I'll be pming you with some more information kamper.

Hey Kamper,

Your account shows that you've never even played or installed the game. If you have another account that you were using, I need the account name of that one to be able to help.

Thanks

It's been reproduced and is being researched. This entire thread was basically "knockback is lol", which is cool....because I laugh at the comments and threads all the time. However, in this case, the thread titled "lol knockback" doesn't give us alot to go on and, in most cases, would have typically been ignored. Because I thought there might be something to it, I asked for a little more information to help reproduce it, which we got shortly after.

There are other issues that we are investigating and any additional support that we can get from the community to reproduce these types of issues is appreciated. The more constructive the posting, the quicker we can knock these things out (pun intended!).

Thanks again for your help!

I have compared all knockbacks between Live and the Test server and, in both of those environments, I am not seeing any difference between the knockback when using a Minigun, Tempest, Concussion Grenade, etc. I was knocked back the exact same distance in all tests.

If it is a real issue, and I am not doubting that there might be a problem because of several players persistence that it actually has changed, please post something to help reproduce the issue you are seeing. Maybe its a combination of skills? Maybe someone used an anti-gravity minigun? I don't know. Let's figure it out before we go Live!

Btw...these examples of reporting the problem don't help that much:

• OMG, I WAS THROWED ALL THE WAY ACROSS TEH MAP!!! IN LIVE, IT IS ONLY HALFWAY ACROSS THE MAP!!!
• WTF?? WHY BUFF MINIGUNS WITH CROWD CONTROL NOW???
• I WAS TOTALLY WTFPWNED AGAINST A WALL AND COULDN'T MOVE (that happens in Live, btw )

Travis and myself tested this and found no noticeable increase or change in knockback in 1.2. If there was a specific situation where knockback seemed greatly increased, please let us know the specifics.

It is. As I previously said, the reward is less than what the facility could just make within the same time period. You can't really "exploit" by making a pact and allowing someone to attack you, because all you're doing is reducing what's actually coming from the territory. You might as well have just made the pact and GIFTED them the production from the territory. It would then have a higher quantity, and also allow for production of specific items that are not available through stealing. Not to mention it wouldn't tie up your players. Or better yet, if the territory is just a buffer for you and you don't care - gift them the entire territory. Have them pay the upkeep and protect it for you.

There has been a concern about teams not defending theft missions, because they don't have the same impact as a capture mission, which is why we went with a 15min shut-down (potentially 2 production ticks!). We've also entertained notions of heavier penalties on the defending Agency for losing without putting up a fight.

We changed this in the next 1.2 build that will be deployed to testing tomorrow. The requirement is now 8 which still solves the issues that we wanted to solve and also makes it the same restriction on the number of people required to bid on a hex.

Animbly, a successful theft mission shuts down the facility for 15min, during which time it does not produce items. This actually costs the defenders more in production value than what the attackers will generally get from the theft. As a defender, you basically are paying upkeep on something that is not producing for you. If it's a Defensive Facility, the shields also go down for that time.


Blue, where did you hear the 50% from? There was no other change to upkeep except for a territory counting twice for your total count in a zone if it's not connected to your HQ. You're correct it's a lot different. And yes, the cost per territory increases the more territories you have, which is why this has a much larger impact on major territory holders.

Are you thinking about the limit to the tax rate the Agency can assign to it's players being limited to 50%?

Hey everyone!

There is at least one important item that didn't make it into the post: In 1.2 AvA missions will now provide credit income. It's the first step towards making AvA a little more credit neutral, and not requiring AvA players to grind other game modes in order to compete. Please note that this was implemented with a slightly different system than how credits are given in match-made, to prevent some farming exploits.

Territory Upkeep is in place to discourage groups from growing excessively large, and to encourage top groups to fight selectively for what matters most to them, or hurts their enemies the worst. If the upkeep is hurting your Agency, you should consider reducing your size to something more manageable, and something you are able to sustain for a longer period of time. You could always use the territory trade option to setup some deals with other Alliances. Per my previous comment, the issue we are working on fixing with the upkeep is that it requires your players to put in substantial time outside of AvA in order to compete. If all your group wants to do is AvA each night, we want you to be able to do that. We may have some more substantial changes to upkeep in the near future, as we make AvA stand more on it's own, but the premise of an "upkeep" on territory as a growth limiter will remain the same.

