Tremulous Forum
General => Announcements => Topic started by: Norfenstein on February 04, 2010, 02:17:29 am
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Time for round four! Here are the balance graphs grom GPP phase three.
Reading the graphs: Each cross is one game, the distance from 0 on the vertical axis indicates how close a game was to the mean duration for all games on the graph (the weighting for how much this affects the lines is half as much as we used in phase 1). The numbers in the bottom right are the min/median/max/standard deviation for stage up times and game duration.
Both servers combined
(http://imgur.com/yjhS6.png)
Euro server
(http://imgur.com/IrvY9.png)
US server
(http://imgur.com/ikG97.png)
Really not as nice as the previous set of graphs (which had remarkably straight Overall lines). If you're comparing, however, I think it's worth noting that the X-axes aren't the same: we've had some bigger games, and it looks like bulk of games have been with higher player loads. And I suspect that some of these lines would straighten out more with more data (remember that we've found it takes about 200 games for trends to stabilize, and only the three most common outcomes have more than that).
But I hardly used the statistics in deciding what to change for phase four. At this point I think the game is very close to what it should be, and the tweaks I decided on were based on feedback and my own judgement. There probably won't be any big surprises for anyone. Let's first review the changes from last time.
Stamina
I don't think I've heard any complaints about this since reducing the drain from sprinting, increasing the standing restoration rate, and adjusting the threshold for jumping/dodging. I like the faster restoration rate and how there now isn't any combination of walking/standing/sprinting that is more efficient than any other. I don't feel the need for any further changes to stamina.
Dragoon bite and pounce ranges
I'm happy with the new bite range. It's closer to the previous value of 72 than 1.1's value of 96, but I think it's effective as it should be. In fact, coupled with the pounce reduction, I think the bite is actually slightly better than the pounce now, and my opinion is they ought to be roughly equal in usefulness. Also, though I think cutting down on the crazy side-pounces was the right move, I don't think we had to go quite so far.
Flamer
The effect of reducing the flamer's splash damage clearly shows that self-damage was the biggest problem with the flamer. Judging whether or not it was overpowered at 25 direct damage, 12 splash was a little tricky, however. It's hard to trust peoples' judgement (including my own) when something goes from useless to useful, but what really made me pause is that the flamer didn't seem to be overused in GPP 3. Usually the best indicator of how imbalanced something is how popular it is in practice, but I wasn't really impressed by its jump from about 3% of all player kills to about 9%. However, given pretty much everyone's opinion about the flamer (including my own), I think this is probably a case of something being too powerful in some situations but not useful enough in others. If the splash damage comes down a little more along with the direct damage, and it gets more ammo so you don't have to conserve as much versus dretches (and don't get drained so much destroying structures), it'll probably even out well enough.
And one thing not tweaked last time, but due for a change...
Marauder
We (myself, kevlarman, and bob) finally tracked down the cause of the marauder being slightly-but-noticeably slower in 1.2 than in 1.1, and we think it was because of a change in its jumping that fixed it from accelerating unnaturally in the air (usually you have to do something to gain speed while bunnyhopping, but it appeared that you got extra speed with no effort with 1.1 marauders). Assured that this wasn't something that affected all classes and was only noticeable with marauders, I have no problem giving marauders a little something to make them feel more like they did in 1.1. They won't behave exactly like they did (I suppose technically they'll be better now than they were), but they will feel nice and speedy. And I don't expect this to affect balance much (since my opinion is that, discounting the zap, marauders really aren't as productive as dragoons, and when they do wreck bases with lightning their movement speed is largely irrelevant), but if it does I'll be balancing around it instead of stepping back.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that I found and fixed a bug that swapped the regular and advanced marauders' claw ranges. The difference is only 2 units so I wouldn't believe anyone that said they could tell the difference, but worth mentioning anyway.
The Changes
- Dragoon base pounce range increased 40 -> 48
- Flamer damage reduced 25/12 -> 20/10
- Flamer ammo increased 150 -> 200
- Marauder air acceleration increased 2.0 -> 3.0
Friendly Fire?
I think the above changes could warrant another full phase all on their own, but given that they're either further refinements to things we've already been tweaking, or a return to something that I don't even expect to affect balance much, I don't think they need it. People seem to be getting antsy about turning friendly fire on, and since these changes probably won't have drastic, unpredictable effects, I'm okay with that. My prediction is that friendly fire will alter the slope of the balance graph lines (making humans less potent in bigger games) but won't necessitate any major balance changes, if any at all. But we'll find out!
And just so no one gets all tl;dr, and starts killing teammates, allow me to reiterate:
Friendly fire is now on; don't shoot your teammates
unless they deserve it ;)
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Nice job :)
- Kiwi
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I am happy with all these changes, especially FF :)
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Awesome.
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Very good!
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Looking good, FF on will be nice.
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Looking good, FF on will be nice.
it is very nice.
FF on is the best change yet balance changes look good too
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Looking good, FF on will be nice.
it is very nice.
FF on is the best change yet balance changes look good too
the vast majority of the balance changes on gpp were made and tested with ff on, ff off was a very recent change.
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Finally FF!
Although, am I reading this wrong, cuz it sounds to me like you said the flamer is OP, so you gave it more ammo, and made it even harder to hurt yourself with.....
[NINJA-EDIT]have you guys fixed the wallwalk/sprint toggle bug yet? It's kinda annoying...[/NINJA-EDIT]
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good luck 1.2 :)
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Finally FF!
Although, am I reading this wrong, cuz it sounds to me like you said the flamer is OP, so you gave it more ammo, and made it even harder to hurt yourself with.....
[NINJA-EDIT]have you guys fixed the wallwalk/sprint toggle bug yet? It's kinda annoying...[/NINJA-EDIT]
The damage went from 25->12 splash went from 12->10 and it gained 50 ammo. I think flamer will fill its role now, primarily killing dretches and a lisk or two but it shouldn't be able to kill a goon or rant.
The wallwalk bug is a client bug and for that to be fixed they have to release a new client, I think they are waiting on a few more things before they release it ( not sure ).
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Finally FF!
Although, am I reading this wrong, cuz it sounds to me like you said the flamer is OP, so you gave it more ammo, and made it even harder to hurt yourself with.....
[NINJA-EDIT]have you guys fixed the wallwalk/sprint toggle bug yet? It's kinda annoying...[/NINJA-EDIT]
The damage went from 25->12 splash went from 12->10 and it gained 50 ammo. I think flamer will fill its role now, primarily killing dretches and a lisk or two but it shouldn't be able to kill a goon or rant.
The wallwalk bug is a client bug and for that to be fixed they have to release a new client, I think they are waiting on a few more things before they release it ( not sure ).
The Euro server doesn't have the wallwalk glitch. Which is really weird.
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Wallwalk bug is client-side.
If you aren't seeing it on Euro it's because your test case has you playing somewhere else first. What server you're on is irrelevant. Also US and Euro run exactly the same thing.
While we're not ready to officially release a new client, that bug is fixed in svn and anyone can build the gpp branch and have a fixed client that's otherwise the same.
http://lakitu.mercenariesguild.net/temp/gpp/
Here's some *nix 32 and windows builds.
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Although, am I reading this wrong
Yes.
I think this is probably a case of something being too powerful in some situations but not useful enough in others.
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Although, am I reading this wrong
Yes.
I think this is probably a case of something being too powerful in some situations but not useful enough in others.
I know that a vast reason of people not using flamer was because the majority of the time if you used it the majority of the active player base cussed you out to shit.(or maybe that was just me)
I do, however, agree with your statement. It's too useful for for fighting, but as flamer goes to me, it's meant to be a defense/support weapon. Because it covers such a large spread it's really good for pushing back aliens to help retreating teammates or picking off smaller aliens. Where as other weapons are better for base rushing because they actually have a larger distance range and they can pick off buildables from a safe distance. That or saw, which has just an insane DPS making it effective for sawing important structures like OM and eggs.
I like the changes to flamer though, although I would like it's range nerfed in a little. Not as far as 1.1, but a little less than it is now.
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I think Tremulous 1.2 is starting to get really good, especially with the new changes, though the teamwork aspect in a pub game is new to me.
ps: Is it just me, or can you not press Ctrl-C to delete text when you press 'T' to do pub chat?
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Escape usually does the job.
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Wouldn't FF result in even more alien wins?
becuase when u look at it, the hummies get ff the most
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Wouldn't FF result in even more alien wins?
becuase when u look at it, the hummies get ff the most
You obviously haven't played much as aliens, much less in cramped hallways.
FF on will result in more balanced Alien vs. Human encounters, not alien vs. hBase or humans vs. aBase .
I also predict a sudden drop in the number of flamers that accompany human squads. Teammates will have more to fear than the aliens :P
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Geesh. To fix the wallwalk bug, just add
cg_sprintToggle 0
cg_sprintToggle 1to the end of your autoexec or whatever...
Anyway, I still don't get the importance of those graphs (so what if games have different durations? What if when a team wins just after 1 team gets stageup (it was balanced most of the game)?).
And what will happen to FoV?
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Geesh. To fix the wallwalk bug, just addcg_sprintToggle 0
cg_sprintToggle 1to the end of your autoexec or whatever...
That will be reset when autoexec is rewritten.
If you won't build a GPP client, the easiest solution would probably be "/bind key "setu $u $u; toggle $u; toggle $u; unset $u" and press that button whenever you connect.
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What? autoexec is not written by trem, autogen is.
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What? autoexec is not written by trem, autogen is.
Ah, right.
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With the latest update & the activation of friendly fire 1.2 feels a lot better!
The only really big problem I can still see is the underpowered dretch.
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My suggestions =D
Evolving
Remove an old and unneeded limitation of alien evolution, the "cannot evolve
because enemies are too near" feature.
As it stands, humans can only use a powered armory to upgrade their class, therefore
to make it balanced, the alien class should only be able to evolve in range of the creep.
Remove the "enemies to near" limitation, with slow build point regen, this additional
limitation only imbalances alien defense, and with the addition of the prior mentioned change,
would make upgrading equal, yet remain different between the two factions.
Lucifer Cannon
If the alien class had a weapon that was:
- ranged
- had splash damage
- could one hit the 2nd largest opposing class
- was incredibly fast at close range
...it would have been removed. Its a BFG lite, at the very least, if no one
can agree that its flat out overpowered, increase the credits required to buy one.
The prior mentioned "BFG" had very low ammo, very hard to get, and normally 1 location to
obtain it. with the lucifer, the opposing team can cheaply suit their entire team, with a weapon
that perhaps should have a limit of 1/2 per team.
Flamer
Make the self damage higher while wearing < a battle suit, but remain the current while wearing
a battle suit. Give it a overheat\overcharge bar, like the lucifer cannon.
Battle Suit
The battle suit should not be able to sprint or dodge. The bonus of damage absorption with
the same movement abilities makes it overpowered. While at the same time, it makes sense, it should have
radar, since its a greater degree of human technology. So give the bsuit a greater range radar, and shorten
the range (slightly to make the suits value worthwhile) of the helmet.
In regards to tyrant and dragoon health and health regeneration.
Return the old health numbers to the dragoon and tyrant, but keep the slower regen. The problem in 1.1
with the tyrants overpowered state wasn't the amount of health, but its ability to regen quickly and trapped
an entire human base solo.
Human don't have this other class dependency for their primary assault class, you don't need a engineer nearby
to use [insert item] While I am for teamwork, aliens have far more requirements for a competent team, because of this, while humans just require a moving spamming mob (for assaults, not talking about building or defense)
The Painsaw, while I love the painsaw changes, its unlimited *ammo* is now overpowered. Humans are a range class, and
aliens are a melee class. It manages a 146 dmg a second, against aliens that lack an armor buff. ~2 seconds == dead.
No alien melee class has this power, or should have, therefore to diminish the overkill part I suggest:
Painsaw should have self regenerating ammo, it can fire, but needs a *cooldown* before it can fire again.
While the rebuttals i normally hear, to most of these suggestions are, "Well aliens can wall walk without stamina"
Let me remind you only 3 aliens can wall walk, adv granger, dretch, and basilisk. Hardly warrants a sprinting,
battle suit armored unlimited ammo painsaw upgraded class.
Dodge
It me, it appears as an unneeded *cool* feature that wasn't added to *fix* anything, but I assume there is
no hope of it leaving, so I suggest its cooldown time is increased. Dragoons are required to *Charge* their
pounce, therefore humans should at least need a little more time before they can "super jump backwards"...
-scrape
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The teams are different. If you want identical but re skinned teams then there plenty of games out there like that.
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The teams are different. If you want identical but re skinned teams then there plenty of games out there like that.
Yes sir, they are different, yet they should be balanced. Ive pointed out the differences, and I am aware of it, but
the opposing team should have a counter for the enemies assault. At no point in my post did I suggest a "re skinned"
aliens team carrying blasters.
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Humans have to be in a set location to power up, ergo aliens should too. Aliens don't have a direct lucy equivalent, so remove it. Humans don't need basi's so why should aliens? No alien can do as much DPS as the psaw, so nerf it. Dragoons have a charge bar, so humans should too.
Most of your suggestions are advocating making the teams more alike, that's a cop-out and lame way to balance a game.
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Humans have to be in a set location to power up, ergo aliens should too.
Why is this bad?
Aliens don't have a direct lucy equivalent, so remove it.
I didn't say remove it. I said increase its cost, there will never be a direct equivalent between teams,
but the possibly of equal power offense.
Humans don't need basi's so why should aliens?
Or arguments with straw mans. What does this have to do with anything I said.
No alien can do as much DPS as the psaw, so nerf it.
Why is asking for balanced DPS, a bad thing? I didnt say nerf it, I said to balance its DPS in an assault, so
it doesn't vastly overpower the defending team. No one single item or class should have so much power.
Dragoons have a charge bar, so humans should too.
Again not what I said, Humans DO have a charge bar on lucis, and a bar on stamina, why is asking for a
overheat option on the flamer a terrible thing?
Most of your suggestions are advocating making the teams more alike, that's a cop-out and lame way to balance a game.
No my suggestions are my attempt to make the teams different yet equal. If you think trem should be
imbalanced by design because that makes it *unique* then I wish you good luck with that philosophy.
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Humans don't need basi's so why should aliens?
Or arguments with straw mans. What does this have to do with anything I said.
You talked about regen and then "Human don't have this other class dependency for their primary assault class". I read it as referring to the basi, but meh.
No my suggestions are my attempt to make the teams different yet equal. If you think trem should be
imbalanced by design because that makes it *unique* then I wish you good luck with that philosophy.
I'm not saying it should be imbalanced, I'm saying it should be balanced without trying to introduce 1:1 parity between the teams. If dodge is too powerful then sure give it a cool down or some other nerf, but aliens having to wait between pounces has zero bearing on the issue.
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The only really big problem I can still see is the underpowered dretch.
It feels pretty "correct" to me. What do you still not like?
No my suggestions are my attempt to make the teams different yet equal. If you think trem should be imbalanced by design because that makes it *unique* then I wish you good luck with that philosophy.
Apparently one person's "imbalanced by design" is another person's "different yet equal". I think you need to use different arguments for why the things you consider imbalanced should be changed, because -- since I don't agree that any of them are in fact "imbalanced" -- saying that they need to change because the other team doesn't have an obvious equivalent isn't convincing. Without taking into account the myriad indirect factors that balance everything it really does sound like you're just advocating for fewer differences between the teams (which isn't to say that's inherently unwarranted -- there have been a few things I've evened out thus for sake of balance). It'd be more convincing to hear reasons why you think things are imbalanced without taking them out of their context. For example, you don't explain how the lucifer cannon is overpowered, just that it would be imbalanced if aliens had one, and then go on to compare it to the Quake 3 BFG without giving any basis for such a comparison.
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The only really big problem I can still see is the underpowered dretch.
It feels pretty "correct" to me. What do you still not like?
No my suggestions are my attempt to make the teams different yet equal. If you think trem should be imbalanced by design because that makes it *unique* then I wish you good luck with that philosophy.
