and is the way it should be, XP shared across the team as victory in battle is a team accomplishment.

[Strider]

I have similar thoughts, lakespeed. Some of us are a bit gun-shy about playing other humans. It can take a while to find at least a handful of core players that you count on. I got bit during the beta-phase online, and am still a bit leary. I've been playing a lot of campaign and some online fighter/escort, and lurking on the few comments I see. Every once in a while, I'll make a comment to see what response I receive. But even more of a factor is time. I have four grandkids on the weekends and the Battleaxe full time A lot of time it is difficult to commit for more than a short time. I'd enjoy finding an opponent to play the campaigns.

Can't say I've had any issues with changes that have already been implemented, and I wouldn't want the devs to back off on taking the game where they want it to go. At least currently, I like the idea of restricting the amount of skills, as long as the bots get restricted also And for the time being, the bots are my primary opponents. I know they're not an optimum(sp) opponent, but you can learn quite a bit of tactics from them, and they do keep the frustration level up a lot of the times, which isn't really a bad thing.

[Strider]

Thinking about it a bit more...

I get the impression that players using the bots as a trainer is quite a factor in making some changes. Giving less XP when playing bots can work to a certain extent, but those players who have a lot of time to play, may not be as affected by it as others. I'd like to see two seperate player's pilots, (similar to online and local), to human-only and bot-only sets. Even combining the local to the bot-only set, or making the bot-only set local-only. On the Main Page of DIF's site, unless I'm missing it somewhere, I can't tell the difference on the ratings, if they were earned playing humans or bots. I can with the campaigns...My preference would be that the ratings (excpet for the campaigns) should apply only to human vs human. I agree that the reliance and influnce the bots are having on the game should be reduced.

[ December 03, 2005, 10:09 PM: Message edited by: Strider ]

[Horatius]

Hmm, all of the changes sound interesting.

I like the fact that you want to encourage more human vs. human play, and i hope that you will succeed (although i still have my doubts ). As i see it, the two main problems why most people play against the AI are:

1. The number of players online at the same time is between 2 and 12 or so most of the time. If you subtract the ones flying campaign games, those playing the demo version and those with radically different pilot levels your chances of finding an opponent are not great. It is easier for beginnning pilots, but once you reach pilot value 20+ the number of possible opponents declines sharply.

2. The way the game works the good (experienced) pilots get access to the good planes. Right now it is impossible to even the odds by giving the weaker pilot a better plane. Granted, the better pilot can take a weak plane but that goes only so far.

If your way of recalculating the value of a pilot works against humans the same way it works against the AI it should get easier to find an opponent, we will just have to wait and see .

Now for some comments on the changes:

1. Change in the matchup logic:

Like i said above that one is a great idea, i wondered since the beta phase why all the wasted or unused XP is factored into a pilot´s value .

2. Reducing the number of skills a pilot gains:

While i do not like the idea of loosing all my hard-won skills i think that one can potentially be good for the game. A major factor will be how steep you make the "skill aquisition curve". When will a pilot get the first skill? How will the costs change (both initially and after each skill you have bought)? This is not easy to do, as waiting too long for the first (or the next..) skill will discourage players.

3. Awarding one-use skills:

Why not? I doubt this will make much difference, but it is a way to keep the skills no one will buy in the game.

4. Reducing the XP for AI pilots:

I do not know if this will be good for the game, depends on your success in encouraging human vs. human matches i suppose :confused: .

5. Shared XP between leader and wingman:

Sounds like a good idea for training up a new wingman after the old one gets killed . I would like to see the leader progress a little bit faster than the wingman, after all he is the more important of the pair.

Well, that´s it. I hope i did not ramble too much

[Mistura]

I think the changes will be OUTSTANDING. I can't wait till they start. Talk about "WHIPPERSNAPPERS" I wish I was still a whippersnapper. My back wouldn't hurt so much waking up in the morning.

[bartbert]

Lots of good comments from everyone. Other than item #1 (the change in the way matchups are calculated), none of the other changes are set in stone at this point. If the overwhelming feedback on any item is negative, we won't do it.

So far, it seems that item #1 is universally approved, so I guess we're safe with going ahead with that change on Monday.

Item #2 (reducing the number of permanent skills) appears to be a bit controversial. Opinions seem to be evenly divided between those against the change, those for the change, and those in the middle.

This is definitely one of those where there are pros and cons that have to weighed. What makes that evaluation even more difficult is that different players put higher value on different aspects of the game. Those players who highly value the "role playing" aspect of pilot development will probably not like the change because it limits the degree that pilots can keep improving. Players who put a greater emphasis on the game system, competitive dogfights, the leader board, etc., will probably like the change.

One of the reasons we are proposing the change is that by limiting the number of skills, there will be a less dramatic difference between a pilot with a large amount of experience and one with a moderate amount of experience. We think this will make it easier for players to find human opponents than is currently the case. Some of you have indicated that playing against human opponents is not a big priority, so once again, your style of play enters into whether you think this is a good idea or not.