For Blue: When adding up the total number of territories you control in a zone, any territory not connected to your Agency HQ is just counted twice. So owning 4 connected territories and 1 un-connected means you have "6" for upkeep purposes.

For smaller territory owners it won't hurt them hardly at all owning a spot or two away from their HQ, because the total number of hexes they have is low. So, you are not stuck just fighting the territory around you, but you are encouraged to not have a large number of satellite territory holdings, especially in areas that are not of value. This is also why we are adding in theft missions now; when you reach a size that is easy to sustain and defend, start running theft missions to supplement your production and limit that of your enemies.

As an aside, we're fairly sure most of the large Alliances holders can distribute territory amongst their agencies (assuming they trust them) such that they incur only a minimal tax increase. This does mean individual Agencies within an alliance will tend to cluster their holdings together more, but that is also a behavior we wanted to encourage.

Bidding: We'll watch the results of the bidding change to personal funds closely, and adjust as needed. This change does not preclude us adding additional features in future patches. Our goal with this change is to make it easier for more players to participate in AvA, and this does make it so anyone in an Agency of 10 players can lead a strikeforce, while also providing some short term financial security for large groups that need more strikeforce leaders.

On the 50% player tax limit: You can still run things "your way", assuming you can convince your players to donate the money. We're doing this because total tax control has created numerous issues with players burning out and leaving groups, which overall has a negative impact on participation. Additionally, many Agencies have not used the funds from high tax rates to get their players into the upgrades they need, which in turn is creating a substantial disparity in the quality of teams fighting, and again reducing the quality of AvA overall. The "if you don't like it leave" tax rate mentality does not have an overall positive effect on the game, but choosing to donate does.

Our stats show that No-Facility maps are played a lot more than you might think... it's hard to tell as we currently load in the Mine map for it.

Peebojam, if the requirement of having at least 10 members in an Agency seems like it is hurting the smaller AvA participants, we'll look at reducing the number. Our current information leads us to believe this will not be an issue. Keep in mind, most games don't even allow you to form a player group without a set number of players. As a practical matter, Agencies with fewer than 10 players are not going to make strong territory owners. They can, of course, participate in other strike forces, they just cannot lead their own. But again, we'll keep an eye on it.

Blue, you can indeed select which territories a defensive facility shields. You can change the configuration at any time (in the Facility management panel), though there is a short delay before the shield comes up each time you make a change. (<10min). You can shield allied territories, or your own. Defensive facilities themselves can never be shielded, however. The higher tech defensive buildings are currently un-available, and will come with additional features of the lattice system in future patches. We thought it was important to get out the Tech 1 building sooner, along with theft missions, for many reasons.

Shayl, Theft Missions can be done on Mines, Factories, Labs, and defensive facilitates (to shut them down). You get more reward for higher tech buildings, and more reward if they happen to be on bonus resources, but any facility of those facilities are valid targets. Actually, I'd be surprised if Factories were not the most popular, as you get completed items out of those (though granted, resources from mines can be accumulated to build something better). It's also worth pointing out there is a rare change of getting something very good out of a facility during a theft mission. Raiding a Tech II Factory may get you commonly tech II hubs, tech II beacons, or a set of android squads... but occasionally it might also pop out a full mini-nuke.

I need to know some info on this.

If your in Dome city and in a Stuck spot, its good to get a screenshot of the issue so we can see it. If you /suicide in the city as there is no penalty for dying in the city you will simply be placed at the transport area. Or, if a member of the hirez staff is on they can get you out of that.

If this is not a stuck spot, again we will need to see a screenshot to get an idea of what may be happening.

It could be as simple as a small lag spike, or something more dire.

Let us know

Open Zones, Arenas, AvA are all part of the subscription content. The non-subs have full access to Mercenary Missions (matchmade PvP) and limited access to the PvE co-op content (No Double agent, non of the expansion co-op content, and no loot drop)

More specifics will come out soon.