Apparently one person's "imbalanced by design" is another person's "different yet equal". I think you need to use different arguments for why the things you consider imbalanced should be changed, because -- since I don't agree that any of them are in fact "imbalanced" -- saying that they need to change because the other team doesn't have an obvious equivalent isn't convincing. Without taking into account the myriad indirect factors that balance everything it really does sound like you're just advocating for fewer differences between the teams (which isn't to say that's inherently unwarranted -- there have been a few things I've evened out thus for sake of balance). It'd be more convincing to hear reasons why you think things are imbalanced without taking them out of their context.
So instead of refuting anything I said you just state "its not imbalanced please write an essay proving this"
I do this at a later time, but I feel its maybe a waste of time because your opinion is firmly rooted in your
belief its perfectly or near perfectly balanced as it stands. Its not unreasonable to ask for the opposing teams
to have similar yet different methods, of equal power, to both attack and defend with. Items with unlimited ammo,
or too many damage abilities in one item are bad design. (ie high damage with speed and splash)
For example, you don't explain how the lucifer cannon is overpowered, just that it would be imbalanced if aliens had one, and then go on to compare it to the Quake 3 BFG without giving any basis for such a comparison.
I listed the overpowered reasons, although stating this IS overpowered and
would not be allowed on aliens, yet humans are given such powers. Regardless of the indirect method,
my point and list was to underscore how one team is given too much power in a single item.
The basis for the BFG weapon comparison, is this, its an overpowered weapon on purpose, and its treated as such with
availability restrictions and ammo. However the lucifer cannon has these features yet is cheap enough and easy
enough to obtain and entire team can wield it.
In short closing, I do like the basilisk and mara changes, I do like improved fps, I do feel some of the humans buffs
were unneeded, and some of the top alien nerfs were overkill (both slash reduce, health reduce AND regen reduce)
With the servers population slowly diminishing, and all the faces I seen over the last few years, growing slowly less
each time I log on, I do hope trem can at least revive itself and not die in phases.
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Scrape, I only agree with you at evolving (we were discussing it in game and letting aliens evolve only when on creep is actually my idea >:( ), and partly on other suggestions.
Evolving - As I said earlier, I agree with you. I remember "too close to the enemy" thing was at least once long time ago. Then someone important said that this is a reward for attacking aliens base - swarm of feeding dretches. Well I guess it was supposed to encourage humans to leave their base (and it didn't work). Nonetheless it's unneeded now - humans have enough firepower to go through the map to aliens base and actually rush it. The point is that in some situations (mostly when aliens' base is in small room (hello window room) or in 15vs15 games) aliens can withstand only "short" attack (as they soon will run out of classes better than dretches as they won't be able to evolve) while humans with their repeaters are able to keep rushing for pretty long time. Not saying that this happens any often, yet it happens when, I believe, it shouldn't just to make game more enjoyable. The evolve limitation is also really annoying and confusing as many times you can't evolve when there's nothing on the radar. Letting aliens evolve only on creep will make it clear where you can evolve and where you cannot.
Lucifer Cannon - Don't really think it's overpowered - you can kill a rant with it easily and vice versa, yet increasing the cost wouldn't hurt
Flamer - can't really say if it's fine or not as I haven't used it in phase 4 yet. Yet I remember my mara once got burnt when I was behind a human running backward flaming dretches. I was dying and so was him, so I wanted to finish him, waited and watched his back growing as he was enclosing to me, I was about to bite and them boom I'm dead, he keeps running backward like nothing happened.
Battle Suit - Well if you want it to have a radar, why it can't have some mechanic muscles that help humans sprint or dodge (something like (but not fully mechanic) those robot things in Avatar or Matrix Revolution) IMO it's fine as it is
Rants and goons - I don't have any issues with rants hp nerf and especially goons hp nerf (as they didn't have any :P ), trample is quite buggy though.
Painsaw - I'm fine with damage, but not with range. My friend asked me how to throw a painsaw because he got sawed many times when he was meters away from the human. Happened to me many times when I was using it and fighting against. Of course could be unlagged, yet it wasn't happening that much with 1.1 range. Either reduce the range a bit or significantly increase it's cost.
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It's also so you can't evolve in mid-air etc, or use a dretch to get past the turrets and then evo behind the RC.
Although the range could probably be lowered, and lowered to zero on creep.
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If we had to evolve on creep, there would be big jam-ups and much pushing and shoving about, amidst general confusion and resentment against those who do not have the concept of "shoot-and-scoot" (in this case being EVOLVE and scoot). And what about small rooms? Must we stand in a line outside like a depression-era amalgam of hopefuls, waiting patiently for the goon or rant to leave the exit so another dretch can squeeze in and evolve? No I say! We must stand against this!
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Evolving - As I said earlier, I agree with you. I remember "too close to the enemy" thing was at least once long time ago. Then someone important said that this is a reward for attacking aliens base - swarm of feeding dretches. Well I guess it was supposed to encourage humans to leave their base (and it didn't work). Nonetheless it's unneeded now - humans have enough firepower to go through the map to aliens base and actually rush it. The point is that in some situations (mostly when aliens' base is in small room (hello window room) or in 15vs15 games) aliens can withstand only "short" attack (as they soon will run out of classes better than dretches as they won't be able to evolve) while humans with their repeaters are able to keep rushing for pretty long time. Not saying that this happens any often, yet it happens when, I believe, it shouldn't just to make game more enjoyable. The evolve limitation is also really annoying and confusing as many times you can't evolve when there's nothing on the radar. Letting aliens evolve only on creep will make it clear where you can evolve and where you cannot.
Reasons I agree:
I find that mutations (evolutions) should take a LITTLE bit longer, based on how much higher of power you're evolving into. E.g.:
if you evolve from a Dretch/Granger to a Tyrant, mutation process takes 3-4 seconds.
If you evolve from a marauder to a tyrant, it takes 2-3 seconds.
if you evolve from goon to tyrant, it takes 1-1.5 seconds.
and so forth, obviously I haven't but heavy thought into the timing because it also depends on how close to the enemy you can evolve.
Reasons I disagree:
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Please also keep in mind not everyone uses binds to evolve, such as new players. When they try to evolve and it tells them an enemy is too close, it teaches them how to evolve (when to evolve, where to evolve, etc).
I know i've seen a few times where I stand long range and begin shooting a Dretch, only to find it evolves into a Tyrant and then I shoot a couple more bullets, and a 400hp tyrant dies in under 10 seconds from rifle.
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I find limiting the aliens to their base is possible, yet the Tremulous developers aren't leading the game that way. They're making it better than any other typical fps camping game.
I believe aliens are the natural aggressors of the map and always should be.
Please don't mistake that for who SHOULD be the agressors, humans need to use their firepower and corner down the aliens in order to be more effective, otherwise aliens will spread over the map like a virus and human vs alien generally leads to aliens winning.
Although now in 1.2 it seems that it's very difficult to decide who would win in a fight, shotty s2 or goon? Still technically goon but much harder to accomplish due to more bullet spread(more chance of hits).
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Scrape, I only agree with you at evolving (we were discussing it in game and letting aliens evolve only when on creep is actually my idea >:( ), and partly on other suggestions.
[snipped]
;D well when we talked about it, I decided I should post it and some of the other ideas floating
around before I completely forgot them. So I anyone hates the evolving idea, it was ALL Asvarox :P, but if
you like it, it was a jointly created one =D
I had a totally worthless idea after, for the hovel, and post it here for shits and giggles.
Here Goes:
Hovel
The hovel functions like the booster, but instead gives a run debuff (like basi gas)
You cannot have both poison or the run debuff, they cancel each other out, touch the hovel
and your poison DoT is removed...
Poison Immunity
To limit the overpowered nature of a DoT(damage over time) and run debuff, when you are poisoned, after the effect
wears off you are granted immunity to poison for 1.5*posion_duration. Same for the run debuff from the hovel, or
the basi gas. Currently, even though I'm an alien advocate, poison is far too powerful. If a human doesn't camp near a medistation, chances are he is dead before he can *run home*.
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So instead of refuting anything I said you just state "its not imbalanced please write an essay proving this"
Uh, no. There was nothing to refute because you didn't explain your positions, just asserted their correctness.
I listed the overpowered reasons, although stating this IS overpowered and
would not be allowed on aliens, yet humans are given such powers. Regardless of the indirect method,
my point and list was to underscore how one team is given too much power in a single item.
The basis for the BFG weapon comparison, is this, its an overpowered weapon on purpose, and its treated as such with
availability restrictions and ammo. However the lucifer cannon has these features yet is cheap enough and easy
enough to obtain and entire team can wield it.
You listed reasons that suggested it would be overpowered for aliens. But the teams aren't the same, and there are enough other factors involved that it (probably) isn't imbalanced for humans. And it isn't intended to be overpowered like the Quake 3 BFG, and I don't agree that it's too inexpensive. Basically, you enumerated your feelings on the matter without effectively persuading me to feel the same way you do, and so -- instead of just dismissing you outright because I don't agree with you -- I tried to tell you how you could present your thoughts in a manner I'd find persuasive.
I feel its maybe a waste of time because your opinion is firmly rooted in your
belief its perfectly or near perfectly balanced as it stands.
You're wrong about this, but given the tone of your response I am more likely to spend less time on what say in the future.
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I want better water effects like from the source engine (everyone thinks the ioquake 3 engine is better :( ) but anyway it'll be better if shadows were less laggy and are less buggy (through walls wtf is that all about)
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Uh, no. There was nothing to refute because you didn't explain your positions, just asserted their correctness.
You listed reasons that suggested it would be overpowered for aliens. But the teams aren't the same, and there are enough other factors involved that it (probably) isn't imbalanced for humans. And it isn't intended to be overpowered like the Quake 3 BFG, and I don't agree that it's too inexpensive. Basically, you enumerated your feelings on the matter without effectively persuading me to feel the same way you do, and so -- instead of just dismissing you outright because I don't agree with you -- I tried to tell you how you could present your thoughts in a manner I'd find persuasive.
You're wrong about this, but given the tone of your response I am more likely to spend less time on what say in the future.
Preface:
I started out the gameplay preview as a cheerleader for 1.2. I spent time on the server explaining the changes,
and trying to convince players that all the changes were good. I love the basilisk changes and was willing
to suffer through the rest, in hopes the final result would be fun. The server I play on, we took initiative, and
dropped our 1.1 server immediately and started a 1.2. The motto was "lets support 1.2 so they can complete it
quickly". I still try to play for an hour-ish, despite almost everyone I did play trem with, have permanently left,
for other games (players, w/ 1/2+ years playing time :/) I love the improved fps over 1.1, but now im aghast, at the
trend for *balance* changes, the slowly dying server populations (in both 1.1 and 1.2 servers), and the seemly
adversarial stance of the development team and some sycophantic supporters.
About my luci comments again:
I used the alien target team as an example. That no such weapon or ability would be allowed for that
team, However its always allowed for humans. why I ask?, why should one team receive so many items that instantly kill
large primary members of the other team, in one hit? The dretch was norf'd because it could kill a naked player
in two hits, but the lucifer cannon can one hit anything goon or less, and its "ok and balanced because trem is a
different game, get over or play something else (many are choosing the later)"
Tone? So If I don't go "omfg 1.2 teh super" my tone is incorrect. The interesting thing is, you highlight
your *rooted beliefs* in the paragraph preceding a statement about my tone. My tone was only a statement to that, silly
eh?
So again, neither team should have:
Cheap items that can AoE(Area of effect) for massive damage.
It removes skill and planning from the game and just ensures mindless spamming.
(grenades, adv mara zap, etc..)
Any direct damage item, bite\weapon that can ONE HIT kill, a member of the opposing team.
It also removes any skill from its use, no need to learn to avoid and *dance* an alien, just boom dead.
While the frustrated alien gets nothing from it, fun wise, just respawn. Look at the stats for alien
vs human death, it remains at 3:1.
(Lucifer cannon, and nearly the pulse ( pulse if great if you are playing, human, in a hall you can kill goons
before they manage the 2nd chomp)
No weapons are items with extremely low repeat rates and long ranges.
(even though I love th basi, grab falls into this issue, psaw)
...
Its just my opinion, that assaults and defenses should depend player planning and skill in aiming
and predicting the enemies movements and not an array of those items, as it currently stands, that is the case.
(I've done plenty *psaw rushes* we storm into the alien base, with our over kill dps, and spam grenades, aliens
are screwed because they can't evolve, fun fun)
But really its just my opinion, I know it would be far easier If I remained in my first cheerleader position,
being a sycophant is far easier, and I get to use my pompoms :o
-
Cheap items that can AoE(Area of effect) for massive damage.
It removes skill and planning from the game and just ensures mindless spamming.
(grenades, adv mara zap, etc..)
I have to disagree here. If buildings are spaced out enough, and if there is at least some effort at defending the base, a marauder attack can be easily thwarted. And all of that is achieved through planning/strategy.
On the other side however, to be able to zap effectively, one must be able to at least judge when to attack, and how to attack. And again, this is achieved through planning and strategy
In essence, the marauder is almost a glass cannon, except for the fact that in the hands of a skilled player, it is also a terminator. The same applies for grenades as well although a little differently.
So tell me, how would the game be better off by removing these AoE capabilities? We would have long grueling and predictable games, where nothing interesting happens.
/opinion
-
Tone? So If I don't go "omfg 1.2 teh super" my tone is incorrect. The interesting thing is, you highlight
your *rooted beliefs* in the paragraph preceding a statement about my tone. My tone was only a statement to that, silly
eh?
What's incorrect is you shutting down the conversation by making assumptions about what I think and what I was or was not implying in my response to you. Your original post was well written and even though I didn't agree with what you said, I wanted to hear more because you didn't include enough for me to make a decision about whether or not I should change my mind to agree with you. So I (politely, I thought) explained what I needed in order to have a productive discussion. I'm not interested in people agreeing with me without good reason, just like I'm not interested in people disagreeing with me without good reason. If someone said to me "the blaster is overpowered", I normally wouldn't even bother with the appropriate response of "no it isn't." If they instead said something like "I see people using the blaster more frequently than the rifle, which means it's probably overpowered," then I'd have something to think about. If you thought the reasons you gave really were substantial enough to debate, what you should have done is just elaborate on them or explain them in a different way for my benefit*. In no situation does getting offended make someone more inclined to agree with you.
*Which it looks like you did a little in your last post
-
Cheap items that can AoE(Area of effect) for massive damage.
It removes skill and planning from the game and just ensures mindless spamming.
(grenades, adv mara zap, etc..)
I have to disagree here. If buildings are spaced out enough, and if there is at least some effort at defending the base, a marauder attack can be easily thwarted. And all of that is achieved through planning/strategy.
On the other side however, to be able to zap effectively, one must be able to at least judge when to attack, and how to attack. And again, this is achieved through planning and strategy
In essence, the marauder is almost a glass cannon, except for the fact that in the hands of a skilled player, it is also a terminator. The same applies for grenades as well although a little differently.
So tell me, how would the game be better off by removing these AoE capabilities? We would have long grueling and predictable games, where nothing interesting happens.
/opinion
AND those items you listed aren't cheap. Though I do believe the lucifer cannon is just a bit too cheap. As a side I like the new goon chomp. I've gotten it down, sometimes my goon gets secondsies, and even survives vs two humans!
-
Cheap items that can AoE(Area of effect) for massive damage.
It removes skill and planning from the game and just ensures mindless spamming.
(grenades, adv mara zap, etc..)
I have to disagree here. If buildings are spaced out enough, and if there is at least some effort at defending the base, a marauder attack can be easily thwarted. And all of that is achieved through planning/strategy.
On the other side however, to be able to zap effectively, one must be able to at least judge when to attack, and how to attack. And again, this is achieved through planning and strategy
In essence, the marauder is almost a glass cannon, except for the fact that in the hands of a skilled player, it is also a terminator. The same applies for grenades as well although a little differently.
So tell me, how would the game be better off by removing these AoE capabilities? We would have long grueling and predictable games, where nothing interesting happens.
