TWISTED METAL: THE LOST ENDINGS PART I

As discussed above: HERE is the link to the man who plays Calypso: the fantastic, the super cool, the super gifted, and all around nice as hell guy: G. Russell Reynolds! Click the link check out Russell's range!

Tweekin' Tha Twisted

UPDATE ON TWEAKS: Hey all, so communications got snafu'd and the tweaks go live tomorrow morning. I would count on seeing them hit sometime around 11 or 12 California time. A few changes were made to the original list below because of some good- and fast to implement- feedback from the net as well as because some of the variables we thought were hooked up were- in fact- not yet hooked up. See the additions and changes to the original tweak plan below in this color.

Hey all- I've had a number of folks requesting a change log for the TWISTED METAL patches. As many of you know, a lot of the patch work so far has been changes and adjustments designed to make online more stable. However, as we get into more tuning and balancing work, I did want to start providing that. I'll use the blog- and the welcome message in the game itself- as a way to do that. 

In fact, I'll do a little more than that for the blog. Here's the cut and paste email between myself, Sony PD, Sony QA, and Eat Sleep Play regarding today's TUS numbers.

NOTE: TUS stands for TITLE USER STORAGE. TUS are the thousand+ variables we can adjust and send immediately out to players without having to go through the process of sending a brand new patch.  The last patch - 1.5- gave us access to a lot of the TUS numbers we needed to make meaningful changes to the game's balance. So while the next patch won't hit till mid-to-late May, ideally we'll be doing TUS updates once a week based on player response.


And while the official Eat Sleep Play Twisted Metal maintenance contract is up end of May, I'll still be engaged and working with Sony to noodle with these as the Twisted Metal community* see fit.


So here is what HOPEFULLY will hit players today:


1-TALON AND SWEET BOT- HOMING OF THE BULLETS FOR MEGA GUNS AND NORMAL MACHINE GUNS
The homing on these have been nerfed. We will probably be noodling with these numbers 2-4 times before Friday end of day based on user feedback. Between this change and lowering the energy regen of Talon (see #7 below), the goal is to bring the flying vehicles in to balance with the other vehicles. We may be pushing too far in the other direction today but the goal is to get it to a place most (all?!? Is it possible?!? :) love by EOD Friday.

2- JUNKYARD DOG-MORE XP FOR HEALING TEAMMATES 

CURRENT: Handful of current numbers but the just is they are too low in our opinion and thus don't motivate players to use the 'healing class' aspect of Junkyard Dog in team games. We feel these numbers will change that while making sure JYD doesn't become over powered in terms of XP.

Weap - Bonuses - Team Death Match 

CHANGES: 

Player Given: 5xp 
Upon Healing: first 20%HP and 5XP for every successive 20%HP  (multiple vehicles can be healed at the same time for bigger XP bonus) 

Weap - Bonuses - Team HUNTED
Player Given 5XP for healing 20%HP of teammate.
Player Given: 20XP for healing first and every following 20% of TEAM'S HUNTED.

Weap - Bonuses - Nuke 
Player Given 5XP for healing 20%HP of teammate.
Player Given 20XP for healing first and every following 20%HP of TeamMate Carrying Faction Leader.

Weap - Bonuses - Team Last Man Standing 
Player Given 10XP for healing 20%HP of teammate.

3- CRIMSON/KAMIKAZE: SPECIAL WEAPON REGEN RATE FOR BOTH VEHICLES:

CURRENT: 40

CHANGE CRIMSON FURY SPECIAL REGEN RATE TO: 32 

CHANGE KAMIKAZE REGEN RATE TO: 38

REASON: These vehicles have well liked, powerful specials but with such weak armor these cars are not picked as often as we feel they should be. This change keeps fast and weak (the core pro/con) while allowing them more opps to attack with what makes them unique. 

4- CRIMSON FURY FREEZE BREAK OUT NUMBER 

CURRENT: 700 

CHANGE TO: 400

REASON: We set this originally thinking Crimson's flame was so overpowered that we needed to give him an Achilles Heel. We were wrong :). 

5- JUGGERNAUT: Increase damage when missiles fly in the open trailer.