However, one side benefit of limiting pilot skills is that it may make it easier for us to offer campaign games in which your pilots can participate. One of the main reasons that the current campaign games do not allow your pilots to participate is game balance. With such a huge variation between the highest value pilots and the lowest, we just couldn't see any way to allow player pilots to participate in a campaign and have the campaign be balanced.

If the number of skills are limited, we could consider having some kind of uber-campaign in which players sign up to play on one side or the other, and one player is designated to be the "commander". His job would be to assign the pilots on his team to regions on the campaign map and the players would fight out the missions using their pilots.

Somebody asked how the skill cost progression would work under the new system. Suppose that you wanted to purchase 3 skills that each had a base cost of 100 XP. The first skill would just require the base cost of 100 XP. The second skill would cost 600 XP, and the third skill would cost 2600 XP. The fourth skill would cost nearly 17000 XP, so while not impossible, it would be very difficult to get a fourth skill.

With regard to how XP are shared between leader and wingman, I kind of simplified things for the purposes of the example. The actual formula for how XP would be shared does have a bit of a bias towards the leader.

[Harv]

Been giving this a bit of serious thought this morning, and although it's been a year since I last played I figure I remember enough to toss in a couple of cents worth...

#1: I like it.

#2: I really enjoyed the role playing aspect, and feel that changing the skills so that only a few were available would be a change for the worse. With only a few possible skills to get it'll seem like you've hit a wall with a pilot, and might as well let him die-a-lot as keep striving for an impossible goal.

If players are playing the AI just to advance on the leaderboard and gain skills, I would suggest that XP gained against the AI be reduced. Dramatically. I'd say about a reduction of 80% would be about right for dogfights and escort/intercepts where the AI is the only other player. I've always maintained that play against the AI really shouldn't count on the leaderboard, or as mentioned above there should be a separate one if people want to track kills against the AI.

A minor adjustment to skill purchases might not hurt though. Possibly making it just a *little* tougher to get past 6 skills would be good IMO.

#3: I like this a lot and would like to see it implemented in any case. Did you ever include some of the suggested new skills from last year? If not, this would be a good place to use them.

#4: See part of #2 above.

#5: I'm not sure about this. If they're really part of a team, why not just have them share from the pool of XP awarded with no restrictions?

#6: Losing the ability to pre-purchase the 2:D card is a very very good idea. Combining it with #3 would be perfect.

I bet you thought you were finally rid of my blathering eh Brian? This'll teach you to post something where I might see and respond to it.

[bartbert]

Originally posted by Harv:

#5: I'm not sure about this. If they're really part of a team, why not just have them share from the pool of XP awarded with no restrictions?

I wasn't sure what you meant with this one. Are you saying leave things the way they are? Or are you saying that players get to decide how to divide up the XP gained during a mission?

[Harv]

Yes.

Ahhh, some days I just crack myself up. Anyhoo, your second part is correct...award the Element as a unit the XP, which players could spend on the Leader, Wingman, or divide it up however they like between the two.

[Skuderian]

Hi!

Here are my points.

1) Very good, not more to say.

2)How about a compromise? Each pilot can only buy 4 permanent skills. But he can buy this skill up to 3 times.

3)Good idea, we want to see the list of skills for this.

4)Dont like this idea, better system will be to increase points for shooting down human pilots. (There are no equivalent opponents for the most of my pilots.)

5) Very good, 3 month ago where I posted this idea here or?

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Skuderian:

2)How about a compromise? Each pilot can only buy 4 permanent skills. But he can buy this skill up to 3 times.

How would you buy a permanent skill up to 3 times?? :confused:

I'm glad Dan's acknowledged that there's room for debate about the skill costs too - sometimes developers seem to have their minds set in stone about these things!

One of the reasons we are proposing the change is that by limiting the number of skills, there will be a less dramatic difference between a pilot with a large amount of experience and one with a moderate amount of experience. We think this will make it easier for players to find human opponents than is currently the case. Some of you have indicated that playing against human opponents is not a big priority, so once again, your style of play enters into whether you think this is a good idea or not.

Taken to an extreme you can, of course, reduce "dramatic differences" by not having any skills at all!

I'm reminded of a section in "The Big Show" - which I used to read and re-read avidly but lost 20 or so years ago, where, IIRC, Pierre Closterman says that only a small portion of German pilots are good - but they are very, very good. The rest are "newbies" who are essentially cannon fodder and can barely fly!

I think that the current system of matching pilots by points (however it is done) provides enough assurance that super-pilots do not get to fight against newbies.

On the point of pilot experience - I had thought that AI pilots WERE matched against the skills my pilots have rather than their accumulated EXP. My super-pilots only ever fly against 37-39 point AI Leaders - whether it's my pair of Group Captains rated at 180-ish points, or my "baby" Squadron leaders at 70 pts!!

There's about 4000 EXP difference between these guys but their opponents seem to be very similar.

Also I note that AI pilots never by "redraw"??