/opinion
I didn't say to remove them. I said the issue is *cheap* nature of them. Now its not so much the case
with adv mara zap (the mara can only zap while alive) however the grenade is used as a *suicide* or item to
release at the moment of death. Perhaps make it stronger, but increase its cost, so the human team can take out
a base but it would require an escort (like basis escorting the alien primary class to heal). That would improve
team planning (say_team: escort the grenadier!) Defending against waves of suicidal humans spamming
grenades, IMHO, isn't fun. Once its released you cannot do anything about it. (yes, build on the walls, but this is
impossible for the overmind, unless a map has a feature, so you can raise the overmind.)
I just also, in practice, its the effects of *many* AoE, firing at once, while the mara zap (single mara) is perfectly
fine, 4 adv maras, storming a base, becomes an overpowered ballet. Now I understand this is normally the result
of building as if the games mechanics are still like 1.1, were tight compressed bases were key, but unfortunately
balanced maps for aliens, lead humans to make tight bases. Probably a bigger issue, is a set of map standards,
and gameplay requirements for maps. Its probably worth everyone time, to improve existing maps, instead of more
pretty unplayable ones.
So in conclusion about AoEs, they just should have much less significance in game play, and not be the primary
means of defeating an enemy base.
-
Tone? So If I don't go "omfg 1.2 teh super" my tone is incorrect. The interesting thing is, you highlight
your *rooted beliefs* in the paragraph preceding a statement about my tone. My tone was only a statement to that, silly
eh?
What's incorrect is you shutting down the conversation by making assumptions about what I think and what I was or was not implying in my response to you. Your original post was well written and even though I didn't agree with what you said, I wanted to hear more because you didn't include enough for me to make a decision about whether or not I should change my mind to agree with you. So I (politely, I thought) explained what I needed in order to have a productive discussion. I'm not interested in people agreeing with me without good reason, just like I'm not interested in people disagreeing with me without good reason. If someone said to me "the blaster is overpowered", I normally wouldn't even bother with the appropriate response of "no it isn't." If they instead said something like "I see people using the blaster more frequently than the rifle, which means it's probably overpowered," then I'd have something to think about. If you thought the reasons you gave really were substantial enough to debate, what you should have done is just elaborate on them or explain them in a different way for my benefit*. In no situation does getting offended make someone more inclined to agree with you.
*Which it looks like you did a little in your last post
I'm sorry if it came out that way, most likely incorrect, but it was just my perspective thus far from my vantage
point ingame, and from reading this forum. I guess this is the only source of my opinions on the matter.
When you say, "whether or not I should change my mind", it leads me to it, because
even though you are the projects developer, IMHO the gameplay\fun\balance should be determined by feedback
from the user base, even if it does not match developer ideas or the result of statistics.
One thing statistics will never (I know you are aware of this) reflect, is individual player skill, and it
is usually key in who wins or loses. More often than not, poor building causes humans to lose, over
any alien class balance or skill. Humans win not due to well planned forward base construction, but nonstop rushing,
spamming mobs, preventing alien evolution or build point regeneration.
-
One thing statistics will never (I know you are aware of this) reflect, is individual player skill, and it
is usually key in who wins or loses. More often than not, poor building causes humans to lose, over
any alien class balance or skill. Humans win not due to well planned forward base construction, but nonstop rushing,
spamming mobs, preventing alien evolution or build point regeneration.
For that you just take the average of 200+ games...
-
When you say, "whether or not I should change my mind", it leads me to it, because
even though you are the projects developer, IMHO the gameplay\fun\balance should be determined by feedback
from the user base, even if it does not match developer ideas or the result of statistics.
Sure, up to a point, but whatever the balance between designing by fiat versus consensus should be, I don't think anyone really believes the game would be best served by somehow averaging the wishes of every person that ever plays it -- that could easily lead to something that no one actually likes. So (and, obviously, this is easy for me to say) I think it is important to be at least a little "elitist" -- the wiser a person proves herself to be the less I need her to back up her assertions with something impartially convincing. Which is exactly why I wanted to tell you (and, really, everyone else at the same time) how to be more convincing. I hadn't had any experience with you before so I couldn't take your opinions at face-value, but neither were you so gibberingly nonsensical (or rude) that I could comfortably dismiss you out of hand.
And now that we're finally on the same page we can have a debate about something of substance. :)
...just not right now. Gimme a little bit.
-
One thing statistics will never (I know you are aware of this) reflect, is individual player skill, and it
is usually key in who wins or loses. More often than not, poor building causes humans to lose, over
any alien class balance or skill. Humans win not due to well planned forward base construction, but nonstop rushing,
spamming mobs, preventing alien evolution or build point regeneration.
For that you just take the average of 200+ games...
Unfortunately, statistics will only give you data on results, but not *why* a game
was lost or won. You can only infer the results, but never really grasp the real reasons and
it will not show causality. (ie Humans won, Lots of flamer kills == flamer op, while the truth maybe
aliens had a griefer, that moved the overmind, built an egg to feed the humans)
-
Thank you Norf for your very timely, open and complete communication of your work
Kudos
[EDIT] Now if you can only get the other developers to spend 5 minutes once in a while to communicate their work that would be AWESOME
-
When you say, "whether or not I should change my mind", it leads me to it, because
even though you are the projects developer, IMHO the gameplay\fun\balance should be determined by feedback
from the user base, even if it does not match developer ideas or the result of statistics.
Sure, up to a point, but whatever the balance between designing by fiat versus consensus should be, I don't think anyone really believes the game would be best served by somehow averaging the wishes of every person that ever plays it -- that could easily lead to something that no one actually likes. So (and, obviously, this is easy for me to say) I think it is important to be at least a little "elitist" -- the wiser a person proves herself to be the less I need her to back up her assertions with something impartially convincing. Which is exactly why I wanted to tell you (and, really, everyone else at the same time) how to be more convincing. I hadn't had any experience with you before so I couldn't take your opinions at face-value, but neither were you so gibberingly nonsensical (or rude) that I could comfortably dismiss you out of hand.
And now that we're finally on the same page we can have a debate about something of substance. :)
...just not right now. Gimme a little bit.
Yes, it does create a problem, since you cannot make a change, to suit everyone's
desires, must maintain consistency to develop a standard. Also, its impossible to field requests to "game is
leik wack lawlz", but:
(bear with me, its long, but it was the only way I could make the point, I'm attempting)
Here is an example, take a automotive engineer, who has spent his\her life designing car interiors. S\he
has years of experience, and several successful interiors to his\her credit. However the latest car
release by the auto manufacturer is met with "this seat is uncomfortable, the mug holder is the wrong spot,
etc.." The engineer cannot solve this problem with "I'm am an experience egro engineer, you are just the user,
you do not have the expertise I have, therefore your complaint about the uncomfortable seat is invalid."
That doesn't happen, the seat is changed, and a test group, sits in the seat, and gives their opinions on
"how comfortable it is". The engineers take the information from the test group, to re-engineer a better seat.
(Not from ass to seat time contact statistics :P) They don't however require the car owners to *prove*
the seat is uncomfortable, no snaps shots of cherry red asses are acquired and analyzed, or doctor's statements.
So, my point is, it will be unsuccessful to get mr "leik wack lawlz" to prove himself, just at least hear his\her
complaint and see if there is any basis or consensus on it.
Random thoughts about versioning:
I think one of 1.2 major hurdle has been, its so vastly (game play wise) from 1.1, its being considered
a mod, and not an incremental change or an improvement. So, 1.1.-1.2 to 2.0 no real difference, but to give an example,
Slackware's devs went from 3.0 to 7.0 because "users assumed redhat was better because it was 7.0 while Slackware was
3.0)." Yes complete head on wall banging stupidity...
I still hear "playing 1.2...", so in retrospect, I think using a version number, during development testing (instead of
a code name or something) was a mistake. Its too late, to undo that, but perhaps something to consider for future
changes or revisions. Something like, Tremulous, monkeybutt version, once its tested, it goes *live* as 1.3.
Long live trem monkeybutt ;D
-
Are we able to evolve midair still? I read in an earlier post [i think in this thread] that you aren't able to. I liked the part of the game where i could wall climb as a dretch up a pillar or on a high ceiling and evolve in mid-air as a basi and grab them like a ninja :P .
-
One thing statistics will never (I know you are aware of this) reflect, is individual player skill, and it
is usually key in who wins or loses. More often than not, poor building causes humans to lose, over
any alien class balance or skill. Humans win not due to well planned forward base construction, but nonstop rushing,
spamming mobs, preventing alien evolution or build point regeneration.
For that you just take the average of 200+ games...
Unfortunately, statistics will only give you data on results, but not *why* a game
was lost or won. You can only infer the results, but never really grasp the real reasons and
it will not show causality. (ie Humans won, Lots of flamer kills == flamer op, while the truth maybe
aliens had a griefer, that moved the overmind, built an egg to feed the humans)
You don't have a clue what statistics are. If aliens really have a griefer in a significant amount of the 200 games, you might as well balance for it.
-
Here is an example, take a automotive engineer, who has spent his\her life designing car interiors. S\he
has years of experience, and several successful interiors to his\her credit. However the latest car
release by the auto manufacturer is met with "this seat is uncomfortable, the mug holder is the wrong spot,
etc.." The engineer cannot solve this problem with "I'm am an experience egro engineer, you are just the user,
you do not have the expertise I have, therefore your complaint about the uncomfortable seat is invalid."
That doesn't happen, the seat is changed, and a test group, sits in the seat, and gives their opinions on
"how comfortable it is". The engineers take the information from the test group, to re-engineer a better seat.
(Not from ass to seat time contact statistics :P) They don't however require the car owners to *prove*
the seat is uncomfortable, no snaps shots of cherry red asses are acquired and analyzed, or doctor's statements.
A better analogy would be that some people say the seat is better, some say it's shit, some say it needs to be wider/thinner/softer/harder etc. If people said what they thought the problem was then that's OK. Most people around here just suggest stupid un thought out "fixes" or "it sucks" with no backup. That's useless. In your analogy if a seating expert says it should be harder without backup then it would be considered. When so random person says that it should be harder it will just be ignored with all the people who are saying the opposite.
In trem you switch "expert" for "proved not to be a lolling moron".
Kage Mane: AFAIK where you can evolve hasn't changed. If you could do it in 1.1 (sounds hard) then you should be able to do it now.
-
Here is an example, take a automotive engineer, who has spent his\her life designing car interiors. S\he
has years of experience, and several successful interiors to his\her credit. However the latest car
release by the auto manufacturer is met with "this seat is uncomfortable, the mug holder is the wrong spot,
etc.." The engineer cannot solve this problem with "I'm am an experience egro engineer, you are just the user,
you do not have the expertise I have, therefore your complaint about the uncomfortable seat is invalid."
That doesn't happen, the seat is changed, and a test group, sits in the seat, and gives their opinions on
"how comfortable it is". The engineers take the information from the test group, to re-engineer a better seat.
(Not from ass to seat time contact statistics :P) They don't however require the car owners to *prove*
the seat is uncomfortable, no snaps shots of cherry red asses are acquired and analyzed, or doctor's statements.
A better analogy would be that some people say the seat is better, some say it's shit, some say it needs to be wider/thinner/softer/harder etc. If people said what they thought the problem was then that's OK. Most people around here just suggest stupid un thought out "fixes" or "it sucks" with no backup. That's useless. In your analogy if a seating expert says it should be harder without backup then it would be considered. When so random person says that it should be harder it will just be ignored with all the people who are saying the opposite.
In trem you switch "expert" for "proved not to be a lolling moron".
Kage Mane: AFAIK where you can evolve hasn't changed. If you could do it in 1.1 (sounds hard) then you should be able to do it now.
Unfortunately, a manufacturer cannot rely on those that state "its better", because 1 person, who dislikes it,
reflects 1000 silent people who also feel the same. The company has the desire to acquire more customers\clients
so complaints take priority, over satisfied customers. So we need to focus on solving what stops new players from
playing, and old players from leaving. Yes, a manufacturer will take the word of an engineer initially but would
not go to production without market research.(ie do the people actually like the change)
Well, the lol'ing morons, whether they can make any coherent statement, are still infact players, and users of the
game software. So at least you have to investigate their complaints to see if it has grounds.
-
One thing statistics will never (I know you are aware of this) reflect, is individual player skill, and it
is usually key in who wins or loses. More often than not, poor building causes humans to lose, over
any alien class balance or skill. Humans win not due to well planned forward base construction, but nonstop rushing,
spamming mobs, preventing alien evolution or build point regeneration.
For that you just take the average of 200+ games...
Unfortunately, statistics will only give you data on results, but not *why* a game
was lost or won. You can only infer the results, but never really grasp the real reasons and
it will not show causality. (ie Humans won, Lots of flamer kills == flamer op, while the truth maybe
aliens had a griefer, that moved the overmind, built an egg to feed the humans)
You don't have a clue what statistics are. If aliens really have a griefer in a significant amount of the 200 games, you might as well balance for it.
Really, please explain how game win:loss, kills:deaths statistics will let you determine the existence of griefers,
and how you that let you "balance for griefers". Wouldn't empirical observation, but more worthwhile?
74.54% percent of me, disagrees :P (made those numbers up, <3 stats)
-
One thing statistics will never (I know you are aware of this) reflect, is individual player skill, and it
is usually key in who wins or loses. More often than not, poor building causes humans to lose, over
any alien class balance or skill. Humans win not due to well planned forward base construction, but nonstop rushing,
spamming mobs, preventing alien evolution or build point regeneration.
For that you just take the average of 200+ games...
Unfortunately, statistics will only give you data on results, but not *why* a game
was lost or won. You can only infer the results, but never really grasp the real reasons and
it will not show causality. (ie Humans won, Lots of flamer kills == flamer op, while the truth maybe
aliens had a griefer, that moved the overmind, built an egg to feed the humans)
You don't have a clue what statistics are. If aliens really have a griefer in a significant amount of the 200 games, you might as well balance for it.
Really, please explain how game win:loss, kills:deaths statistics will let you determine the existence of griefers,
and how you that let you "balance for griefers". Wouldn't empirical observation, but more worthwhile?
74.54% percent of me, disagrees :P (made those numbers up, <3 stats)
The griefers was your example....
If a game was lost because of a greifer, it will not have a large affect and a sampling of 1,000 games. If however, 350 games were lost out of 1,000 due to greifing, it will affect the statistics, and also should be dealt with (implementing some kind of serious anti decon system or something).
This is pretty basic stuff, and UniqPhoeniX allready explained basically exactly what I said, but you somehow, a. missed his explanation, and b. missed that he was responding to YOUR example.
-
One thing statistics will never (I know you are aware of this) reflect, is individual player skill, and it
is usually key in who wins or loses. More often than not, poor building causes humans to lose, over
any alien class balance or skill. Humans win not due to well planned forward base construction, but nonstop rushing,
spamming mobs, preventing alien evolution or build point regeneration.
For that you just take the average of 200+ games...
Unfortunately, statistics will only give you data on results, but not *why* a game
was lost or won. You can only infer the results, but never really grasp the real reasons and
it will not show causality. (ie Humans won, Lots of flamer kills == flamer op, while the truth maybe
aliens had a griefer, that moved the overmind, built an egg to feed the humans)
You don't have a clue what statistics are. If aliens really have a griefer in a significant amount of the 200 games, you might as well balance for it.
Really, please explain how game win:loss, kills:deaths statistics will let you determine the existence of griefers,
and how you that let you "balance for griefers". Wouldn't empirical observation, but more worthwhile?
74.54% percent of me, disagrees :P (made those numbers up, <3 stats)
The griefers was your example....
If a game was lost because of a greifer, it will not have a large affect and a sampling of 1,000 games. If however, 350 games were lost out of 1,000 due to greifing, it will affect the statistics, and also should be dealt with (implementing some kind of serious anti decon system or something).
This is pretty basic stuff, and UniqPhoeniX allready explained basically exactly what I said, but you somehow, a. missed his explanation, and b. missed that he was responding to YOUR example.
How will you know the loss was the result of griefing? How can you tell one loss, from an intentional lose, via
win loss statistics?
