45 replies to this topic

[Nitris]

But... there is a bar thingy on the right hand side of your screen.
The white numbers are your team mates in the AA ring, and the red is enemies in the ring. The team with the most players starts gaining control.
Once the bar fills up with a colour an AA missle is launched at the other team to the one who holds it.

[Montiblanc]

i could not play siege as i was never able to connect to a siege game there is too much connection problems

[Kai_Kitamura]

Quote

My only complaint is that ownership of the AA is unclear since there's no 'progress bar' or anything to indicate which team is in control.

There's no "control" of AA, like in Missile. When your ownership reaches 100, you fire a rocket and the count resets back to 0, so you need at least one man in it at all times in order for it to work.

[Crayyon]

ahh ok I see now, didn't notice the dial on the right side at all before

[Immie]

I don't really like the extended startup when you join the map halfway through... it's kinda crummy to have no radar/hud to be able to head right over to the objectives (if you don't have the map memorized), and it's fully possible to run into powered up enemies while your systems are still booting up. Not cool.

I believe energy gathering slows down for the last third of your tank, not based on some kind of time limit (I noticed the last 50 of my inf's 150 tank and last 100 of my brawler's 300 tank were much slower). I am OK with this, since it encourages raiding enemies and stealing their energy instead of just sitting around in one spot to gather resource. It's more interesting that way.



Lastly, the largest issue with siege mode at the moment: Ignoring the missile silo, sitting in the base and gunning down every battleship the enemy launches. It's very possible to do this without launching a single missile from the silo, heck, you don't even need the whole team to participate. It's totally broken and leads to endless games, until people either leave from boredom, or one team is so much better that they can spawn camp and completely shut down the enemy team for the duration of each battleship launch. I'd suggest severely reducing the damage players can do to the battleship; an entire team blasting it for its entire duration should only be able to take it down by ~50-80%. Ignoring the silo should not be an option. I can see it being an issue to take the silo with a whole team of mechs sitting on it... it might be interesting if there were more than one, and they did a bit less damage.

[Urvanis]

You want a startup sequence_
try mine.

[DarkPulse]

Urvanis, on October 29 2012 - 01:20 AM, said:

You want a startup sequence_
try mine.

Awesome, sure, but it's not in the game itself, is it_

[Frenotx]

"From what I can tell, energy generators slow down when there's more people there, but it also seems to slow down if you sit there for awhile..."

if you look at the trees, you'll notice the three levels of green orbs. These act like capacitors. When nobody is gathering from the tree, it uses its slow energy generation to fill these up. When you first arrive, your mech quickly suxks that energy up at the same rate it sucks up energy that's fallen from dead mechs. Once the capacitors have been drained though, you are only collecting the energy at the slow generation rate of the tree.

As far as I can tell, the devs designed it this way to encourage more active gameplay, and make "tree camping" less of a required strategy.

[bac9]

Startup sequence is incredible. Whoever did this, you are awesome and I love you.

[RedVan]

siege is by far my fav gametype.  Biggest problem though is stupid.  Sadly, you cannot balance for stupid.

Multiple people sitting on an energy point making energy gain slower and decreasing defense...
People sitting back by the base shooting at the battleship rather than capturing the AA turret...

I will admit, the first time I played siege, I had no idea what was going on.  However it took me all of 1 match (if that) to figure it out.

Here is something easy that can help reduce this "stupid" problem without having to change any gameplay, no adding auto balance, nothing like that:

Extend the chat window.  As it is now, I can type something like "get to the AA point", and it'll disappear within seconds.  It's kind of hard to teach people how to play when you cannot communicate.  And we cant trust voip, because people can turn that off.

[AC273]

Loving the start up as well.  In addition to the visual ques that let you know when you activated your ability.   A lot of what I saw shows me the devs listened to us during Alpha.   This game keeps getting better and better, so I can't wait for the next Beta sequence.  

[Nicromanser]

SUGGESTION: AIs as a cosmetic Item

[[HWK]Deuy]

As Frenotx mentioned, the energy trees hold a finite amount of energy which they regen at a slow rate.  A full tree transfers energy rapidly, but an empty one can only transfer at its regen rate.  

The "fullness" of a tree is indicated by the 3 green lights stacked vertically on the "trunk", which deplete as energy is gathered.  So when multiple people are gathering around a tree, it runs out quickly and you notice your energy collection slows to a crawl.  At this point it's usually better to return to base or find another tree.