CURRENT: 2X damage

CHANGE TO: 3X 

REASON: People rarely use this tactic and going up this high seems like a way that we could motivate them to do so.

BILLS SAYS: Nobody here would be opposed to 3X damage. The issue here is that it's very hard to hit that 2X or 3X damage. The hit box when the doors are open is very small. Most of the time the user firing at Juggernaut has to jump and shoot a missile in order to get the bonus.

UPDATE: Turns out the TUS number to change damage when a missile flies in the back of JUGGERNAUT has yet to go in. So JUST FOR NOW, to at least change the balance, here is what will happen:


Tomorrow we will drop JUGGERNAUT'S HEALTH from 700HP down to 55HP. This is most likely JUST FOR NOW until we get patch 1.6 that has the 3X rear trailer damage working. But who knows at this point :). If these tweaks help in other areas- for example more people playing NUKE and using JUNKDOG HEALING and thus getting LOTS of XP that will let more folks open JUGGERNAUT and we'll start to see even teams more often (right now it seems you usually end up with 1 JUGGERNAUT on 1 team but no one on the other team 2 has unlocked it yet). So we'll see...

6- NUKE: STATUE HIT XP

CURRENT: 75XP

CHANGE TO 100XP

CHANGE TO: Still not feeling satisfying/pay off-y enough

7- WINNING A GAME OF NUKE XP

CURRENT: 100XP

CHANGE TO: 600XP

REASON: Nuke games not played enough and many folks online say that the 30 min time limit that yields tiny XP for most players is the reason. Here's the exchange between Bill and I that brought us to agree on this number:

JAFFE: Players are saying they can get 1000+ via DM or TDM wins. I think if we keep NUKE 3 innings in ranked, this should go up to 600 for winning a game of NUKE. Am I nuts?

BILL'S RESPONSE: Definitely not nuts. We think 600 would be great and motivate people more to play Nuke. If players are getting 1000+ for DM and TDM, then winning a game of Nuke in addition to hitting statues and getting 100xp for that, you could come close to getting the same XP as a DM game if you hit the statue a few times. Plus it's a 30 minute game. People can play 3 DM games in that time, so it would make sense to bring the Nuke win XP way up.

8-REMOTE BOMB DAMAGE CLOSE - WEAPON DAMAGE (NOTE: ONLY FOR ENVIRONMENT DIRECT HIT/CLOSEST RANGE- not for stuck to a car)

CURRENT: 75

CHANGE TO: 90

REASON: The time it takes to get this set up/pay off weapon (and the effort) is not worth it when you can get the same damage from a lot less effort of a power missile or 2 shotgun point blanks. Kicking it to 90 should allow players to feel rewarded for this more complicated, time consuming tactic.

NOTE: I suggested 100 when Justin and I spoke last month on this, he felt that was too high. We compromised at 90 as I recall. Bill says the QA guys feel 75 is sufficient reward for the stage 2 direct hit damage but since it's easy to change, I'd prefer we try the 90 and if it's overpowered, easy to roll back.


NOTE: This change did not go in as planned. It will be in for patch 1.6. It will NOT make it in tomorrow's TUS/TWEAK pass. 

9- TALON- ENERGY REGEN SPEED

CURRENT: 33

CHANGE: 42

REASON: Need to NERF this guy. We thought by making him an easy to RAM KILL sitting duck when you froze him (since he dropped so fast) that that would do it, but we also made his energy increase fast (in order to help balance his weak armor). What we didn't anticipate was Talon- with such a frequent access to his shield and his distance from the battle at times- could see freezes (shot with the intent to bring him down to the ground) coming a 'mile away' and have the distance and thus time to avoid and/or frequently have the energy to shield the freeze.