-
One thing statistics will never (I know you are aware of this) reflect, is individual player skill, and it
is usually key in who wins or loses. More often than not, poor building causes humans to lose, over
any alien class balance or skill. Humans win not due to well planned forward base construction, but nonstop rushing,
spamming mobs, preventing alien evolution or build point regeneration.
For that you just take the average of 200+ games...
Unfortunately, statistics will only give you data on results, but not *why* a game
was lost or won. You can only infer the results, but never really grasp the real reasons and
it will not show causality. (ie Humans won, Lots of flamer kills == flamer op, while the truth maybe
aliens had a griefer, that moved the overmind, built an egg to feed the humans)
You don't have a clue what statistics are. If aliens really have a griefer in a significant amount of the 200 games, you might as well balance for it.
Really, please explain how game win:loss, kills:deaths statistics will let you determine the existence of griefers,
and how you that let you "balance for griefers". Wouldn't empirical observation, but more worthwhile?
74.54% percent of me, disagrees :P (made those numbers up, <3 stats)
The griefers was your example....
If a game was lost because of a greifer, it will not have a large affect and a sampling of 1,000 games. If however, 350 games were lost out of 1,000 due to greifing, it will affect the statistics, and also should be dealt with (implementing some kind of serious anti decon system or something).
This is pretty basic stuff, and UniqPhoeniX allready explained basically exactly what I said, but you somehow, a. missed his explanation, and b. missed that he was responding to YOUR example.
How will you know the loss was the result of griefing? How can you tell one loss, from an intentional lose, via
win loss statistics?
If it isn't right away, than no, you probably couldn't tell the difference, but I don't see what that has to do with your point. If somebody decons the human's base this does not change the weapons needing to be stronger or weaker, and an experienced gamer will not help with this, he would be less accurate than stats as to determening how many times someone decons.
Here is the main point: Look at some of the graphs, if the the overall line is fairly straight, that means the game is pretty balanced. If, after 1,000 games, the line is more or less straight, (balanced between human and alien wins [as it has been]) than you can know that the changes are correctly balancing the gameplay, which includes, as to your example, greifers. Since we can assume that over a large enough sampling, the numbers show an average Tremulous game play, and that this will include some greifing, it seems safe to say that this is not a problem, balance-wise. As far as individual games go, that is for admins, and not something balancing deals with.
Besides which, I find it hard to believe you haven't at least noticed all the posts in this thread and others, even if you havn't taken the time to read them. In it, there are many examples of feedback being given to the developers, and it being acted upon. It is obvious that statistics and data must be needed to balance a game, and it is obvious that player feedback must also be needed. Given that both seem to be happening, I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
You still are seeming to misunderstand what statistics do though, with enough sampling of data, you find what can be assumed to be the best averages, and you balance the game towards that.
-
Can we quote tree more please
-
If it isn't right away, than no, you probably couldn't tell the difference, but I don't see what that has to do with your point. If somebody decons the human's base this does not change the weapons needing to be stronger or weaker, and an experienced gamer will not help with this, he would be less accurate than stats as to determening how many times someone decons.
Here is the main point: Look at some of the graphs, if the the overall line is fairly straight, that means the game is pretty balanced. If, after 1,000 games, the line is more or less straight, (balanced between human and alien wins [as it has been]) than you can know that the changes are correctly balancing the gameplay, which includes, as to your example, greifers. Since we can assume that over a large enough sampling, the numbers show an average Tremulous game play, and that this will include some greifing, it seems safe to say that this is not a problem, balance-wise. As far as individual games go, that is for admins, and not something balancing deals with.
Besides which, I find it hard to believe you haven't at least noticed all the posts in this thread and others, even if you havn't taken the time to read them. In it, there are many examples of feedback being given to the developers, and it being acted upon. It is obvious that statistics and data must be needed to balance a game, and it is obvious that player feedback must also be needed. Given that both seem to be happening, I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
You still are seeming to misunderstand what statistics do though, with enough sampling of data, you find what can be assumed to be the best averages, and you balance the game towards that.
So if the overall line in wins losses, on the X server, with flying grangers, spitting bouncing instant death barbs, and 1 shot kill blasters was *fairly straight*, would you call the X server balanced?
The point I've tried to make, but instead its lead to nerd-rage defense of the discipline of statistics is, its
impossible to define balance and trying to do so via statistics, to me, shouldn't be the primary method. Since if you
gave both teams instant kill weapons, and map clearing AoEs, if both team had them, its *balanced*. Does it *feel*
balanced? Does it feel, regardless of which team you are playing, balanced in the regards, that both teams have equal
chance at all stages?
We are in year 2, of the *improvement*, "I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.", is I imagine we will see year 3. I'm trying to say, things need to be *acted upon* timely, because at this point, I feel its more about love for analysis then actually completing anything.
Need to reach a final state, leave the door open for patches, and consolidate the trem playing community back into
one minded group, *eagerly awaiting* new model, new maps, and *needed adjustments.
-
So if the overall line in wins losses, on the X server, with flying grangers, spitting bouncing instant death barbs, and 1 shot kill blasters was *fairly straight*, would you call the X server balanced?
The point I've tried to make, but instead its lead to nerd-rage defense of the discipline of statistics is, its
impossible to define balance and trying to do so via statistics, to me, shouldn't be the primary method. Since if you
gave both teams instant kill weapons, and map clearing AoEs, if both team had them, its *balanced*. Does it *feel*
balanced? Does it feel, regardless of which team you are playing, balanced in the regards, that both teams have equal
chance at all stages?
We are in year 2, of the *improvement*, "I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.", is I imagine we will see year 3. I'm trying to say, things need to be *acted upon* timely, because at this point, I feel its more about love for analysis then actually completing anything.
Need to reach a final state, leave the door open for patches, and consolidate the trem playing community back into
one minded group, *eagerly awaiting* new model, new maps, and *needed adjustments.
I don't quite understand how the lines on the graphs show balance, but yes, it would still be balanced. As would a game with grangers vs grangers only. And your post totally missed any point there might have been. There is no *feel* for balance, there are whiners, and statistics. A single game can't show whether the game is balanced.
What you might have wanted to say was, "does the gameplay (not balance) feel good/interesting?". In which case I'd have to say yes.
Also, wtf is with the newlines in the end of your posts? IIRC someone else had those aswell.
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So if the overall line in wins losses, on the X server, with flying grangers, spitting bouncing instant death barbs, and 1 shot kill blasters was *fairly straight*, would you call the X server balanced?
The point I've tried to make, but instead its lead to nerd-rage defense of the discipline of statistics is, its
impossible to define balance and trying to do so via statistics, to me, shouldn't be the primary method. Since if you
gave both teams instant kill weapons, and map clearing AoEs, if both team had them, its *balanced*. Does it *feel*
balanced? Does it feel, regardless of which team you are playing, balanced in the regards, that both teams have equal
chance at all stages?
We are in year 2, of the *improvement*, "I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.", is I imagine we will see year 3. I'm trying to say, things need to be *acted upon* timely, because at this point, I feel its more about love for analysis then actually completing anything.
Need to reach a final state, leave the door open for patches, and consolidate the trem playing community back into
one minded group, *eagerly awaiting* new model, new maps, and *needed adjustments.
I don't quite understand how the lines on the graphs show balance, but yes, it would still be balanced. As would a game with grangers vs grangers only. And your post totally missed any point there might have been. There is no *feel* for balance, there are whiners, and statistics. A single game can't show whether the game is balanced.
What you might have wanted to say was, "does the gameplay (not balance) feel good/interesting?". In which case I'd have to say yes.
Also, wtf is with the newlines in the end of your posts? IIRC someone else had those aswell.
Finally.
So you agree this is more about feel,than about raw stats, in determining *gameplay*. Call it balance (the ability
for both teams to defend and assault with equal yet different means) or gameplay (the feeling both teams are able
to defend and assault with equal yet different means + is it fun). Beyond the debate over semantics, or the merit of
statistics, we agree on gameplay is determined by personal experience (and consensus of the trem user
base) ?
I am using opera to post this, I am not adding any new lines intentionally in the edit box, if its being added, I
have no idea why. Why is this important?
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If it isn't right away, than no, you probably couldn't tell the difference, but I don't see what that has to do with your point. If somebody decons the human's base this does not change the weapons needing to be stronger or weaker, and an experienced gamer will not help with this, he would be less accurate than stats as to determening how many times someone decons.
Here is the main point: Look at some of the graphs, if the the overall line is fairly straight, that means the game is pretty balanced. If, after 1,000 games, the line is more or less straight, (balanced between human and alien wins [as it has been]) than you can know that the changes are correctly balancing the gameplay, which includes, as to your example, greifers. Since we can assume that over a large enough sampling, the numbers show an average Tremulous game play, and that this will include some greifing, it seems safe to say that this is not a problem, balance-wise. As far as individual games go, that is for admins, and not something balancing deals with.
Besides which, I find it hard to believe you haven't at least noticed all the posts in this thread and others, even if you havn't taken the time to read them. In it, there are many examples of feedback being given to the developers, and it being acted upon. It is obvious that statistics and data must be needed to balance a game, and it is obvious that player feedback must also be needed. Given that both seem to be happening, I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
You still are seeming to misunderstand what statistics do though, with enough sampling of data, you find what can be assumed to be the best averages, and you balance the game towards that.
So if the overall line in wins losses, on the X server, with flying grangers, spitting bouncing instant death barbs, and 1 shot kill blasters was *fairly straight*, would you call the X server balanced?
Yes... that would actually be balanced... that is what balanced means, fair for each team. You might not enjoy it, but that doesn't make it unbalanced.
The point I've tried to make, but instead its lead to nerd-rage defense of the discipline of statistics is, its
impossible to define balance and trying to do so via statistics, to me, shouldn't be the primary method. Since if you
gave both teams instant kill weapons, and map clearing AoEs, if both team had them, its *balanced*. Does it *feel*
balanced? Does it feel, regardless of which team you are playing, balanced in the regards, that both teams have equal
chance at all stages?
We are in year 2, of the *improvement*, "I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.", is I imagine we will see year 3. I'm trying to say, things need to be *acted upon* timely, because at this point, I feel its more about love for analysis then actually completing anything.
Need to reach a final state, leave the door open for patches, and consolidate the trem playing community back into
one minded group, *eagerly awaiting* new model, new maps, and *needed adjustments.
Of course player feedback is needed.... That has been said hundreds of times, including right before you. I really wish you bothered to pay attention.
And it seems you didn't bother reading anyone elses posts much, and have degraded to insults, so I'm done trying to talk to you, I hope for your sake Norf has more pateince than me, although he had to get through at least three posts to explain to you that people actually need to back their ideas, not just shout them and expect them to be answered.
-
Finally.
So you agree this is more about feel,than about raw stats, in determining *gameplay*. Call it balance (the ability
for both teams to defend and assault with equal yet different means) or gameplay (the feeling both teams are able
to defend and assault with equal yet different means + is it fun). Beyond the debate over semantics, or the merit of
statistics, we agree on gameplay is determined by personal experience (and consensus of the trem user
base) ?
In determining if some part of the gameplay is fun, yes it's about feel, tho stats can help. Gameplay and balance are not the same, tho they are related. Just you kept trying to call in "balance" when you were talking about whether something "feels" fun. A "feel" is also an opinion not a fact. IMO this whole gameplay preview is about balancing win/loss ratio (the chance for either team to win in an avg game), making all classes/weapons useful (not over/underused), AND trying to keep the gameplay fun.
Unfortunately, a manufacturer cannot rely on those that state "its better", because 1 person, who dislikes it,
reflects 1000 silent people who also feel the same. The company has the desire to acquire more customers\clients
so complaints take priority, over satisfied customers. So we need to focus on solving what stops new players from
playing, and old players from leaving. Yes, a manufacturer will take the word of an engineer initially but would
not go to production without market research.(ie do the people actually like the change)
Yes, 1 person can reflect some larger part of the market, but more persons are disagreeing with you and they would reflect a bigger part of the market. Your complaints are not discarded because it's "just 1 person", but because it's the minority of opinions and a lack of reasons.
And as others have said, you will need better reasoning for whatever changes you want made. And yes, keep the insults out of here. You might think luci is too cheap just because it's the most powerful weapon, but noone here seems to agree ???. Looking at your original post in this thread, you suggested changes only based on lack of similarity between teams, or on nothing at all.
Now, if you understand why ppl are disagreeing with you, go review your post, and see if you can salvage anything from there. And add proper reasoning.
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If it isn't right away, than no, you probably couldn't tell the difference, but I don't see what that has to do with your point. If somebody decons the human's base this does not change the weapons needing to be stronger or weaker, and an experienced gamer will not help with this, he would be less accurate than stats as to determening how many times someone decons.
Here is the main point: Look at some of the graphs, if the the overall line is fairly straight, that means the game is pretty balanced. If, after 1,000 games, the line is more or less straight, (balanced between human and alien wins [as it has been]) than you can know that the changes are correctly balancing the gameplay, which includes, as to your example, greifers. Since we can assume that over a large enough sampling, the numbers show an average Tremulous game play, and that this will include some greifing, it seems safe to say that this is not a problem, balance-wise. As far as individual games go, that is for admins, and not something balancing deals with.
Besides which, I find it hard to believe you haven't at least noticed all the posts in this thread and others, even if you havn't taken the time to read them. In it, there are many examples of feedback being given to the developers, and it being acted upon. It is obvious that statistics and data must be needed to balance a game, and it is obvious that player feedback must also be needed. Given that both seem to be happening, I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
You still are seeming to misunderstand what statistics do though, with enough sampling of data, you find what can be assumed to be the best averages, and you balance the game towards that.
So if the overall line in wins losses, on the X server, with flying grangers, spitting bouncing instant death barbs, and 1 shot kill blasters was *fairly straight*, would you call the X server balanced?
Yes... that would actually be balanced... that is what balanced means, fair for each team. You might not enjoy it, but that doesn't make it unbalanced.
The point I've tried to make, but instead its lead to nerd-rage defense of the discipline of statistics is, its
impossible to define balance and trying to do so via statistics, to me, shouldn't be the primary method. Since if you
gave both teams instant kill weapons, and map clearing AoEs, if both team had them, its *balanced*. Does it *feel*
balanced? Does it feel, regardless of which team you are playing, balanced in the regards, that both teams have equal
chance at all stages?
We are in year 2, of the *improvement*, "I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.", is I imagine we will see year 3. I'm trying to say, things need to be *acted upon* timely, because at this point, I feel its more about love for analysis then actually completing anything.
Need to reach a final state, leave the door open for patches, and consolidate the trem playing community back into
one minded group, *eagerly awaiting* new model, new maps, and *needed adjustments.
Of course player feedback is needed.... That has been said hundreds of times, including right before you. I really wish you bothered to pay attention.
And it seems you didn't bother reading anyone elses posts much, and have degraded to insults, so I'm done trying to talk to you, I hope for your sake Norf has more pateince than me, although he had to get through at least three posts to explain to you that people actually need to back their ideas, not just shout them and expect them to be answered.
Where did I insult? It was never my intention to insult. I only started my first forum account, after years of playing,
to express my opinions, so regardless of how valid it may be, I got my 2 cents in.
"so I'm done trying to talk to you, I hope for your sake Norf has more pateince than me"
For my sake? Whats my punishment? This is how you prove you aren't adversarial and this is an open discussion?
So what is the point of a forum in trem, when anyone that doesn't agree 100% is considered a "whiner".
(its been said before once already)
You say "of course player feedback is needed" but each phase, the apparent determing factor seems to be stat analyis,
can you point out a moment where it wasn't 1 devs, or stat based change?
Geez.
-
Finally.
So you agree this is more about feel,than about raw stats, in determining *gameplay*. Call it balance (the ability
for both teams to defend and assault with equal yet different means) or gameplay (the feeling both teams are able
to defend and assault with equal yet different means + is it fun). Beyond the debate over semantics, or the merit of
statistics, we agree on gameplay is determined by personal experience (and consensus of the trem user
base) ?
