The Next Game Boss Show

This thread is dedicated to our participation in IGN's The Next Game Boss. You can ask us any questions you'd like about what you've seen so far.

Haven't had a chance to watch the show yet? You can watch the first episode here.

Just finished watching the first episode
Congratulation on making it to the next round guys!

I agree with one of the judges that this could be one of the next great games!

Thanks! It's really tough gaining any kind of traction as a completely unknown indie dev with an unreleased game. Hopefully, this show will help us generate some exposure!

Also, exposure builds on exposure, so it'll be twice as good, and getting better the further you get along. Not only will people know about you, but they will also hear good things about your game.

By the way, E.C., have you not been getting messages? I don't know if they've arrived since I'm not getting any back, and I'm not daft enough to send a message asking if messages are coming through.

Sorry I didn't get back to ya! I got the birthday message. Thanks for that!

Then I read your message about The Next Game Boss, but before that I hadn't received one for a while, though I have no idea why they would've been lost!

If you have any questions I haven't answered recently please resend them! I'll look into the private message system on the forums to see if there are any issues.

ECDryere wrote:Sorry I didn't get back to ya! I got the birthday message. Thanks for that!

Then I read your message about The Next Game Boss, but before that I hadn't received one for a while, though I have no idea why they would've been lost!

If you have any questions I haven't answered recently please resend them! I'll look into the private message system on the forums to see if there are any issues.

If you got both of them, that's fine! I was just used to having you responding that I thought they both got lost...

Meanwhile me and the two other EU guys, Aratex and Syther, are testing! Apparently they are both still busy unlocking gear and Hulls (Unlocking Hulls? I never had to do that!)

But they're already playing on Flooded Gate, which I approve of, kinda. Shouldn't we DISCOURAGE people from choosing a higher difficulty though? Do your plans for Multiplayer involve making Wave mode EASIER by allowing more people to fight, or will you let the difficulty SCALE with the number of players?

The difficulty should already scale in multiplayer depending on the number of players in a game -- similarly to how Diablo works. If there are more players, the wave mode ships will increase in resilience. In Gladiator mode, there will be more bosses -- one for every player. Spire Battle remains the same, but you're losing AI wingmen when other players join.

Each mode has a method of balancing itself for the number of players. Wave Survival increases enemy HP per player. Gladiator spawns an enemy per player, and Spire Mode just replaces AI with players so its always 3 on 3.

If they are clearing all 30 waves on Flooded Gate, more power to them! But as I have said many times I am gonna add a higher level of difficulty.

ECDryere wrote:The difficulty should already scale in multiplayer depending on the number of players in a game -- similarly to how Diablo works. If there are more players, the wave mode ships will increase in resilience. In Gladiator mode, there will be more bosses -- one for every player. Spire Battle remains the same, but you're losing AI wingmen when other players join.

It's already Scaling? Good, good. But... hm... Then I probably shouldn't run with my best builds from the beginning. Pick something average to start off

Also, in one Spire battle match we were fighting an F5CG Archimedes, a G5 Kumo and an F5G Onyx. As you can probably tell, they were fast, and liked Grappling. I gave up trying to Pilot my Wyveros and me and Aratex just both went F5 Mercury with Time bending to outmaneuver them. HOWEVER, a little bit of glitchy twitchy resulted in my being cast from a Cargo Loader and suddenly having my velocity shifted by 90 degrees, right into an Orb of Dark Matter.

The AI is just too good at Piloting Grapplers, and just terrible at piloting fighters, as we have seen in the Betting mission in the campaign: Had I been in the F3, I could have won, but the G3 Spade always wins anyway.

@Paul: More power to us! We cleared all 30 waves on max difficulty today. I can't wait to test this new difficulty!

I somewhat purposefully made it that way since having an AI that just perfectly aims lasers would be really annoying, but perhaps I went a bit too far the other way.

Paul Dryere wrote:I somewhat purposefully made it that way since having an AI that just perfectly aims lasers would be really annoying, but perhaps I went a bit too far the other way.

Yeah, giving the AI an Aimbot would not have been a good Idea, but the timing and accuracy of the Higher Grapplers is actually really really good. Almost too good.

hi syther here.

i completely agree with ninja flooded gate is a bit too easy ... i only olay on flodded as the game issent hard and the reward is way better


also gg ninja that 130k reward was epic

aivadarker wrote:hi syther here.

i completely agree with ninja flooded gate is a bit too easy ... i only olay on flodded as the game issent hard and the reward is way better


also gg ninja that 130k reward was epic

Anytime, brother.

We're talking Flooded Gate difficulty on the Scenarios here, mind you: The parts of the campaign where you go in with a predetermined Hull selection are rather more difficult. Especially the later parts of the LGG where I'm forced to Pilot a caster. Nasty things, casters.

I suppose I could lower the buffs you get in Wave Survival and Gladiator mode a bit. I've also added a higher level of difficulty, but honestly, you guys are just actually very good at the game. Most people we play test with can barely handle arch sage difficulty.