Energy Unit collection is designed this way for a couple reasons.  It keeps battles dynamic, since teams must stay on the move as the value of each energy spawn point fluctuates.  If trees had infinite EU with no downtime, most Siege matches would devolve into Team A camps at Energy Tree #1, Team B camps at Tree #2, race to launch ship with no conflicts.  It also encourages escorting teammates (rather than letting a full teammate go back solo while you fill up your own tanks), and encourages killing enemies in order to steal their EU (rather than letting them leave so you can fill up your own tanks).

Another fact about Siege Mode is that a team's battleship gets stronger with each consecutive launch.  This prevents matches from continuing indefinitely, and prevents turtling by teams that only defend against ships but do not gather energy to launch their own.  Generally the first ship is pretty easy to take out by means of hiding in your base and manually shooting it, but as more ships are launched it becomes nearly impossible to take them down without capturing the AA.  You'll also notice that later ships will have upgraded turrets (machine gun > rockets > homing missiles).



The boot sequence was created by Shadi, our UI artist.  He is also the sound designer for the game, and created the music in our trailers!     I love the disclaimer at the start of the boot up

[SGRock]

Deuy, on October 29 2012 - 12:01 PM, said:

As Frenotx mentioned, the energy trees hold a finite amount of energy which they regen at a slow rate.  A full tree transfers energy rapidly, but an empty one can only transfer at its regen rate.  

The "fullness" of a tree is indicated by the 3 green lights stacked vertically on the "trunk", which deplete as energy is gathered.  So when multiple people are gathering around a tree, it runs out quickly and you notice your energy collection slows to a crawl.  At this point it's usually better to return to base or find another tree.

Energy Unit collection is designed this way for a couple reasons.  It keeps battles dynamic, since teams must stay on the move as the value of each energy spawn point fluctuates.  If trees had infinite EU with no downtime, most Siege matches would devolve into Team A camps at Energy Tree #1, Team B camps at Tree #2, race to launch ship with no conflicts.  It also encourages escorting teammates (rather than letting a full teammate go back solo while you fill up your own tanks), and encourages killing enemies in order to steal their EU (rather than letting them leave so you can fill up your own tanks).

Another fact about Siege Mode is that a team's battleship gets stronger with each consecutive launch.  This prevents matches from continuing indefinitely, and prevents turtling by teams that only defend against ships but do not gather energy to launch their own.  Generally the first ship is pretty easy to take out by means of hiding in your base and manually shooting it, but as more ships are launched it becomes nearly impossible to take them down without capturing the AA.  You'll also notice that later ships will have upgraded turrets (machine gun > rockets > homing missiles).



The boot sequence was created by Shadi, our UI artist.  He is also the sound designer for the game, and created the music in our trailers!     I love the disclaimer at the start of the boot up

Thank you for the detailed explanation!!

[bad_robot]

cunningStunts, on October 28 2012 - 08:37 PM, said:

I LOVE siege!!  I can't believe why there is so many tdm/dm games going on when there is siege to be played!

There is only one TDM server up in the UK :C I am unhappy with this as my 3 siege games were terrible....this is one of them

[DarkPulse]

Deuy, on October 29 2012 - 12:01 PM, said:

As Frenotx mentioned, the energy trees hold a finite amount of energy which they regen at a slow rate.  A full tree transfers energy rapidly, but an empty one can only transfer at its regen rate.  

The "fullness" of a tree is indicated by the 3 green lights stacked vertically on the "trunk", which deplete as energy is gathered.  So when multiple people are gathering around a tree, it runs out quickly and you notice your energy collection slows to a crawl.  At this point it's usually better to return to base or find another tree.

Energy Unit collection is designed this way for a couple reasons.  It keeps battles dynamic, since teams must stay on the move as the value of each energy spawn point fluctuates.  If trees had infinite EU with no downtime, most Siege matches would devolve into Team A camps at Energy Tree #1, Team B camps at Tree #2, race to launch ship with no conflicts.  It also encourages escorting teammates (rather than letting a full teammate go back solo while you fill up your own tanks), and encourages killing enemies in order to steal their EU (rather than letting them leave so you can fill up your own tanks).

Another fact about Siege Mode is that a team's battleship gets stronger with each consecutive launch.  This prevents matches from continuing indefinitely, and prevents turtling by teams that only defend against ships but do not gather energy to launch their own.  Generally the first ship is pretty easy to take out by means of hiding in your base and manually shooting it, but as more ships are launched it becomes nearly impossible to take them down without capturing the AA.  You'll also notice that later ships will have upgraded turrets (machine gun > rockets > homing missiles).



The boot sequence was created by Shadi, our UI artist.  He is also the sound designer for the game, and created the music in our trailers!     I love the disclaimer at the start of the boot up

I see. That would definitely explain the "slowdown" for more mechs, and why it stops going so quick "randomly." Can you confirm or deny if different classes of mech gather energy slower than others_ As I said, it seemed to flow into my mech way slower as a C-Class Brawler than as a B-Class Sharpshooter.