In determining if some part of the gameplay is fun, yes it's about feel, tho stats can help. Gameplay and balance are not the same, tho they are related. Just you kept trying to call in "balance" when you were talking about whether something "feels" fun. A "feel" is also an opinion not a fact. IMO this whole gameplay preview is about balancing win/loss ratio (the chance for either team to win in an avg game), making all classes/weapons useful (not over/underused), AND trying to keep the gameplay fun.
Unfortunately, a manufacturer cannot rely on those that state "its better", because 1 person, who dislikes it,
reflects 1000 silent people who also feel the same. The company has the desire to acquire more customers\clients
so complaints take priority, over satisfied customers. So we need to focus on solving what stops new players from
playing, and old players from leaving. Yes, a manufacturer will take the word of an engineer initially but would
not go to production without market research.(ie do the people actually like the change)
Yes, 1 person can reflect some larger part of the market, but more persons are disagreeing with you and they would reflect a bigger part of the market. Your complaints are not discarded because it's "just 1 person", but because it's the minority of opinions and a lack of reasons.
And as others have said, you will need better reasoning for whatever changes you want made. And yes, keep the insults out of here. You might think luci is too cheap just because it's the most powerful weapon, but noone here seems to agree ???. Looking at your original post in this thread, you suggested changes only based on lack of similarity between teams, or on nothing at all.
Now, if you understand why ppl are disagreeing with you, go review your post, and see if you can salvage anything from there. And add proper reasoning.
So you agree, but just have a semantic issue with the terms balance or gameplay. Regardless we have the same motives.
If the majority of the trem public disagrees, then thats OK. Then we will retain players, and possibly gain more. Its only MY opinion from playing experience over years, that certain items have created imbalanced moments.
I've reach a point of ultimate Oo. I expect to be disagreed with, I only posted my opinions, not imperatives I
expected to be acted upon. I expect an open discussion, I don't expect anything to be changed in favor of what I
am stating. Why oh why, do you keep replying to me, If anything I say lacks merit. How long of a essay must I write, in order for my *Personal opinions* to be read. I don't expect them to be acted upon, I posted here to get them public, my personal views, THATS it.
The irony in all this, the only thing I got validated was the adversarial stance, I felt existed.
If you feel disagreeing is an "insult", or stating opinions about apparent behaviors "insults" perhaps this is
a culutral thing. I never said "so an so is an idiot. or anything to that nature"
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That doesn't happen, the seat is changed, and a test group, sits in the seat, and gives their opinions on
"how comfortable it is". The engineers take the information from the test group, to re-engineer a better seat.
(Not from ass to seat time contact statistics :P) They don't however require the car owners to *prove*
the seat is uncomfortable, no snaps shots of cherry red asses are acquired and analyzed, or doctor's statements.
So, my point is, it will be unsuccessful to get mr "leik wack lawlz" to prove himself, just at least hear his\her
complaint and see if there is any basis or consensus on it.
Since the end of phase one the only thing I've been using the statistics for is verifying that the choices I make aren't major regressions, and for hinting at what needs to be changed when the feedback isn't enough. In fact, we have an example of exactly the process you describe already: there was a general consensus that humans had too little stamina, I looked into it and made a change, and statistics had absolutely nothing to do with any of it. The problem is that it's very rare for such a consensus to arise, so when a suggestion doesn't have a majority opinion backing it up, then yes, the suggester needs to back it up with something else. Understand also that subjective and objective ideas are going to be judged differently: if you say "the lucifer cannon is overpowered, period", I can just say "no it isn't", but if you say "I think area-effect weapons are cheap" then that's a different discussion (which we ought to get to eventually...).
Well, the lol'ing morons, whether they can make any coherent statement, are still infact players, and users of the
game software. So at least you have to investigate their complaints to see if it has grounds.
A "lol'ing" moron is someone who doesn't make coherent statements. Everyone else gets consideration (and even the aforementioned get consideration until I'm good and certain that reading their posts is a waste of time, and there aren't many people that have reached that point so far).
So if the overall line in wins losses, on the X server, with flying grangers, spitting bouncing instant death barbs, and 1 shot kill blasters was *fairly straight*, would you call the X server balanced?
Yes, that would be balanced. The point of balance is to make the game more fun though, which is why I'm hardly using the statistics at all anymore. UniqPhoeniX has the right idea:
In determining if some part of the gameplay is fun, yes it's about feel, tho stats can help. Gameplay and balance are not the same, tho they are related. Just you kept trying to call in "balance" when you were talking about whether something "feels" fun. A "feel" is also an opinion not a fact. IMO this whole gameplay preview is about balancing win/loss ratio (the chance for either team to win in an avg game), making all classes/weapons useful (not over/underused), AND trying to keep the gameplay fun.
Though, obviously, fun is the first priority.
You say "of course player feedback is needed" but each phase, the apparent determing factor seems to be stat analyis,
can you point out a moment where it wasn't 1 devs, or stat based change?
I don't think you've been paying close enough attention. Every change has been either because of feedback or my own intuition, with the statistics only serving to back up those decisions (and not even every decision).
Phase 1- Chaingun damage increased - I saw complaints and didn't disagree because the statistics showed humans losing more than aliens.
- Flamer damage increased - I felt it wasn't useful enough yet, and the statistics showed humans losing more than aliens.
- Granger spit slow time reduced - It annoyed me (mostly, see the post for other reasons).
Phase 2- Flamer further adjusted - Splash damage reduced because of feedback and my own experience; statistics showed it wasn't accomplishing much in the way of player and structure kills.
- Stamina changes - As mentioned, this was changed solely because of feedback; I didn't really feel like there was a problem, but also saw no harm in making it better. Statistics weren't involved.
- Goon changes - Changed because, after playing with it enough, I came to agree with the feedback (and because it had been long enough that I could trust that the feedback wasn't based on people being too used to the old goon).
Phase 3- Further goon and flamer changes - Based on feedback and my intuition; I actually looked at the stats after deciding what to change in this phase.
- Marauder air acceleration increase - Entirely based on feedback, just like the stamina change (I would have just let it go if not for people complaining about it)
- Friendly fire - not a balance change, but I wouldn't have done any testing with friendly fire on at all if not for so many people requesting it.
Also notice how the balance graphs got worse between phase two and phase three. Ideally they'd be flat and even, but they can only tell you so much.
Are we able to evolve midair still?
Not only can you (still) evolve in the air, but you no longer lose your velocity when you do it (pounce -> tyrant -> crush -> :)).
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Are we able to evolve midair still?
Not only can you (still) evolve in the air, but you no longer lose your velocity when you do it (pounce -> tyrant -> crush -> :)).
:o
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- Friendly fire - not a balance change, but I wouldn't have done any testing with friendly fire on at all if not for so many people requesting it.
Assuming that many/most 1.2 servers will play with FF on, how could it not be on for testing? Flamer, luci, pulse are all so much more powerful if you can just fire into a crowd without worrying who gets hit. If they were balance-tuned with FF off, then they would be far too nerfed for servers with FF on.
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Assuming that many/most 1.2 servers will play with FF on, how could it not be on for testing? Flamer, luci, pulse are all so much more powerful if you can just fire into a crowd without worrying who gets hit. If they were balance-tuned with FF off, then they would be far too nerfed for servers with FF on.
Because I don't like it, and would have been content to only balance for it off (which, incidently, is how 1.1 was playtested)? That was the point I was making: I only care about it because other people do.
Besides that, I totally disagree that it makes as much difference as you're suggesting. As of now, I have no plans to adjust anything because of friendly fire; the game really feels hardly any different at all now that people have adjusted to it.
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Besides that, I totally disagree that it makes as much difference as you're suggesting. As of now, I have no plans to adjust anything because of friendly fire; the game really feels hardly any different at all now that people have adjusted to it.
Actually it makes great difference when people have adjusted to it - mass human rushes have more cons, you can't spam rifle/lasgun/pulse/anything when you see your teammate being attacked by lisk or dretch swarm, as alien you have to make sure you won't hit a teammate instead of an enemy, and so on. Basically it makes assisting harder, and in certain situations solo play easier than it used to. The good, IMO, example is nano, with friendly fire off I rarely saw aliens winning it, now it's actually playable.
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I understand how it's different, but there's nothing about it that stands out as warranting a change. The ratio of wins is tilting more in favor of aliens now, so maybe something will become obvious, but until then I'm not going to change things just to suit the graphs when nothing major is bothering me about the gameplay.
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....I'm not going to change things just to suit the graphs when nothing major is bothering me about the gameplay.
+1
Good going, I like you Norf.
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[...]
[snipped]
...but if you say "I think area-effect weapons are cheap" then that's a different discussion (which we ought to get to eventually...).
w00t :), Yes, Thank you.
While I do see a need to *end* a game:
- the instant base death to adv mara team zap
- psaw grenade spam suicide rushes
...make defending almost impossible. Its hard to even shoot the maras for fear of tking
the base, and you cannot stop a grenade popped out at death. It wasn't such an issue in 1.1 because
tyrants were overpowered and build point regeneration was almost instant.
In regards to the phase list changes, I guess I'm also referring to changes that happened, during the course of the 2
years prior, and the reasoning behind such things as *dodge*. Everything else was a nerf or a boost, or to make items
more useful (ie Hives and Repeaters) by why add an additional movement buff? Why not just make the existing jump
higher instead of a new much stronger horizontal jump.
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I want the battery pack to make my PAIN saw deal out more PAIN! PAIN! gg :acidtube: :egg: :barricade: :hovel: :hive: :trapper: :booster: :overmind:
kgo.
Maybe battpack gives +8 range?
Im sure youve read that post structure a few million too many times xD
More On Topic..
I cant wait until 1.2 :D (is there an estimated date to release it?). i would play on the gpp server, however my ping is about 250+ on that server. We did have a server running when the first gpp was released but many people disliked the changes.
Nevertheless, Australia will merge over to 1.2 once it is released.
Also, could i just ask that the dev team update the news a bit more? (We have a news bot that has made 7 posts since august of 2009). More updates will keep everyone interested in whats happening :) we really enjoyed critiquing the Tremulous 1.2 weapons preview, and many (two pages i think) comments were made about the epicness of the lucifer cannon images that were leaked :D
Ugh, im rambling on. My main point is that we love videos showcasing ideas, whether they be bad or good. LETS HAVE SOME UPDATES! Pl0x.
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In regards to the phase list changes, I guess I'm also referring to changes that happened, during the course of the 2
years prior, and the reasoning behind such things as *dodge*.
Dodge was added for fun. I like movement abilities and felt that humans deserved something extra, considering how many more aliens have. And I'd been playing Warsow (http://www.warsow.net) at the time...
Any direct damage item, bite\weapon that can ONE HIT kill, a member of the opposing team.
No weapons are items with extremely low repeat rates and long ranges.
I think I know what you're talking about here -- they're what I call "super weapons": weapons that are so internally imbalanced that they're always either cheap for the wielder (too much penalty for failure) or cheap for the victim (too unfair when successful). I think some things in tremulous do approach this (I'll probably never be happy with the goon chomp at stage one), but for the most part it comes down to being a matter of opinion. I do, however, think it's important for fun's sake to not be shy about having powerful abilities with tradeoffs, so we unfortunately can't just be aggressive about toning these things down indiscriminately.
Cheap items that can AoE(Area of effect) for massive damage.
It removes skill and planning from the game and just ensures mindless spamming.
(grenades, adv mara zap, etc..)
I think the opposite is true, on both accounts.
More strategy (planning), not less, because you have to account for different types of attacks. Instead of (for instance) packing all your defenses together in one front (which is fine if the enemy can only kill one thing at a time) you have to balance between your defensive structures assisting each other and being vulnerable to area effect weapons.
Less mindless spam because with area effect weapons it's actually beneficial to choose your targets carefully. Given three turrets and tyrant it doesn't matter (all else being equal) which one you start slashing first, but with the zap there's actually the question of which target would maximize your damage (e.g. are two close enough to chain but one isn't?). So the same amount of spam really, but not mindless.
In fact, I've intentionally given aliens better area effect weapons because I don't think the game can scale up without them. Versus 30 acid tubes behind a door humans can at least drop a grenade before dying instantly, but without the zap and explosive barbs, aliens can end up in a situation where they can take out no human defenses because they just wouldn't be able to deliver enough damage before being overwhelmed. Area damage fixes that by both giving recourse to the attacker and disincentive to the defender.
And to address your specific examples...
While I do see a need to *end* a game:
- the instant base death to adv mara team zap
- psaw grenade spam suicide rushes
...make defending almost impossible. Its hard to even shoot the maras for fear of tking
the base, and you cannot stop a grenade popped out at death.
The cheeky-but-true answer is: stop them before they reach your base. The fact is, multiplayer games need to favor offense over defense (or risk grinding to a standstill), so against a team's best base-attacking options, your only sustainable defense is to do it to them first ("the best defense..."). Team Lightning is pretty devastating, but that's the reward for teamwork (Saw Bros. is pretty devastating too...), but to be really effective requires going kamikaze. So both examples involve burning funds (and even if you don't die as a human, grenades are the only nonrefillable weapon in the game -- definitely the closest thing to a "super weapon" Trem has) in big attacks (which is intentional; the cadence of the game is supposed to be: fight players to earn funds, the team that gets the advantage base-attacks and either wins or exhausts their reserves, repeat till one team does win). So, given their tradeoffs and that they're only almost-impossible to defend if you let the enemy reach that point, I think they help the game more than hurt it.
Also, could i just ask that the dev team update the news a bit more?
http://tremulous.net/forum/index.php?topic=12973.0
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The only really big problem I can still see is the underpowered dretch.
It feels pretty "correct" to me. What do you still not like?
It's just so damn horribly weak.
It needs to have a slightly more powerful attack (2*hs should almost guarantee a kill)
I also wouldn't mind bumping it's health up a bit.
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The only really big problem I can still see is the underpowered dretch.
It feels pretty "correct" to me. What do you still not like?
It's just so damn horribly weak.
It needs to have a slightly more powerful attack (2*hs should almost guarantee a kill)
I also wouldn't mind bumping it's health up a bit.
this is normal dmg from svn's tremulous.h
#define LEVEL0_BITE_DMG ADM(36)
in the gpp files i got loc dmg for headbites to be 1.5x more so now the damage is 54
now if the dretch bit the human twice hmm 54x2 108 funny isn't humans max hp 100 well i guess 2 head bites does guarantee a kill already
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omg lol slakcer lunix i tink u jst resrchpwnd cadynm
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The only really big problem I can still see is the underpowered dretch.
It feels pretty "correct" to me. What do you still not like?
It's just so damn horribly weak.
It needs to have a slightly more powerful attack (2*hs should almost guarantee a kill)
I also wouldn't mind bumping it's health up a bit.
this is normal dmg from svn's tremulous.h
#define LEVEL0_BITE_DMG ADM(36)
in the gpp files i got loc dmg for headbites to be 1.5x more so now the damage is 54
now if the dretch bit the human twice hmm 54x2 108 funny isn't humans max hp 100 well i guess 2 head bites does guarantee a kill already
While this is true it doesn't work like that in practice.
From the time you've landed your first head bite (which is already hard enough against a skilled human) to when you land your second you're in most cases dead.
If you do survive long enough to hit a second time the medkit has had plenty of time to restore a few HPs and you'll need more hits.
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I don't see a problem with dretch headbite. I still die from usually the same people as I used to, and since people can't crouch (to cover headbites) dretch overall has improved. So had goon. In scrims imagine humans crouching to try not to get 1 chomped while s1 now, they'll die.
If you're having trouble headbiting, learn to aim as dretch.
Coming from a very unskilled, trolling player, this must be quite a frontal assault to your ego.