Which mode do you find easiest and which mode do you find hardest?

[quote="EvilNinjadude"]

aivadarker wrote:
We're talking Flooded Gate difficulty on the Scenarios here, mind you: The parts of the campaign where you go in with a predetermined Hull selection are rather more difficult. Especially the later parts of the LGG where I'm forced to Pilot a caster. Nasty things, casters.

Who, who? What, what?! I shall endure no ill-will against my beloved Casters!

Paul Dryere wrote:I suppose I could lower the buffs you get in Wave Survival and Gladiator mode a bit. I've also added a higher level of difficulty, but honestly, you guys are just actually very good at the game. Most people we play test with can barely handle arch sage difficulty.

Which mode do you find easiest and which mode do you find hardest?

1 minute later: I recover enough (from my violent outburst of laughter) to write this post.

Those people you test with, How long have they been playing for? I consider myself a bit of a veteran, though i DID start the alpha campaign on Sage, and pulled it through despite my dislike of the control system, which I only afterwards discovered you could change. Also played SPAZ before this game.

Which gamemode is easiest? That kinda depends on which Hull and Loadout I use: Dr. Nope, my R5F Pegasus, is good against Bosses. My R5A Atamal is excellent against waves of small, fragile ships. The Spire Battle that had me fighting against 3 Grapplers could be considered the toughest one yet; we didn't have any buffs there at all.

But the harder, the more memorable. You forget more easily about games that are easy, that's why I have resolved to follow your example, and play on Flooded Gate Only, back when you first announced that.

Aside from my brother, no one else I test with has had too much time with the game. The new difficulty level should up the challenge a good bit, instead of taking 150% damage (Flooded Gate) you take 200% damage. Up to this point difficulty also effected how much damage you deal, but this last step is just damage received. We'll see how it feels, might need to tweak it some.

Paul Dryere wrote:Aside from my brother, no one else I test with has had too much time with the game. The new difficulty level should up the challenge a good bit, instead of taking 150% damage (Flooded Gate) you take 200% damage. Up to this point difficulty also effected how much damage you deal, but this last step is just damage received. We'll see how it feels, might need to tweak it some.

Damage taken? Hm. Having High Damage and low health generally works better than having High health and low damage. It just feels better to anyone playing it, and increases the adrenaline factor. So yes, I quite agree with this step so far!

EvilNinjadude wrote:Damage taken? Hm. Having High Damage and low health generally works better than having High health and low damage. It just feels better to anyone playing it, and increases the adrenaline factor. So yes, I quite agree with this step so far!

The only real argument in favor of increasing health is that it reduces the impact of "random" or "lucky" events, which in the case of other RPGs might be criticals, resists, and misses. However, after seeing the way resilience affected PVP combat in WoW, we resolved not to resort to this technique unless absolutely necessary. The reason we increase health/resilience in Gladiator combat is simply to allow you to truly experience the variety that results from our procedural generation of AI. All competitive modes thus far will feel like the Spire Battle, in that both you and the competition have no buffs or modifiers.

On a side note, after this next patch, we will be adding in more equipment to fill out veterancy and corona nodes. Also, I will make it so the Rostrum Arcade allows you to unlock Sage abilities for now, though most activate-able sage abilities will be unlocked through the campaign on release.

Paul Dryere wrote:On a side note, after this next patch, we will be adding in more equipment to fill out veterancy and corona nodes. Also, I will make it so the Rostrum Arcade allows you to unlock Sage abilities for now, though most activate-able sage abilities will be unlocked through the campaign on release.

uhh that sounds great!!
this game is amazing as it is right now. if this game does not become the next big indie hit i would be very surprised.
this game have what sadly most aaa titels don't have.... depth and combined with the amazing gameplay and good story this is a hit game already in my book

i can't wait to see what the future brings!

best reguards lennart kristensen aka syther/aivadarker

aivadarker wrote:

Paul Dryere wrote:On a side note, after this next patch, we will be adding in more equipment to fill out veterancy and corona nodes. Also, I will make it so the Rostrum Arcade allows you to unlock Sage abilities for now, though most activate-able sage abilities will be unlocked through the campaign on release.

uhh that sounds great!!
this game is amazing as it is right now. if this game does not become the next big indie hit i would be very surprised.
this game have what sadly most aaa titels don't have.... depth and combined with the amazing gameplay and good story this is a hit game already in my book

i can't wait to see what the future brings!

best reguards lennart kristensen aka syther/aivadarker

Yeah, I liked this game from the start. I was the last backer, and I don't regret a Single Euro of what I spent on it.

I also like the Idea of finally filling all my nodes, that of course being something I've nagged our devs about at every opportunity

Sounds very interesting, looking forward to that patch indeed. Will probably increase overall variety on each class, which is awesome considering how different each class already is. I would love to see this game actually reaching a more competitive level. You guys rock.

Thank you guys so much for your support and encouragement, It really means a lot!

We really do appreciate your support and testing! Your feedback is helping us shape the game, so if it does become a big success, you'll certainly have had a hand in it!