5.021 criticisms

[Cyborg]

First let me say that there is way more positive than anything else for the next update. Bravo, looking forward to it, release, please!

Some criticisms on the new helper feature. I actually do have a friend that would benefit from the helper feature. This person is brand new, rather overwhelmed by the complexity, and this will help with training. I do think that there is one glaring issue, and that is apparently you have not created an interface that abstracts the controls from the events in the game. I don't want to play with someone else's controls- which are more often than not some horrible defaults or otherwise not even set. As you know, I'm really fussy about controls (I changed them all for Valley without wind, also). It would be helpful if you would abstract that and make it a permission setting.

"Unintentedly" - Must be a camping accident?

The best changes were the new helper feature and buffing neinzul ships. The worst change is buffing hybrids in a way that just causes some other mechanic to trigger (note that these kinds of relationships are only noted by players who read your forums). Creating weak relationships between mechanics is just going to cause confusion. Also,  Dyson could actually be helpful.

[BobTheJanitor]

I must be missing something. I assume you're reading from here? All I see is that the helper role has no real control over the game at all unless they hit the button to take over, in which case I would assume (although it doesn't seem to state either way) that it would use your own key bindings. The only mention of key binding is in the control group key binds, which I imagine just means that it no longer uses your group 1, 2, etc, but their groups assigned to those numbers. And that wouldn't even be for the helper role specifically, since that role wouldn't have ships to assign to control groups in the first place.

[Cyborg]

"The controls screen will show (and allow manipulation of) the target player's controls. Yes, that's a lot of power, and some additional "permissions" may prove necessary. But in general: please cooperate If it's a problem, just don't use allow-team-control. "

Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but this paragraph makes me think that your controls affect somebody else and vice versa. Otherwise, I don't really see the purpose of this functionality. Why would you want to change someone else's controls? The only reason I can think of is that when you are helping somebody else, the controls don't match.

[BobTheJanitor]

Good point. I was reading that more as 'you can move their stuff around' but I agree that it doesn't match that description exactly. I guess we'll have to do the developer summoning dance and hope one of them shows up to clarify.

[keith.lamothe]

Oops, sorry about the confusion: by "controls" I meant the settings on the "CTRLS" window; like whether or not your units use focus-fire.  I didn't mean the keybindings, those are all machine-local

I'll try to fix the release notes to be more clear, thanks for pointing that out.

[keith.lamothe]

looking forward to it, release, please!

Shouldn't be too long, just need to test a bit to make sure I didn't bust something important   Something will probably slip through anyway, just to make me look silly.

"Unintentedly" - Must be a camping accident?

As the father of a 4-year-old the development of new words is necessary to my survival.  For instance, "Bounceterous".

The best changes were the new helper feature and buffing neinzul ships.

I'm hoping people will have fun with the helper thing, perhaps particularly in terms of running drop-in-drop-out games.  We'll see

The worst change is buffing hybrids in a way that just causes some other mechanic to trigger (note that these kinds of relationships are only noted by players who read your forums). Creating weak relationships between mechanics is just going to cause confusion. Also,  Dyson could actually be helpful.

It may well be that this will cause more problems than helping.  It's basically an experiment with the intent of pursuing the original goal of the hybrids: an additional opponent on the field that actively tries to "win", often by doing something unexpected.

And in general I think the Hybrids are only understood by someone who comes to the wiki and forums; there's a lot of little details in there.  Whether that's a good thing I don't know, but I don't think it's new with this.  Once you've seen it in-game you'll probably know what's going on the next time you see it

But I do appreciate the caution about the loose connection, etc, I had not thought of it in those terms.  I hope to have the hybrids interact with other things on the "board" too so that it won't feel like some random loose connection; rather that hybrids (perhaps restricted to advanced hybrids, if that helps) have lots of crazy things they can do.

[Cyborg]

On the subject of weak relationships between mechanics, here is a way to describe it.