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I agree that it's a lot easier to kill few dretches with a rifle than to kill few rifles with a dretch. But I don't think dretch is that underpowered (honestly I think it's fine). I believe that rifle is overpowered (as I said few times already). I don't know numbers, so statistically I might be wrong, but I believe that it has higher dps ( - reload time) than lasgun - when there's a mara rc jumping I get rifle, because it's likely that it lost some hp already (in case it's advanced "bug") and I will shoot it down faster. It's fire-rate saved me many times where there was a dretch storm trying to swarm me and it was likely that if I held lasgun I would he died. Sure lasgun is useful in many situations where rifle would kinda suck (ie. shooting aliens from longer distances, tking) but that doesn't compensate the cost difference. I end up using rifle until we have s1 so I don't lose so many credits in case I die.
Curio: I have more kills with rifle than as dretch even when I have played over 8 hours longer as an alien (18h aliens, 10h humans) [1] (http://stats.tremulous.net/tremstats/eu1/player_details.php?player_id=68)
So what I suggest exactly:
- Reduce bullets per clip to 25 (30 -> 25) but...
- Leave time needed to shoot whole clip unchanged (so basically make it shoot slower)
- [maybe] increase the spread (not sure if that would affect the gameplay in any noticeable way, but would be cool :) )
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The cheeky-but-true answer is: stop them before they reach your base. The fact is, multiplayer games need to favor offense over defense (or risk grinding to a standstill), so against a team's best base-attacking options, your only sustainable defense is to do it to them first ("the best defense..."). Team Lightning is pretty devastating, but that's the reward for teamwork (Saw Bros. is pretty devastating too...), but to be really effective requires going kamikaze.
+10
If RL soldiers let suicide trucks reach the barbed wire, they've already lost. Layered defense requires thought.
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Except RL soldiers have skilled tacticians telling them what to do, and know that everyone else will be holding up their end. Also know everyone else is at least half competent.
In trem there's no coordination (even clan matches can't get near IRL levels of teamwork) and you don't know shit about your team-mates or what they are doing / capable of.
So not a great comparison.
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Except RL soldiers have skilled tacticians telling them what to do, and know that everyone else will be holding up their end. Also know everyone else is at least half competent.
In trem there's no coordination (even clan matches can't get near IRL levels of teamwork) and you don't know shit about your team-mates or what they are doing / capable of.
So not a great comparison.
What David said ^^
I've seen and been on a (bsuit psaw) run through a base of aliens and easily throw a grenade, while
being gang raped by aliens. Only a tyrant has the DPS to kill it fast enough. Now added 3+, and *keep em
coming*, its skill-less human wave attack. Its the best way however, at the moment, to take down a base, due
to the overkill power of it.
Well "Liskey: ...Layered defense requires thought." but norf said "The fact is, multiplayer games need to favor
offense over defense".
Therefore,the only thing it promotes is camping, you at least need 1 tyrant to camp the base, to prevent it (or try).
Or for aliens, a really tight area, you can place 5+ hives, they *almost* instantly kill bsuits, but
they will still get a *dead mans grenade* out, normally.
So perhaps a change to keep grenades as they are, but promote living over suicide's:
1)
Grenades will only explode if, the player is still alive. On death, all grenade(s) are
removed from the world. I haven't looked at the code to see how grenades are tied to the
player, but I assume they are, due to kill credit. I'd love to see someone explain why, humans
should have a post mortem AoE, if so, why not dead exploding dretches :>
2)
Adv maras perhaps, (egads am I saying it), increase the zaps cooldown time, or make the zap
only effective in a mara team, and weaker solo. To at least keep the ability but promote teamwork.
Even though I consider myself I alien player, I would prefer to see non-splash snipes, the primary
way to take down a base. It was always effective in the past, now we have a crazy tking snipe, and
monster zap.
But if the trem community loves the instant dead base possibility, then so be it.
Some people prefer the challenge of the struggle over the chance of an easy win, and from
years of watching stacked games, we will probably never reach a happy medium. I prefer playing
10 more minutes of a challenging game, over 3 games of instant base death.
--------------------
I agree with Asvarox, I can kill a human with a dretch, but its the rifle, that makes
it appear the dretch is weak.
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Camping is standing on top of a ret inside the base. But standing outside with a lasgun weakening incoming maras is smart defense, compared to standing in the base with a flamer broiling the arm.
So is poison dretching the incoming bsuits before they have a chance to get inside with a suicide nade, or weaken them so the camping rant can easily finish them off away from the OM.
I like the consequences of failing to properly defend. I like leveraging the power of a luci against the RC. And I love poison - it's the best defense ever, when used outside.
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In trem there's no coordination (even clan matches can't get near IRL levels of teamwork) and you don't know shit about your team-mates or what they are doing / capable of.
So not a great comparison.
So because in trem you can't count on teamwork, the game should be tuned to make teamwork unnecessary? Nah, you didn't really mean that.
There are lots of stacked team games nowadays. But I think the stacking is just as much a matter of knowing what to do as it is having good aim. When the stack is just a bunch of killwhoring with no one defending, there is nothing more satisfying than raping their base while they're away. And that requires strong area effect attacks.
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I prefer playing 10 more minutes of a challenging game, over 3 games of instant base death.
You are familiar with EA's Battlefield series/ Battlefront, yes?
If trem was perfectly balanced, I'd stop playing it instantly and go back to 2142. At least that's balanced and good looking. It's the mayhem and lack of coordination in trem that make it unique, and in my opinion, worth spending time away from more mainstream stuff.
Also, whenever instant base death occurs, it is badly deserved. A single highly skilled player can tip the odds defending vs a rush, where that would be impossible in other games (or unlikely. You may have noticed I generalize a lot).
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But if the trem community loves the instant dead base possibility, then so be it.
Some people prefer the challenge of the struggle over the chance of an easy win, and from
years of watching stacked games, we will probably never reach a happy medium. I prefer playing
10 more minutes of a challenging game, over 3 games of instant base death.
I almost never see games ending the way you describe, and when I do it's because there aren't enough players on a team to properly defend (meaning: not enough players to notice their base is under attack until it's too late). Not only does it always (otherwise) take multiple waves of attacks to bring down bases, but competent defense can stop them. A typical example is game (http://stats.tremulous.net/tremstats/us1/game_details.php?game_id=1938) I played yesterday on utcs where aliens survived a steady stream of saw-grenade attacks throughout the entire game, and only lost when humans attacked as a team when we were at a funds disadvantage (they had a bunch of chainsuits etc., we had just blown our tyrants and goons trying to attack them). Which is basically exactly how the game is supposed to play out.
Well "Liskey: ...Layered defense requires thought." but norf said "The fact is, multiplayer games need to favor
offense over defense".
Therefore,the only thing it promotes is camping,
Uh, no, your first layer can (and ought to be) offense. That's the point I was trying to make.
I agree with Asvarox, I can kill a human with a dretch, but its the rifle, that makes
it appear the dretch is weak.
Dretches are weaker than rifles, and why shouldn't they be? They're not worth as much.
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Dretches are weaker than rifles, and why shouldn't they be? They're not worth as much.
They are the only offensive class when you start the game.
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Dretches are weaker than rifles, and why shouldn't they be? They're not worth as much.
They are the only offensive class when you start the game.
For Hummies so is rifle? Duh?
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Dretches are weaker than rifles, and why shouldn't they be? They're not worth as much.
I don't see how can you compare evos and credits which are IMO hardly comparable. And even if Dretches are not "worth as much" that certainly doesn't compensate the "strongness" difference between it and rifle.
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A typical example is game (http://stats.tremulous.net/tremstats/us1/game_details.php?game_id=1938) I played yesterday on utcs where aliens survived a steady stream of saw-grenade attacks throughout the entire game, and only lost when humans attacked as a team when we were at a funds disadvantage (they had a bunch of chainsuits etc., we had just blown our tyrants and goons trying to attack them). Which is basically exactly how the game is supposed to play out.
No, we all know the aliens really lost because of you having three times as many team kills as the next highest teamkiller on your team. ;)
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I like it.
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First of all, may I request for an asian official server? We have a group of over 30 players who have played trem for more than2 years. We may not be pro but at least we can play:P. We have also started a new promotion since November. I think we can help on balancing the game.
Some feedbacks on 1.2:1.1 bases r not working at all. You can't build an anti-rant/adv. goon and mara-proofed base now.
Every game that aliens win is basically by mara party rush( :advmarauder:
The only way that human may fight back is by repeators push.
We all think mara zap is a bit ridiculously strong against sad turrets. A mara can jump in without getting hurt much by the base.
I love how the goon is now and I think thats how it should be. Although at first my fds complain about the sad chomp range, they r now get used to it and the pounce-chomp combo is still effective. The 1.1 one is a bit too dominating imho.
Some ppl think that mara should be nerfed but we think it is doing great right now. As a mara user myself, I beg u plz dont increase the hitbox size. The 1.1 one is too easy to be hit by players that can aim( may be u will say I cant play. Wtever)
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First of all, may I request for an asian official server? We have a group of over 30 players who have played trem for more than2 years. We may not be pro but at least we can play:P. We have also started a new promotion since November. I think we can help on balancing the game.
To have an server located in Asia you would need somebody to host it in Asia.
(I'm a genius.)
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Dretches are weaker than rifles, and why shouldn't they be? They're not worth as much.
Because they're the only offensive class aliens have in the start.
Also the new basilisk is not really an offensive class so you need 2 whole evos before you can start attacking for real as aliens.
At that point humans already have a huge advantage given all the dretches you had to sacrifice to get the 2 evos.
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I agree that it's a lot easier to kill few dretches with a rifle than to kill few rifles with a dretch. But I don't think dretch is that underpowered (honestly I think it's fine). I believe that rifle is overpowered (as I said few times already). I don't know numbers, so statistically I might be wrong, but I believe that it has higher dps ( - reload time) than lasgun - when there's a mara rc jumping I get rifle, because it's likely that it lost some hp already (in case it's advanced "bug") and I will shoot it down faster. It's fire-rate saved me many times where there was a dretch storm trying to swarm me and it was likely that if I held lasgun I would he died. Sure lasgun is useful in many situations where rifle would kinda suck (ie. shooting aliens from longer distances, tking) but that doesn't compensate the cost difference. I end up using rifle until we have s1 so I don't lose so many credits in case I die.
IMO lasgun is vastly superior to the rifle.
Just for fun, even if i took note to your "i don't know the numbers", here are some statistics for 1 particular case:
Damage per `bullet`:
L: 9
R: 5
Time between bullets:
L: 0.2s
R: 0.09s
What does this mean?
To kill a dretch you need 3 lasgun shots or 5 rifle shots. Since you fire the first shot instantly it would boil down to this:
L: 0.2s * (3-1) = 0.40s
R: 0.09s * (5-1) = 0.36s
The difference is 0.04s for 1 dretch. A small price to pay for no spread and no reload.
This is, btw, also the reason the massdriver is the best weapon in the game for everything except tyrant (assuming perfect aim) while also strictly speaking having the lowest DPS.
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I almost never see games ending the way you describe, and when I do it's because there aren't enough players on a team to properly defend (meaning: not enough players to notice their base is under attack until it's too late). Not only does it always (otherwise) take multiple waves of attacks to bring down bases, but competent defense can stop them. A typical example is game (http://stats.tremulous.net/tremstats/us1/game_details.php?game_id=1938) I played yesterday on utcs where aliens survived a steady stream of saw-grenade attacks throughout the entire game, and only lost when humans attacked as a team when we were at a funds disadvantage (they had a bunch of chainsuits etc., we had just blown our tyrants and goons trying to attack them). Which is basically exactly how the game is supposed to play out.
Well not instant in this case but you want trem gameplay for aliens to be:
"aliens survived a steady stream of saw-grenade attacks throughout the entire game"
So... humans are suppose to suicide run pain saw the OM, shit a grenade, die, repeat (I did nonstop
all my last humans play, don't recall losing), while aliens try to rebuild eggs and overmind, over and over, for 30
mintues? ( at SD, aliens seem to almost always win, due to the armory )
I would rather play a game where it was a battle between teams and not a defense of the suicide bomber.
*The goal should be to take the other base down, but it shouldn't be as simple and mindless as it currently is, governed
purely by AoE storms, nothing else.
*I prefer peeking around a corner and sniping, then trying to get away, slightly sneaking, using distraction, instead
its now hop into the base as adv mara, spam zap, die, repeat. Or the afore mentioned painsaw-grenades suicide bombers.
A player, that built in the game you referenced, insisted he would not leave the human base, until s3, because
"adv mara is op and our base will die if we leave" It has the same effect for aliens, soo much camping, and the
only major offense, are these attacks.
My only request is, make it so there are other equal options for assault, so you can choose from others, to suit
the best way to take down an opposing teams base. Things like pulse rifles, *aimed* at the overmind, while the
player is *alive* to take the Overmind down, to me, creates more competitive gameplay then "throw grenade,
painsaw om,use medkit, keep sawing till dead (takes 6-8 seconds)".
So my recommendations:
- Grenades only explode if the player who expended it, is alive.
- Remove adv dragon snipe splash.
- Either Adjust adv mara zap OR increase the Telsas range.(its low, and it takes little to block it**
- AND\OR Lower the stage requirement for Hives\Telsas
It means in grenade chucking rushes, its important to stay alive and not just damage till dead.
It means with adv goon, you have to aim again.
It means someone will have to assist the mara storm, or take the telsas down first, before the attack.
The result is something close to a base, you don't have to heavily camp, aliens are rewarded for killing the
rusher fast (stops the grenade), adv goons don't have to *just get close*, and the base can delay a mara assault.
** I've sit on the side of the armory, in close range of a telsa, never receiving its zap once, after, it was
just a few lone mara swipes to kill it myself. Only use is against dretches, since they can't harm any functional
structure.
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Some feedbacks on 1.2:1.1 bases r not working at all. You can't build an anti-rant/adv. goon and mara-proofed base now.
There shouldn't be any kind of *-proof bases, just bases that stay up well enough on their own that you can mount attacks on the enemy's base.
We all think mara zap is a bit ridiculously strong against sad turrets. A mara can jump in without getting hurt much by the base.
...
Some ppl think that mara should be nerfed but we think it is doing great right now. As a mara user myself, I beg u plz dont increase the hitbox size. The 1.1 one is too easy to be hit by players that can aim( may be u will say I cant play. Wtever)
Increasing the hit box would make them take more damage from turrets. I think their speed increase has affected the balance somewhat, so I probably will increase their hitbox sizes slightly. But it won't be back to their 1.1 sizes.
Because they're the only offensive class aliens have in the start.
Also the new basilisk is not really an offensive class so you need 2 whole evos before you can start attacking for real as aliens.
At that point humans already have a huge advantage given all the dretches you had to sacrifice to get the 2 evos.
Not a compelling argument given how dominating (http://imgur.com/8Jtpe.png) aliens are in games ending at stage 1. And most games end between 4.6 and 22.8 minutes (if I'm reading the graph right); getting 2 whole frags isn't much of a stretch in that period, especially since you don't need as many kills to earn an equivalent amount to what the humans are getting from killing you. So I wouldn't say humans get a "huge advantage", and a small advantage is fine if it evens out by stage 3.
Well not instant in this case but you want trem gameplay for aliens to be:
"aliens survived a steady stream of saw-grenade attacks throughout the entire game"
*The goal should be to take the other base down, but it shouldn't be as simple and mindless as it currently is, governed
purely by AoE storms, nothing else.
I was referring to the end game, when the human team united and attacked aliens when the time was right. That wasn't mindless at all. Aliens survived the saw-grenades rushes specifically because they were mindless (not coordinated with teammates, not done at opportune times). So I still don't agree with your premise that area effect weapons are mindless, or game-breaking.
A player, that built in the game you referenced, insisted he would not leave the human base, until s3, because
"adv mara is op and our base will die if we leave" It has the same effect for aliens, soo much camping, and the
only major offense, are these attacks.
Part of the purpose of area effect weapons is to make camping not work. You don't reduce camping by coddling defenders, you reduce it with negative reinforcement: by making offense a necessary part of surviving. If his team had listened to him and stopped attacking, they would (or at least should) have lost.
OR increase the Telsas range.(its low, and it takes little to block it**
I was probably going to do this anyway simply because they're just not useful enough compared to turrets.