Also, Shadi, you're awesome and don't you ever change. If anything, make it even more awesome for the full release! Granted, how you'll do that is pretty hard without making it extremely lengthy... unless you guys wind up implementing my "Weapons free only when the actual HUD turns on" idea...

Oh yeah... and what do you want to name our child_

Also, for anyone who wants to take a spin in my cockpit (Mmm... how Fruedian) and watch that full match, the full video is up! 25 minutes of slugging away.

Edited by DarkPulse, October 29 2012 - 01:52 PM.

[Frenotx]

Deuy, on October 29 2012 - 12:01 PM, said:

As Frenotx mentioned, the energy trees hold a finite amount of energy which they regen at a slow rate.  A full tree transfers energy rapidly, but an empty one can only transfer at its regen rate.  

The "fullness" of a tree is indicated by the 3 green lights stacked vertically on the "trunk", which deplete as energy is gathered.  So when multiple people are gathering around a tree, it runs out quickly and you notice your energy collection slows to a crawl.  At this point it's usually better to return to base or find another tree.

Energy Unit collection is designed this way for a couple reasons.  It keeps battles dynamic, since teams must stay on the move as the value of each energy spawn point fluctuates.  If trees had infinite EU with no downtime, most Siege matches would devolve into Team A camps at Energy Tree #1, Team B camps at Tree #2, race to launch ship with no conflicts.  It also encourages escorting teammates (rather than letting a full teammate go back solo while you fill up your own tanks), and encourages killing enemies in order to steal their EU (rather than letting them leave so you can fill up your own tanks).

Another fact about Siege Mode is that a team's battleship gets stronger with each consecutive launch.  This prevents matches from continuing indefinitely, and prevents turtling by teams that only defend against ships but do not gather energy to launch their own.  Generally the first ship is pretty easy to take out by means of hiding in your base and manually shooting it, but as more ships are launched it becomes nearly impossible to take them down without capturing the AA.  You'll also notice that later ships will have upgraded turrets (machine gun > rockets > homing missiles).



The boot sequence was created by Shadi, our UI artist.  He is also the sound designer for the game, and created the music in our trailers!     I love the disclaimer at the start of the boot up

Hooray! I wasn't completely off base! Didn't notice the increasing levels of badassery of the ships, though. That explains how those absurdly long games finally finished. Very nice touch.

[akatrio]

Deuy, on October 29 2012 - 12:01 PM, said:

It also encourages escorting teammates (rather than letting a full teammate go back solo while you fill up your own tanks), and encourages killing enemies in order to steal their EU (rather than letting them leave so you can fill up your own tanks).

Ahh, whoops. I'm guilty of both of those..... lesser encouraged acts. Though it seems to flow with the team (most of the time =P). I'll keep those ideas in mind for future games.

Deuy, on October 29 2012 - 12:01 PM, said:

Another fact about Siege Mode is that a team's battleship gets stronger with each consecutive launch.  This prevents matches from continuing indefinitely, and prevents turtling by teams that only defend against ships but do not gather energy to launch their own.  Generally the first ship is pretty easy to take out by means of hiding in your base and manually shooting it, but as more ships are launched it becomes nearly impossible to take them down without capturing the AA.  You'll also notice that later ships will have upgraded turrets (machine gun > rockets > homing missiles).

Didn't know about the battleship defenses increasing, cool! You learn something new everyday. =P

Thanks for the explanation on energy trees!

[Lazoraz]

This is the gamemode that you REALLY need voice chat for. I've educated so many new players, and we often pull out a win even if they aren't too good at the game yet. This gamemode is ALL about communication. I love it soooo much.

EDIT-PS: Use voicechat guys, it's a game changer

Edited by Lazoraz, October 29 2012 - 04:25 PM.

[vince]

DarkPulse, on October 28 2012 - 07:17 PM, said:

From what I can tell, energy generators slow down when there's more people there, but it also seems to slow down if you sit there for awhile. The former makes sense, but the latter seems arbitrary. A player is already risking his neck staying there to fill up his tank. Also, different classes of mech seem to get energy faster, which I don't think is a good idea (my Sharpshooter definitely got EU way faster than my Brawler ever did). It means that A-Class will basically dominate this game mode (at least until the battleships launch, when everyone switches to their best B-Class or C-Class) - even if they carry the least, they'll get it quicker and get it to the base quicker.

There is a battery that charges when no one is using the energy stations. The green "lights" on the stalk indicate how much charge has been stored. Once that is depleted the energy charge rate equals the generation rate.

Edited by vince, October 29 2012 - 04:43 PM.