If after some period of time, the Dyson sphere comes out of nowhere because a hybrid  spawns it, I can imagine players thinking, "WTF, that wasn't there before!" The relationship is weak because it's hard to associate the hybrids and the Dyson sphere. Who is to say the Dyson sphere isn't just a randomly spawning unit? Nobody, unless you read the patch notes which someday will be so old you can only hope they are in the annals of the wiki.

If after some period of time, you scout and notice hybrids constructing a death star, well, that's different. It cool to peek at what hybrids are to, and it feels somewhat fair because you can do something about it. The relationship in this case is strong because you can see them going about their work and making something villainous. Even if you are reusing the Dyson sphere, that's okay, the relationship is still strong.

And okay about the galaxy controls. That all makes sense on why you would want to do that, although I would want some kind of way to protect my galaxy controls screen.

[keith.lamothe]

On the subject of weak relationships between mechanics, here is a way to describe it.

If after some period of time, the Dyson sphere comes out of nowhere because a hybrid  spawns it, I can imagine players thinking, "WTF, that wasn't there before!" The relationship is weak because it's hard to associate the hybrids and the Dyson sphere. Who is to say the Dyson sphere isn't just a randomly spawning unit? Nobody, unless you read the patch notes which someday will be so old you can only hope they are in the annals of the wiki.

The release note was intentionally vague as I wanted folks to discover what happens for themselves before I post the details, but I've expanded the note to clarify a bit:

"
* Now, when a Hybrid is at maximum maturity, additional "experience points" go towards a fund for ruining the player's day.  Their first funding goal seems to involve the Dyson Sphere.
** To clarify: this doesn't mean that they're building or spawning dyson spheres or whatever.  Something more sinister.
"



It may have problems, I'm sure y'all will let me know.

If after some period of time, you scout and notice hybrids constructing a death star, well, that's different. It cool to peek at what hybrids are to, and it feels somewhat fair because you can do something about it. The relationship in this case is strong because you can see them going about their work and making something villainous.

The game will give you some alert (in the same place it tells you about incoming waves and exos) about what's going on.

And okay about the galaxy controls. That all makes sense on why you would want to do that, although I would want some kind of way to protect my galaxy controls screen.

Yea, I think we will need to add a second stage of "Allow Team Control" that's for actually allowing someone else to edit your controls and possibly some other things.  For now I just want to see if the helper thing works for folks.

[Coppermantis]

"
* Now, when a Hybrid is at maximum maturity, additional "experience points" go towards a fund for ruining the player's day.  Their first funding goal seems to involve the Dyson Sphere.
** To clarify: this doesn't mean that they're building or spawning dyson spheres or whatever.  Something more sinister.
"

This scares me.

[_K_]

the Dyson Sphere

"The" in that sentence made me assume the hybrids will be able to interact with an existing dyson sphere somehow. Probably making it aggressive to the player, or loyal to the AI, depending on its given state.
That'd also give us a clear idea on where keith might be going with hybrids: giving them the ability to interact with human-friendly/neutral powers.

At least that what i've been thinking when i have read that patch note, so pure speculations. Even if it's not entirely correct, I'm really looking forward to seeing the hybrids have more special actions to perform, so that they really do look like special AI "agents", not just an additional trouble during attacks.

[keith.lamothe]

That'd also give us a clear idea on where keith might be going with hybrids: giving them the ability to interact with human-friendly/neutral powers.

That's involved but it's just a means to an end for them.  But yea, the interesting things that have come to mind thus far mostly involve messing with minor factions, etc.  Just more combinatorial chaos to mix into the game.

[Wanderer]

Having been banging my head against the 2xAI 10 Wave 1... I'm significantly looking forward to this release...   

[Mánagarmr]

That Helper function sounds absolutely stellar. I'm gonna have to try that out some time!

[Cyborg]

Yeah, I'm really psyched about this new release. I'm about to start a new game. Is it going to be soon, or should I just go ahead and start?

[keith.lamothe]

I'd like for it to be soon but we're really focused on AVWW during the week so I don't know.  I'll try to run some basic tests while I code tomorrow and keep an eye on it.  If nothing's broke I'll ask Chris to do a push soon.  But I wouldn't hold off any new games at this point