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Well not instant in this case but you want trem gameplay for aliens to be:
"aliens survived a steady stream of saw-grenade attacks throughout the entire game"
So... humans are suppose to suicide run pain saw the OM, shit a grenade, die, repeat (I did nonstop
all my last humans play, don't recall losing),
The whole point of an alien base is to slow down and damage players trying to damage vital structures. If you can survive a run to the over-mind with near-full hp, your base should probably be re-built so that it specifically covers pathways to the over-mind and eggs.
while aliens try to rebuild eggs and overmind, over and over, for 30
mintues? ( at SD, aliens seem to almost always win, due to the armory )
I would rather play a game where it was a battle between teams and not a defense of the suicide bomber.
*The goal should be to take the other base down, but it shouldn't be as simple and mindless as it currently is, governed
purely by AoE storms, nothing else.
You'll have to clarify; do you mean grenades as a human? Or maybe lightning zaps as a marauder? Or perhaps the lucifer cannon?
Well, grenades are meant for just that purpose, they only deal AoE damage, that's how they work.. I don't see your point with grenades. They have always been an integral part of tremulous, I don't see what you think is wrong with it.
Marauder zaps are just another way of attacking; if your base is getting destroyed, your base is most likely built too close together. Also, it's best to spread apart when a squad of humans encounter one. Just so you know.
The lucifer cannon is the most expensive weapon of the human team, and rightly so. It's powerful. It's supposed to be. You paid for it, it's what you get.
*I prefer peeking around a corner and sniping, then trying to get away, slightly sneaking, using distraction, instead
its now hop into the base as adv mara, spam zap, die, repeat. Or the afore mentioned painsaw-grenades suicide bombers.
I'm sorry, when did the sniping become no longer an option for players? You prefer it? DO IT. There's nothing stopping you, and since splash damage was added to barbs, they've become even more deadly.
And pertaining to advanced marauders, see my above text. There are other ways to destroy a base you know. Yeah. Seriously. Mind-blowing right?
For example:
- As a tyrant, charging into a turret, swiping it once or twice, then charging away.
- As a dragoon, pouncing in, chomping a ret once or twice, then pouncing out.
Never thought of it before?
A player, that built in the game you referenced, insisted he would not leave the human base, until s3, because
"adv mara is op and our base will die if we leave" It has the same effect for aliens, soo much camping, and the
only major offense, are these attacks.
Soo much camping huh? Really? Who's doing the camping then? I mean, if you noticed that the aliens are camping you must be:
A. In the base with them, just hanging out. Aka, camping along with them.
B. Attacking as a human, noticing all these aliens inside the base as you get slaughtered trying to get to a structure. This one is unlikely, as you're defending the aliens (in your post) which human players normally don't do. Or I could just give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you're an insightful person who looks at both sides of the argument before posting. For the sake of the argument, we'll just go with that.
My only request is, make it so there are other equal options for assault, so you can choose from others, to suit
the best way to take down an opposing teams base. Things like pulse rifles, *aimed* at the overmind, while the
player is *alive* to take the Overmind down, to me, creates more competitive gameplay
Woah, since when are pulse rifles not able to do that?! Why wasn't I alerted?! I must've missed the memo! =(
then "throw grenade,
painsaw om,use medkit, keep sawing till dead (takes 6-8 seconds)".
Like I said before, if you can do this effectively, your base most likely deserves it. Don't count on a default base to defend properly, always tweak your base to cover whatever needs it.
So my recommendations:
- Grenades only explode if the player who expended it, is alive.
- Remove adv dragon snipe splash.
- Either Adjust adv mara zap OR increase the Telsas range.(its low, and it takes little to block it**
- AND\OR Lower the stage requirement for Hives\Telsas
It means in grenade chucking rushes, its important to stay alive and not just damage till dead.
Good point, but remember that if you let the attacker get to your base with a substantial amount of hp, it's YOUR fault for letting him damage your base like that.
It means with adv goon, you have to aim again.
Last time I checked, you still have to aim; don't exaggerate like that.
It means someone will have to assist the mara storm, or take the telsas down first, before the attack.
You act like marauders can dodge everything in the human's arsenal - they can't. They die. They die a lot faster with someone shooting at them, by the way. Tesla's work, you should watch them sometime.
The result is something close to a base, you don't have to heavily camp, aliens are rewarded for killing the
rusher fast (stops the grenade), adv goons don't have to *just get close*, and the base can delay a mara assault.
You don't have to heavily camp, ever.
Some bases are amazingly protected, and it would be unfair to disable a grenade. That's like canceling a Lucifer cannon shot if you die. Would you like that? No. Same with grenades.
Stop with the generalizations on the dragoon. Explain what you dislike.
I explained marauders.
** I've sit on the side of the armory, in close range of a telsa, never receiving its zap once, after, it was
just a few lone mara swipes to kill it myself. Only use is against dretches, since they can't harm any functional
structure.
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So my recommendations:
* Grenades only explode if the player who expended it, is alive.
* Remove adv dragon snipe splash.
* Either Adjust adv mara zap OR increase the Telsas range.(its low, and it takes little to block it**
* AND\OR Lower the stage requirement for Hives\Telsas
I like these. A more elegant solution however would be to make the grenade solid, so that aliens with swipe-abilities could kick it back.
Edit: BTW I LOVE the goon now, and the flamer's about right. I would like to put out that I think the delay (as an adv.basilisk) between when you can gass and then swipe is waaaaay too long. It like if you jump into a fight, you have the choice: will you do damage or disorient? Is there a chance that this delay could be reduced?
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So my recommendations:
* Grenades only explode if the player who expended it, is alive.
* Remove adv dragon snipe splash.
* Either Adjust adv mara zap OR increase the Telsas range.(its low, and it takes little to block it**
* AND\OR Lower the stage requirement for Hives\Telsas
i dont like these they promote more invincible human bases. the way they currently are forces you to attack the enemy so they have to defend/rebuild and they cant attack your base if they have to defend against wave after wave of humans/aliens a much better way then 1.1's camp till s3 then kill everything while anyone trying to attack enemy base dies instantly etc
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You'll have to clarify; do you mean grenades as a human? Or maybe lightning zaps as a marauder? Or perhaps the lucifer cannon?
Well, grenades are meant for just that purpose, they only deal AoE damage, that's how they work.. I don't see your point with grenades. They have always been an integral part of tremulous, I don't see what you think is wrong with it.
Marauder zaps are just another way of attacking; if your base is getting destroyed, your base is most likely built too close together. Also, it's best to spread apart when a squad of humans encounter one. Just so you know.
I'm sorry, when did the sniping become no longer an option for players? You prefer it? DO IT. There's nothing stopping you, and since splash damage was added to barbs, they've become even more deadly.
And pertaining to advanced marauders, see my above text. There are other ways to destroy a base you know. Yeah. Seriously. Mind-blowing right?
Point with grenades, you don't have to be alive for them to work. Why should they be a post
mortem weapon? It was like that in 1.1, I thought we are attempting to FIX, problems with 1.1, not
keep because its "always been that way".
In regards to snipes, I said it shouldn't have splash, and should be the primary.
Why slowly snipe when you can *own* with mara, snipe only use now is picking off one struct during a camp session
or taking down sky bases and such.
Seriously. Mind-blowing right?
For example:
- As a tyrant, charging into a turret, swiping it once or twice, then charging away.
- As a dragoon, pouncing in, chomping a ret once or twice, then pouncing out.
Never thought of it before?
Yeah lets waste 6 evos on one ret, wonderful, when you can take out several with 3 evos.
Never thought of that before?
Soo much camping huh? Really? Who's doing the camping then? I mean, if you noticed that the aliens are camping you must be:
A. In the base with them, just hanging out. Aka, camping along with them.
I'm certain after playing with you for year(s), you realize that, you die, appear in your own base, to
find no one left, hence see the camping, then leave your base. You also realize you are the only one rushing,
since you die alone. Wrong assertion.
B. Attacking as a human, noticing all these aliens inside the base as you get slaughtered trying to get to a structure. This one is unlikely, as you're defending the aliens (in your post) which human players normally don't do.
Yes humans don't normally defend as aliens since they are humans. :P
I suspect you just mistyped.
Or I could just give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you're an insightful person who looks at both sides of the argument before posting. For the sake of the argument, we'll just go with that.
Well thank you sir. Yes I play both sides of the game, hence both sides of the argument, and just want
an intriguing battle between two forces and not gren gren gren winzor.
Woah, since when are pulse rifles not able to do that?! Why wasn't I alerted?! I must've missed the memo! =(
I said I would PREFER that is the dominate way to take down a base, but since its its not as effective
as suicide missions, no one does it. (unless its gren spam, and kill ceiling structs) Are you alerted now?
Good point, but remember that if you let the attacker get to your base with a substantial amount of hp, it's YOUR fault for letting him damage your base like that.
So does this apply to a grenade that once thrown, cannot be stopped? Its the aliens fault, the human was able
to smack one grenade bind, before he died. Now they get to run from it, no way to stop it?
It means with adv goon, you have to aim again.
Last time I checked, you still have to aim; don't exaggerate like that.
With barb splash, you don't have to really aim, just approx area, close enough is fine.
With mara zap, you sit and click, how is this exaggeration?
It means someone will have to assist the mara storm, or take the telsas down first, before the attack.
You act like marauders can dodge everything in the human's arsenal - they can't. They die. They die a lot faster with someone shooting at them, by the way. Tesla's work, you should watch them sometime.
So you suggest the humans camp to defend against maras right? Since they die a lot faster with someone shooting at
them, correct? Telsa's have too short a range, even Norf is contemplating an increase.
You don't have to heavily camp, ever.
Some bases are amazingly protected, and it would be unfair to disable a grenade. That's like canceling a Lucifer cannon shot if you die. Would you like that? No. Same with grenades.
Inform some players of this new "don't have to heavily camp" revelation of yours, we will thank you.
Its not about disabling the grenade, its about port mortem weapons, at least the luci has to be charged, aimed
and fired first, the grenade is just one key smack.
Stop with the generalizations on the dragoon. Explain what you dislike.
Where did I generalize? I said, remove the goon barb splash, how is this a generalization?
Ok I'll explain, remove the barb splash. Its unneeded, it tks, it makes it a spam weapon, instead of an aimed
one.
I explained marauders.
Where?
This?
Marauder zaps are just another way of attacking; if your base is getting destroyed, your base is most likely built too close together. Also, it's best to spread apart when a squad of humans encounter one. Just so you know.
It would be easier to reply, if the whole thing wasn't just condescending , unfortunately most maps do not allow much of a *spread out base*, and repeaters force the structs to be within its area of influence, which is, in
practice, mara zap range.
-
So my recommendations:
* Grenades only explode if the player who expended it, is alive.
* Remove adv dragon snipe splash.
* Either Adjust adv mara zap OR increase the Telsas range.(its low, and it takes little to block it**
* AND\OR Lower the stage requirement for Hives\Telsas
i dont like these they promote more invincible human bases. the way they currently are forces you to attack the enemy so they have to defend/rebuild and they cant attack your base if they have to defend against wave after wave of humans/aliens a much better way then 1.1's camp till s3 then kill everything while anyone trying to attack enemy base dies instantly etc
Well, dragoons snipe telsas (clearing the way for maras), then adv maras can attack.
So humans can survive them, with the telsas increase power, without so much camping. So with this, changing the mara is
probably pointless, but I wanted to give other options.
The grenade "not exploding after death" seems like a reasonable change. Recently, I was only able to wound
the overmind with my pain saw, but my post mortem grenade, that fired after I was already naked at the armory, took
the overmind out with 2 aliens. There wasn't a damn thing they could do about it either, hardly fun, and they killed
me quickly.
-
So my recommendations:
* Grenades only explode if the player who expended it, is alive.
* Remove adv dragon snipe splash.
* Either Adjust adv mara zap OR increase the Telsas range.(its low, and it takes little to block it**
* AND\OR Lower the stage requirement for Hives\Telsas
The grenade "not exploding after death" seems like a reasonable change. Recently, I was only able to wound
the overmind with my pain saw, but my post mortem grenade, that fired after I was already naked at the armory, took
the overmind out with 2 aliens. There wasn't a damn thing they could do about it either, hardly fun, and they killed
me quickly.
Recently I was able to kill the overmind with a pulserifle. The aliens had built a crappy base and didn't defend properly.
I move to suggest a ban against the pulserifle as well since the overmind is supposed to be invincible and anything threatening it's existence should be banned.
For the overmind!
-
Recently I was able to kill the overmind with a pulserifle. The aliens had built a crappy base and didn't defend properly.
I move to suggest a ban against the pulserifle as well since the overmind is supposed to be invincible and anything threatening it's existence should be banned.
For the overmind!
I once killed the Overmind with an alien. Guess we have to get rid of those too....
-
Yeah lets waste 6 evos on one ret, wonderful, when you can take out several with 3 evos.
Never thought of that before?
FYI: rant costs 5 evos, and with that tactic you are *supposed* to survive, or wait for a better chance. Or take out several rets and die. So stop your stupid exaggerations.
(regarding pulse rifles:)
I said I would PREFER that is the dominate way to take down a base, but since its its not as effective
as suicide missions, no one does it. (unless its gren spam, and kill ceiling structs) Are you alerted now?
Really? Noone does it? It is much more effective then suicide rush... (if you have more then 0 teammates that is).
So does this apply to a grenade that once thrown, cannot be stopped? Its the aliens fault, the human was able
to smack one grenade bind, before he died. Now they get to run from it, no way to stop it?
Well they are supposed to run from the grenade, not stare at it. If the human got far enough to drop the gren right next to OM, then the aliens deserve that. If the human manages to do that repeatedly, enough to take out OM, then the aliens deserve that too.
If you manage to get to the overmind, saw most of it's hp, and throw grenade, then the aliens sucked. (Even more if 2 aliens stayed around to admire the shiny human technology).
If you think it will be possible to get to overmind, drop grenade, and survive for 5 seconds after that (more then once a month by luck), then I should inform you that this is a multiplayer game. Not single player. You play it by connecting to a server with preferably 5 or more players.
If the aliens need to be rebuilding eggs because of gren rushes, then they either suck at building or wallwalking, and deserve it.
With barb splash, you don't have to really aim, just approx area, close enough is fine.
With mara zap, you sit and click, how is this exaggeration?
Dragoons still have to aim to use their barbs efficiently. Same with mara.
Inform some players of this new "don't have to heavily camp" revelation of yours, we will thank you.
Its not about disabling the grenade, its about port mortem weapons, at least the luci has to be charged, aimed
and fired first, the grenade is just one key smack.
Noone needs to inform them. If they camp, they lose, they will get it eventually. That's how it is supposed to be.
...remove the barb splash. Its unneeded, it tks, it makes it a spam weapon, instead of an aimed one.
It is great against dense human bases, making them not impenetrable. It tks if the player using it sux. It still needs to be aimed to be more useful.
(Oh btw, why the newlines in the middle of sentences O.o)
-
The grenade "not exploding after death" seems like a reasonable change.
Sorry, but saying it 10 times won't make it so.
* If a human makes it within a grenade's throw of the OM, the alien's defense (en-route plus active and passive within base) has failed. Likewise for maras being able to get off more than one zap before dying.
* wave after wave of nades/maras isn't possible - if the team gets completely full before launching a rush (not likely without scrim discipline), they still get only 2 or 3 waves before being exhausted, unless they own the defenders along the way.
* nade is just noticeable because of the delay between trigger and effect. Do you also think luciballs, pulses and barbs should also vanish when the defender dies? Would you be happier if the delay were .4 sec instead of 4? As a human I would, since I'd have a chance of nading those pesky lisks when no one else is around.
* comparing a game to RL is silly but I'll do it anyway - how many WW-II grenades or land/sea mines operate the way you want? They are *supposed* to do their thing without human involvement.
To repeat: if grenades get to the OM then the builders and defenders aren't doing their job. S2 is supposed to be more powerful than S1, and if grenades exist before trappers, or mara+'s before helmets, then the S2 team deserves to win.