BILL SAYS: This I think would be a good change. It was a welcomed change when we made it because his survivability was kind of low. Maybe bringing it down that much to 33 made his survivability too good? I feel 40 would be a safe change, but 7 seconds might not be too noticeable to the players who have a problem with it.  (JAFFE: So I changed it to 42 to be safe :) 

10- GRIMM RPG- DAMAGE 

STAGE 2 FAR CURRENT:45

STAGE 2 FAR CHANGE:60

STAGE 2 CLOSE CURRENT: 80

STAGE 2 CLOSE CHANGE: 120

BILL'S COMMENT: QACrew really like's this. It's makes his RPG much more worth the effort. And I personally as well as other people on the crew use his RPG frequently now in the way I think you intended it to be used. We'll camp out up high and launch RPG's at people or into crowds and have a lot of fun/do really well with it. 


11- ROADKILL HEALTH INCREASE:
CURRENT: 160
CHANGE TO 190


12- ROADKILL SPECIAL REGEN TIME INCREASE:
CURRENT: 40
CHANGE TO 30 
We could not tweak RoadKill's Stage 3 Special via TUS Tweaks yet (next patch is the plan) but we did want to buff RK a bit to see how players responded. This may be too much of a buff or it may be just right. We will let it cook over the weekend with players and then make a call start of next week. 


We also wanted to up NAPALM BULLSEYE DAMAGE from 35 to 50 but we need patch 1.6 for that.


Always have to be careful not to buff stuff w/out bringing something else down. Otherwise before you know it, all the vehicles start to feel the same and you lose the vehicle personalities. That said, it's clear a lot of this work needs to be done. How close we are on these numbers is TBD...I'm sure you'll let us know! :) And we appreciate that! 

So that's the plan. QA is looking over the numbers right now and seeing if there are any other numbers/balance issues they'd like to see us address today. If you have anything not on the list that is PURELY numeric that we MIGHT be able to easily change, tell us in the comments. I'll take a look at it all and anything we get before 1pm today (Cali time) if we agree and if it exists in the TUS, we'll push live this afternoon. Thanks!f there's a snafu :)

David

* RE: TWISTED METAL COMMUNITY- I know we don't have super crammed lobbies and that sucks. And I know that much of that is the fault of all the shitty connection issues we had from the day our demo hit. But I meant what I said in press interviews about this game: While a MEGA HALO/COD/BF3 sized community is always the goal, even if we only have a teeny, tiny group that likes to play regularly, I will be there to do what I can to support the game and to work with Sony and Eat Sleep Play to balance the game via the TUS numbers. And I'll always be interfacing with folks who like to play the game. I LOVE this version of Twisted Metal and still play at least 4-5 nite's a week (had some really fun games last nite!) And I plan on regularly playing until they pull the plug (hopefully a loooong time from now). Hell, I would LOVE to see Sony release JUST the MP version of the game on PSN for 9.99 one day! I need to ask them about that! :) Just wanted to share my thoughts as I see people on TM forums bitching about community size. Again, would it be great to have a bigger club? Hell yeah. But I can always find games and usually full games so- for now- I'm not complaining. 

THE TWISTED METAL THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN...

Over the years- be it working for a publisher or working for a developer- we'd often make videos for 'green light meetings'. These are meetings where company execs from various departments (product development, marketing, sales,etc.) get together to review the company's upcoming slate. Sometimes an actual green light is given or denied based on the meeting, but more often than not it's called a 'green light meeting' but it's more of a global review so everyone gets on the same page.

This is one such video that we made for Twisted Metal. It shows a number of variations on the modes, UI, and gameplay that ultimately made it into the final version of PS3 Twisted Metal.

Watching this I have a few thoughts:

a-I miss CHASE TO VEGAS tons...really wanted that to work but there just was not time :(...

b- Man we tried a thousand different HUD/UI (User Interface) configs as well as a shite ton of weapon power up visuals...

c- forgive my performance but a) if I recall I was getting over a cold and b) I was a little too 'Up With People' for my own liking :)...

Hope you dig this peek behind the curtain! Talk soon-

David

TWISTED METAL PATCH UPDATE + NEW GAME NEWS

Hey all- first part of this post is all about the new Twisted Metal patch that is going to hit soon.

Around 11 min in, I start talking about where we're at with the new game. Not really any key info I can share, just a sort of 'here is what is up with the new game' kind of post.

Have a great weekend ya'll! Stay safe, have fun!

David