What feature would you like to see implemented ?

KGJV · Post by **KGJV** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:02 am

I'm bored and will have soon spare time to dev again for alleg.

I've a huge 'todo' list somewhere but i'm sure most of the tasks in it aren't really useful for the game.

I took some time to 'think' about what would really help get better games going.

The 1st thing that comes to mind is 'game balance'. We all know there are huge balance issues and the CC team has the hard work of trying to fix them. But they're working kinda blindly here, mainly with 'feeling' more than real facts. Why ? Because they have no usefull statistics / metrics from real games. So 1st idea is to add very detailed and useful metrics to the game. These data would be recorded for every game and sent to some huge database. From it, smart people that master the SQL queries (not me!:)) can then produce meaningful statistics to help balance the game. These datas could also help tune the ranking stats (AllegSkill).

The 2nd idea is to help people analyse games "postmortem" (or just to share/save an 'epic' or 'fun' game for instance). That is, a recording and playback system. The idea would be to have the server store a 'replay' file somewhere and then have some kind of 'player' software to display the 'replay' files. Details of what is recorded would be discussed before implementing of course.

The 3rd idea is to add more 'situational awareness' (SA) informations on the screen. Why ? Because SA is #1 to play Alleg well, way before piloting skills

So the idea is to enhance the UI by adding extra informations such as last comm order(s) (or a comm only chat window), a mini-F6 panel for miners/cons only that can be displayed all the time whatever the current view. A summary of the team panel showing # of each type of ships, and if docked or not. More infos to F6 such as how long someone has been docked for instance. Well you get the idea: add 'always on screen' infos that can help everyone know what is going on and who is doing what. (again, what will be displayed or changed/enhanced would be discussed before implementing).

That's the 3 ideas I got that can either help balance the game or help people play better (if such thing is possible...) and that i'm willing to work on.

If you think you have a better and more useful idea plz post here but plz not related or derived ideas , only new & fresh ideas and not just a 2 words idea or a minor bug fix or addition. Something 'big' enough. I might then choose your idea instead (it better be good

). And remember, purpose is to get better games.

Take your pick ladies & gentlemen

juckto · Post by **juckto** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:20 am

2 more ideas (not shown: two more that I decided were "minor"):

With regards to capships - one thing that would allow fine-tune balancing would be a limit on how many ships of a certain type can be fielded at the same time. ie if 3 battleships are already flying around you can't launch a 4th.

Changes to the 'sector overload' device. Instead of damaging everyone in the sector to encourage people to leave the fracas, make alephs, red doors, and teleports inoperable to forbid more players to join fracas.

Adaven · Post by **Adaven** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 1:17 pm

juckto wrote:QUOTE (juckto @ Aug 31 2009, 03:20 AM) With regards to capships - one thing that would allow fine-tune balancing would be a limit on how many ships of a certain type can be fielded at the same time. ie if 3 battleships are already flying around you can't launch a 4th.

I would change this (or add) to making turret tracking speed a core editable parameter so that caps would have to choose between fast, but weak, anti-fighter turrets or slow, heavy cap/base killing ones.

I'd vote the UI option if while you were adding the new info, you'd make the HUD more scaleable at different resolutions (I'd even help with any artwork needed).

Really, they all sound pretty interesting. We appreciate all the work you and the rest of the dev team do to keep this game interesting.

snufkin · Post by **snufkin** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 1:20 pm

While i would really love a recording/playback option, with fraps we are more or less there. I think it would cost an unreasonably large amount of time, that could better be spent on smaller tasks, like UI enhancement.

Solamnus · Post by **Solamnus** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 1:48 pm

we need more pod entertainment

j/k voted for option #1

HSharp · Post by **HSharp** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 2:27 pm

Game recording and playback would be awesome. I don't know if you were still checking these forums when Craig (Datamine) put on his datamining thing to get all sorts of juicy stats but unfortunately no code was released and all the juicy stats from his server are no longer available, I was muddling iwith an idea to use these stats to create a playback of allegiance but I was too late and now Datamine is no more

The situational awareness one sounds quite fun as well but I would really love to see recording and playback, if playback is just shapes and sprites it would be fine but if we can use the Allegiance engine so we don't need to fraps and compress huge amounts of data and get excellent quality it would be absolutely amazing.

Hermit · Post by **Hermit** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 2:35 pm

Game recording and playback killed starcraft.

Heed its warning

Post by **pkk** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 3:24 pm

Game recoring would be a nice feature, but you have to transfer a lot of data (even events in other sectors) to the client. An option would be putting recorded games on a dynamic webpage on the server.

notjarvis · Post by **notjarvis** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 3:54 pm

Frankly, the most important bit of code IMHO, would be to rewrite the communication code so it can work with Antivirus's (mcafee and Norton especially) which use the common firewall driver*.

A number of players come to the forums with these problems again and again, and we can't help them get in game if they refuse to remove the AV.
this also doesn't include the people who install the game, find they can't connect and then just uninstall.

If someone could rewrite the connection code to a more generic code that can be configured etc. (the suggested method is winsock based to replace DPlay) we may get more players in game (which would be a most excellent thing).

All in my humble opinion of course.

* My research indicated it might be linked to this driver...

anailator23 · Post by **anailator23** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 4:07 pm

More compatibility would definitely be a plus (I'm lonely on the noob server

) Though in retrospect this caused me to get Avast which has become my fav anti-virus ever since.

However I have to say what I would like to see worked on most would be an improved SA UI, definitely like the idea of a dedicated comm chat window.