Bionic Dues Official 1.100 Released!

[keith.lamothe]

(Crossposted from this blog post)

This one includes the real images for the new achievements (many thanks to community member nas1m for working on these!) and a single small bugfix for the shotgun.

Steam integration for the new achievements will come soon, and won't require a further client-side update.

And that will mark the end of the 1.1 cycle.  Hopefully another beta cycle will start breaking things again soon, but either way 1.1 should be a good stable version for folks to enjoy until it's time for another official.

Enjoy!

[nas1m]

Congrats .

[keith.lamothe]

Thanks   You guys put in as much work on this as I did, I think.

[nas1m]

I am definitely looking forward to getting 'round to playing again .
Time to (finally) finish that Expert game!

Do you already have a plan on what will come next?
I am really eager for being able to play shorter games, you know .
Although I have to say that I am really curious on what you have in mind for customization as well...

[keith.lamothe]

Do you already have a plan on what will come next?
I am really eager for being able to play shorter games, you know .

Unless I have to do a bugfix release first, the first beta release will probably have that shorter-campaign conduct, yea.  Since it was basically as simple as having normal missions consume 2 days instead of 1 and increasing the base city-scouting-range by 1.  Balance implications will be more complex, that's why I wanted to wait until after the official, so we could shake those out.

Although I have to say that I am really curious on what you have in mind for customization as well...

Basically I'd like to:

1) add a conduct that:
-- adds something like a tech-tree or talent-tree where you can spend points to get various specific bonuses
--- you'd get a base number of points per day
--- and you'd get extra based on "liberated" science labs or whatever those missions are called; and some other mission types would give discounts on certain bonus types
-- cuts the number of part slots to about 1/4 of what it is now; possibly involving removing the reactor entirely and having power-generation computed in another way (also removing the omni-tool type parts and others that are more confusing than helpful)
-- cuts the number of parts you get as loot by the same overall proportion, substituting tech points as a reward in some cases

2) work through the balance/gameflow issues of that, which will probably take at least a month of iterating back and forth with you guys

3) switch it so that the above becomes the default, and you can enable the "conduct" to get the old system of no-tech-tree-but-tons-of-parts.  I don't want to just take away the old system since some people apparently really like making thousands of comparisons between every mission


Anyway, the overall idea is to maintain a similar level of complexity (just spread over parts, techs, and city-map-control) but really pare down the part that has complexity which grows exponentially with the number of slots/parts (due to the number of comparisons needed for optimal play, and all decisions being reversible).

[Hearteater]

Sounds excellent! I'd also recommend the shorter mission conduct be default since I think it'll give a better first-time play experience. Of course that's after we get the balance for shorter missions worked out.

[Volatar]

I have finally really picked up and started playing this game so I will be quite happy to help with that iteration process.

[keith.lamothe]

Welcome aboard!

(next stop, the other side of that cliff)

[nas1m]

Basically I'd like to:
1) add a conduct that:
-- adds something like a tech-tree or talent-tree where you can spend points to get various specific bonuses
--- you'd get a base number of points per day
--- and you'd get extra based on "liberated" science labs or whatever those missions are called; and some other mission types would give discounts on certain bonus types
-- cuts the number of part slots to about 1/4 of what it is now; possibly involving removing the reactor entirely and having power-generation computed in another way (also removing the omni-tool type parts and others that are more confusing than helpful)
-- cuts the number of parts you get as loot by the same overall proportion, substituting tech points as a reward in some cases

2) work through the balance/gameflow issues of that, which will probably take at least a month of iterating back and forth with you guys

3) switch it so that the above becomes the default, and you can enable the "conduct" to get the old system of no-tech-tree-but-tons-of-parts.  I don't want to just take away the old system since some people apparently really like making thousands of comparisons between every mission

Anyway, the overall idea is to maintain a similar level of complexity (just spread over parts, techs, and city-map-control) but really pare down the part that has complexity which grows exponentially with the number of slots/parts (due to the number of comparisons needed for optimal play, and all decisions being reversible).

Sweet . This sounds so much better.
And kudos to you that you are up for such big sweeping changes!

[Misery]

Basically I'd like to:
1) add a conduct that:
-- adds something like a tech-tree or talent-tree where you can spend points to get various specific bonuses
--- you'd get a base number of points per day
--- and you'd get extra based on "liberated" science labs or whatever those missions are called; and some other mission types would give discounts on certain bonus types
-- cuts the number of part slots to about 1/4 of what it is now; possibly involving removing the reactor entirely and having power-generation computed in another way (also removing the omni-tool type parts and others that are more confusing than helpful)
-- cuts the number of parts you get as loot by the same overall proportion, substituting tech points as a reward in some cases

2) work through the balance/gameflow issues of that, which will probably take at least a month of iterating back and forth with you guys

3) switch it so that the above becomes the default, and you can enable the "conduct" to get the old system of no-tech-tree-but-tons-of-parts.  I don't want to just take away the old system since some people apparently really like making thousands of comparisons between every mission

Anyway, the overall idea is to maintain a similar level of complexity (just spread over parts, techs, and city-map-control) but really pare down the part that has complexity which grows exponentially with the number of slots/parts (due to the number of comparisons needed for optimal play, and all decisions being reversible).

Sweet . This sounds so much better.
And kudos to you that you are up for such big sweeping changes!

This.

The game is being really revitalized with all of this new stuff.

As if I hadnt played it to death already.

[Castruccio]

Amen on the reduction of equipment slots and adding points to spend.  Those would be very welcome changes.

[Hearteater]

I just realized exactly what it was that's been killing me on customization time. In normal gear systems you compare "is +10% attack or +15% attack better?" and the answer is pretty simple. It gets more complicated with multiple affects, but still the general concept is easy. In BD we have power efficiency. When the question you are asking yourself is "which is better, +10% attack for -10 power or +15% attack for -30 power?" things take a lot longer to evaluate. This may be changing by improving component generation. I had two components, a Mark II and Mark V, and the only difference was the Mark V gave 3% more area of effect. That means I'd be spending 30 more power for 3% AOE. That's terrible, and yet the Mark V was earned several missions later, and it is Mark V! That kinda implies better, not worse.

I think power as a constraint with the current design is not ideal. As I get better gear it produces more power, but my gear costs more power. It is really a net wash and it only affects me when I'm randomly not getting the power components I need (or getting too many of them) for several missions. I have an idea that might hit a few birds with one stone here but I'll start a separate thread for that.

[Misery]

The one thing about tech trees:  Keeping them not stale.

Alot of games that do this, the early levels of such a thing are typically really boring, since there's usually only a few options, and you'll often pick the very same ones. 

Not to mention they often arent very interesting unless there's a ton of techs to choose from overall.  That's always been my experience with them, which is why I tend to prefer stuff like the equipment system.

And of course it's hard to NOT get techs that are just so underwhelming than others that nobody uses them.   Nuclear Throne has this issue real bad right now, and it's kinda annoying. 

[Omgaar]

Basically I'd like to:

1) add a conduct that:
-- adds something like a tech-tree or talent-tree where you can spend points to get various specific bonuses
--- you'd get a base number of points per day
--- and you'd get extra based on "liberated" science labs or whatever those missions are called; and some other mission types would give discounts on certain bonus types
-- cuts the number of part slots to about 1/4 of what it is now; possibly involving removing the reactor entirely and having power-generation computed in another way (also removing the omni-tool type parts and others that are more confusing than helpful)
-- cuts the number of parts you get as loot by the same overall proportion, substituting tech points as a reward in some cases

2) work through the balance/gameflow issues of that, which will probably take at least a month of iterating back and forth with you guys

3) switch it so that the above becomes the default, and you can enable the "conduct" to get the old system of no-tech-tree-but-tons-of-parts.  I don't want to just take away the old system since some people apparently really like making thousands of comparisons between every mission


Anyway, the overall idea is to maintain a similar level of complexity (just spread over parts, techs, and city-map-control) but really pare down the part that has complexity which grows exponentially with the number of slots/parts (due to the number of comparisons needed for optimal play, and all decisions being reversible).

Please do this. One of the worst things about this game is having to redo equipment between every mission. The other being that at times the game doesn't feel that tactical, you're just killing robots off one by one. Seems most of the tactics just involve how to pull the enemies, not how to kill them.

[Hearteater]

The only differences between equipment and tech trees are: 1) equipment is random and requires play adaptation during play, 2) equipment choices are not permanent allowing for flexibly solving problem. You can actually address both those issues with tech trees if you want (random techs available each game and allowing tech tree respecs). My preference is to maintain the permanence of tech tree choices, but use at least partially randomized tech trees each game. If you imagine a classic 3 trees, with 3 columns each and 6 rows (54 total talents) the randomization could be a series of column shifts (up and down) or row shifts (left and right). You could even place techs outside the normal field (above row 6 for example) so they would only be visible when the column was shifted down. This randomization system would create common techs (those toward the middle which aren't likely to be shifted off-screen) and would also create a fairly common relative positioning, but not an iron-clad one.

To advance tech trees, I think getting a "talent point" for completing missions makes sense. If we have 3 trees then each mission type could give you a point for a different tree. So unlike getting a point that you can put in any of the three trees, mission choice would somewhat direct which tree you need to advance down. And since the trees are partially random, one group of mission types won't always be favored. Also, if we do the roaming BossBots, killing them during a mission should earn one one free talent point for any of the 3 trees.

For the actually talents themselves, I'm strongly against raw stat talents. In the context of MMOs, I've taken to preferring talents as abilities/spells instead of stat changes as that gives your characters a much more unique feel. Having a Mage with Firestorm or a Mage with Volcanic Eruption is much more interesting than a Mage with +10% fire damage and a Mage with +10% critical chance. Since that probably won't really work here (without serious changes to how Exos work) I imagine talents would need to be primarily situational, with some stat modifiers (preferably ones that are not present on components) and a selection of mechanic modifiers.

• Bonus damage against various targets: Mines, Immobilized Bots, Adjacent Bots, Max range targets, Structures, etc.
• Modifiers that apply to all components in certain locations: -5 power to all components slotted in Propulsion slots (replacing the -X to all components in the same system found on Components), components slotted in the Reactor produce 25% less power and instead add that amount to Shields
• Modifiers to mechanics: -20% regen but full regen takes only 3 turns, -50% mine damage but they are range 3, killing am uncontrolled bot restores 10% of virus points needed to control it, Exo swapping does not take a turn but has a 3 turn cooldown, etc.
• New abilities: Aim - takes an action and increases the damage of the next non-AOE attack by 20%, Run - Make a free move but take damage equal to 10% of your max shields (3 turn CD)

Some more interesting options are "gear" such as ammo. Having specialized ammo for Machine Guns for example that you select for each Exo that has such a weapon before a mission. Say:

• Explosive Rounds: +100% damage against structures (equip on Machine Gun, only one ammo per Exo)
  
• Armor Piercing Rounds: -50% damage, +25% damage for every 1000 max shields of target (equip on Machine Gun, only one ammo per Exo)
  
• Overload Rounds: -50% damage, reduces virus points needed to convert target by 1 per 4 damage up to 1/2 (equip on Machine Gun, only one ammo per Exo)
  

You could pick up all 3 techs, but each Exo could only have one for each mission (or maybe one per machine gun).

Phew, I think I need to stop before I end up brainstorming 50+ talents . I'm still working on more Spectral Empire talents.