-
Plz offer an example of base where a mara cannot zap more than 1 zap liskey
I am really curious
-
Plz offer an example of base where a mara cannot zap more than 1 zap liskey
I am really curious
This is a good niveus base. Of course, it's not impossible to destroy it, but it's pretty tough to hurt.
These turrets are well placed.
15 -244.0162048 -22.0350731 63.0625004 0.0 -46.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 30.0 -46.0 1.0 2 0 0.0
10 -530.0811768 458.0515289 228.0625000 0.0 117.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 -330.0 295.0358948 1.0 2 0 0.0
9 -534.0731384 336.0407196 212.0625000 0.0 -179.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 30.0 -179.0 1.0 0 0 0.0
9 -361.0417786 175.0383087 212.0625000 0.0 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 30.0 1.0 1.0 0 0 0.0
1 1328.0 224.0 303.0125000 0.0 405.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 30.0 405.0 0.0 0 0 0.0
12 -364.0313721 -52.0143719 13.0625000 0.0 -1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 30.0 -1.0 1.0 2 0 0.0
14 -330.0547119 27.0262064 7.0625000 0.0 -44.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 30.0 -44.0 1.0 2 0 0.0
10 -591.0699280 83.035957 20.0625000 0.0 -80.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 -358.0762177 59.0353149 1.0 2 0 0.0
1 928.0 -144.0 207.0125000 0.0 217.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 30.0 217.0 0.0 0 0 0.0
1 1272.0 -16.0 303.0125000 0.0 315.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 30.0 315.0 0.0 0 0 0.0
10 -591.0362854 412.0197449 20.0625000 0.0 96.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 -358.062347 321.0634277 1.0 2 0 0.0
2 1488.0 128.0 303.0125000 0.0 17.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 30.0 17.0 0.0 0 0 0.0
4 1136.0 0.0 254.0406281 0.0 0.0 0.0 -0.0600000 0.0 0.0800000 30.0 0.0 0.0 0 0 0.0
10 -548.0219543 -34.0392651 68.0625000 0.0 -135.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 -135.0 1.0 2 0 0.0
4 1480.0 -96.0 303.0125000 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 30.0 0.0 0.0 0 0 0.0
10 -614.0336365 255.0940186 20.0625000 0.0 -177.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 -177.0 1.0 2 0 0.0
10 -219.0422424 548.0461853 20.0625000 0.0 42.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 42.0 1.0 2 0 0.0
4 928.0 240.0 207.0125000 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 30.0 0.0 0.0 0 0 0.0
10 -467.0594543 491.0838898 84.0625000 0.0 -145.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 -145.0 1.0 2 0 0.0
I think the window room is the best location for the human base in Niveus, but it's hard to move there.
-
Not a compelling argument given how dominating (http://imgur.com/8Jtpe.png) aliens are in games ending at stage 1. And most games end between 4.6 and 22.8 minutes (if I'm reading the graph right); getting 2 whole frags isn't much of a stretch in that period, especially since you don't need as many kills to earn an equivalent amount to what the humans are getting from killing you. So I wouldn't say humans get a "huge advantage", and a small advantage is fine if it evens out by stage 3.
Asymmetrical teams are what defines tremulous, yes.
The imbalance might be okey given another imbalance later in the game? Perhaps for your ARNTG(tm) (average random non-teamwork game).
But to be honest I think your ARNTG would be fine no matter how stage1 looked since those games are decided at a later stage and people die/kill so much in the meantime.
In an organized game, like a clangame, not excluding public games since I've seen it happen there too, it will play out completely differently.
In a game like this the aliens could use aimbots for all we care, doesn't matter since they will die before they reach any human.
Humans can more or less do whatever pleases them the first 4 minutes. A forward base outside the alien base? Sure, no dretch is going to stop it for sure.
After the aliens do have something to fight it with, humans will have a huge advantage and aliens will be forced to play catch-up.
Granted almost every game will be an ARNTG, where, while being frustratingly bad, the dretches won't ruin the games.
I really see your reluctance against making the dretch anything more than cannon fodder unfounded.
It's not like tremulous will magically turn to nexuiz or some other boring uninspired FPS if we just give the dretch a decent chance to kill a human.
And if it turns out bad there's always Phase 6.
-
I agree that it's a lot easier to kill few dretches with a rifle than to kill few rifles with a dretch. But I don't think dretch is that underpowered (honestly I think it's fine). I believe that rifle is overpowered (as I said few times already). I don't know numbers, so statistically I might be wrong, but I believe that it has higher dps ( - reload time) than lasgun - when there's a mara rc jumping I get rifle, because it's likely that it lost some hp already (in case it's advanced "bug") and I will shoot it down faster. It's fire-rate saved me many times where there was a dretch storm trying to swarm me and it was likely that if I held lasgun I would he died. Sure lasgun is useful in many situations where rifle would kinda suck (ie. shooting aliens from longer distances, tking) but that doesn't compensate the cost difference. I end up using rifle until we have s1 so I don't lose so many credits in case I die.
IMO lasgun is vastly superior to the rifle.
Just for fun, even if i took note to your "i don't know the numbers", here are some statistics for 1 particular case:
Damage per `bullet`:
L: 9
R: 5
Time between bullets:
L: 0.2s
R: 0.09s
What does this mean?
To kill a dretch you need 3 lasgun shots or 5 rifle shots. Since you fire the first shot instantly it would boil down to this:
L: 0.2s * (3-1) = 0.40s
R: 0.09s * (5-1) = 0.36s
The difference is 0.04s for 1 dretch. A small price to pay for no spread and no reload.
This is, btw, also the reason the massdriver is the best weapon in the game for everything except tyrant (assuming perfect aim) while also strictly speaking having the lowest DPS.
I'm glad you gave us the numbers. I didn't meant to say that lasgun is somewhat weak, I wanted to say that rifle is too powerful considering it's cost. And I believe your post pretty much confirmed it, rifle is as (or even more) effective against a dretch as lasgun. If you get swarmed you might be able to kill one or two before you die and still you will lose no credits.
-
Plz offer an example of base where a mara cannot zap more than 1 zap liskey
I am really curious
When he's racing toward the base and gets reduced to 50 hp by the rifles and lasguns running the other way.
-
Hmmm.....Cadynum, would you consider it balanced if the rifle was nerfed rather than the dretch buffed?
-
The imbalance might be okey given another imbalance later in the game?
Later in this case means several minutes at most, so yes, it's okay. And, besides me not agreeing that dretches are that much weaker than rifles, the only data I have shows that aliens are the stronger team at stage one, and I can't/won't balance for hypothetical circumstances.
-
...remove the barb splash. Its unneeded, it tks, it makes it a spam weapon, instead of an aimed one.
It is great against dense human bases, making them not impenetrable. It tks if the player using it sux. It still needs to be aimed to be more useful.
(Oh btw, why the newlines in the middle of sentences O.o)
I agree with scrape. The splash on the barbs needs to go. Several times, I have used the snipe to hit someone point blank and the splash would damage me. There should be a fix where the Adv Goon shooting/launching the barb can't be damaged by the splash damage. Other than that, the new splash is alright. Tking isn't the problem with snipe, the player does need to learn when to shoot it.
-
Hmmm.....Cadynum, would you consider it balanced if the rifle was nerfed rather than the dretch buffed?
It might be for dretch vs rifle. However i don't think the rifle is overpowered versus anything else so I guess such a change would make underpowered versus anything else.
IMO the rifle is fine.
-
The imbalance might be okey given another imbalance later in the game?
Later in this case means several minutes at most, so yes, it's okay. And, besides me not agreeing that dretches are that much weaker than rifles, the only data I have shows that aliens are the stronger team at stage one, and I can't/won't balance for hypothetical circumstances.
It is by no means hypothetical.
http://stats.tremulous.net/tremstats/eu1/games.php
As you can see by the killing-curves humans nearly always have more kills in the start. EVEN though those games see fairly limited amount of teamwork.
I also talk of experience from a lot of 1.1 clanwars:
In 1.1 the dretch is a bit (to be kind) underpowered in public games but hugely underpowered in clanwars.
In 1.2 the dretch is hugely underpowered in public games and I don't even want to think how horrible it is in 1.2 clanwars.
-
Why was it's size increased anyway?
-
Why was it's size increased anyway?
because the bbox was much bigger than the model.
-
1.2 dretch is HORRIDLY underpowered in scrims.
There simply isn't a way to dodge with the level of skill that some players possess.
Dretching becomes less about individual skill with the dretch, and more about praying for ineptitude from the opposing team.
The rifle is fine where it is, except against dretches.
Making the rifle any weaker would cripple it a little too much; having the rifle as a viable weapon choice for anything below a rant allows you to defend right off of the spawn.
It also lets you use the rifle if you just plain like it. :)
I think a 5-10 damage increase in dretch bite would do the job, or a range extension to allow ground-headbites again. Both?
-
ground headbites weren't possible for about a week over a year ago, they work perfectly fine right now.
-
1.2 dretch is HORRIDLY underpowered in scrims.
There simply isn't a way to dodge with the level of skill that some players possess.
Dretching becomes less about individual skill with the dretch, and more about praying for ineptitude from the opposing team.
The rifle is fine where it is, except against dretches.
Making the rifle any weaker would cripple it a little too much; having the rifle as a viable weapon choice for anything below a rant allows you to defend right off of the spawn.
It also lets you use the rifle if you just plain like it. :)
I think a 5-10 damage increase in dretch bite would do the job, or a range extension to allow ground-headbites again. Both?
afaik dretchrange hasnt changed so you can still headbite from ground in 1.2 if you could in 1.1(i dont think you could)
only thing that has changed afaik is:
- Dretch's model size is made larger to better fit the bbox(which afaik hasn't changed)
- Dretches damage has been slightly lowered so now you cant do headbite + legbite now you have to do 2 headbites to kill fast or 1 headbite and 2 normalbites or just 4 normal bites (and god knows how many legbites you gotta do its alot)
a dev can correct me if im totally wrong
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...remove the barb splash. Its unneeded, it tks, it makes it a spam weapon, instead of an aimed one.
It is great against dense human bases, making them not impenetrable. It tks if the player using it sux. It still needs to be aimed to be more useful.
(Oh btw, why the newlines in the middle of sentences O.o)
I agree with scrape. The splash on the barbs needs to go. Several times, I have used the snipe to hit someone point blank and the splash would damage me. There should be a fix where the Adv Goon shooting/launching the barb can't be damaged by the splash damage. Other than that, the new splash is alright. Tking isn't the problem with snipe, the player does need to learn when to shoot it.
Why snipe from point blank range?? You can't/shouldn't play 1.2 like it was 1.1. Flamer/Luci at point blank also damages the user.
-
It is by no means hypothetical.
http://stats.tremulous.net/tremstats/eu1/games.php
As you can see by the killing-curves humans nearly always have more kills in the start. EVEN though those games see fairly limited amount of teamwork.
I can't be arsed to make a graph, but here's every kills by minute across both servers: (phase4 only):
+------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| time | human | alien | world | total |
+------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| 0 | 7311 | 4138 | 921 | 12370 |
| 1 | 5773 | 4000 | 933 | 10706 |
| 2 | 11382 | 8708 | 2101 | 22191 |
| 3 | 11443 | 9194 | 2328 | 22965 |
| 4 | 5341 | 4643 | 1180 | 11164 |
| 5 | 15810 | 13478 | 3430 | 32718 |
| 6 | 5204 | 4298 | 1135 | 10637 |
| 7 | 10370 | 8385 | 2183 | 20938 |
| 8 | 9814 | 7912 | 1979 | 19705 |
| 9 | 4772 | 3734 | 933 | 9439 |
| 10 | 14011 | 10256 | 2712 | 26979 |
| 11 | 4561 | 3055 | 802 | 8418 |
| 12 | 8379 | 5865 | 1488 | 15732 |
| 13 | 7989 | 5190 | 1375 | 14554 |
| 14 | 3791 | 2488 | 623 | 6902 |
| 15 | 10241 | 6700 | 1751 | 18692 |
| 16 | 3145 | 1968 | 548 | 5661 |
| 17 | 5950 | 3788 | 1036 | 10774 |
| 18 | 5464 | 3493 | 984 | 9941 |
| 19 | 2528 | 1633 | 441 | 4602 |
| 20 | 7109 | 4514 | 1249 | 12872 |
| 21 | 2089 | 1375 | 394 | 3858 |
| 22 | 4097 | 2583 | 702 | 7382 |
| 23 | 3929 | 2570 | 654 | 7153 |
| 24 | 1901 | 1250 | 313 | 3464 |
| 25 | 5360 | 3453 | 918 | 9731 |
| 26 | 1701 | 1088 | 312 | 3101 |
| 27 | 3190 | 2013 | 545 | 5748 |
| 28 | 3006 | 1999 | 526 | 5531 |
| 29 | 1457 | 998 | 302 | 2757 |
| 30 | 3983 | 2682 | 691 | 7356 |
| 31 | 1253 | 879 | 259 | 2391 |
| 32 | 2494 | 1626 | 468 | 4588 |
| 33 | 2327 | 1606 | 397 | 4330 |
| 34 | 1192 | 820 | 242 | 2254 |
| 35 | 3255 | 2133 | 601 | 5989 |
| 36 | 1055 | 714 | 191 | 1960 |
| 37 | 2029 | 1308 | 388 | 3725 |
| 38 | 1950 | 1247 | 369 | 3566 |
| 39 | 968 | 601 | 182 | 1751 |
| 40 | 2783 | 1815 | 520 | 5118 |
| 41 | 902 | 544 | 149 | 1595 |
| 42 | 1650 | 1038 | 303 | 2991 |
| 43 | 1597 | 1078 | 297 | 2972 |
| 44 | 746 | 533 | 150 | 1429 |
| 45 | 2114 | 1397 | 407 | 3918 |
| 46 | 714 | 481 | 114 | 1309 |
| 47 | 1280 | 877 | 256 | 2413 |
| 48 | 1267 | 870 | 249 | 2386 |
| 49 | 599 | 406 | 135 | 1140 |
| 50 | 1712 | 1259 | 461 | 3432 |
| 51 | 588 | 360 | 132 | 1080 |
| 52 | 1037 | 690 | 285 | 2012 |
| 53 | 991 | 687 | 221 | 1899 |
| 54 | 479 | 309 | 101 | 889 |
| 55 | 1234 | 854 | 299 | 2387 |
| 56 | 393 | 275 | 100 | 768 |
| 57 | 706 | 471 | 162 | 1339 |
| 58 | 636 | 425 | 132 | 1193 |
| 59 | 286 | 202 | 62 | 550 |
| 60 | 779 | 514 | 155 | 1448 |
| 61 | 243 | 175 | 35 | 453 |
| 62 | 421 | 271 | 99 | 791 |
| 63 | 374 | 237 | 93 | 704 |
| 64 | 155 | 106 | 43 | 304 |
| 65 | 453 | 291 | 109 | 853 |
| 66 | 155 | 111 | 51 | 317 |
| 67 | 240 | 172 | 72 | 484 |
| 68 | 193 | 129 | 50 | 372 |
| 69 | 95 | 46 | 14 | 155 |
| 70 | 266 | 147 | 55 | 468 |
| 71 | 71 | 46 | 16 | 133 |
| 72 | 127 | 85 | 31 | 243 |
| 73 | 127 | 83 | 40 | 250 |
| 74 | 47 | 23 | 11 | 81 |
| 75 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 6 |
| 76 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 77 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| 78 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 10 |
| 79 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| 80 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 13 |
| 81 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 7 |
| 82 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 10 |
| 83 | 8 | 3 | 7 | 18 |
| 84 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 |
| 85 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 12 |
| 86 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
| 87 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 7 |
| 88 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 10 |
| 89 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 10 |
| 90 | 9 | 4 | 1 | 14 |
| 91 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| 92 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 7 |
| 93 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 |
| 94 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
| 95 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 5 |
| 96 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 97 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 10 |
| 98 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 6 |
| 99 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| 167 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| 168 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 169 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 170 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 171 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 172 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 7 |
| 173 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 |
| 174 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 175 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 12 |
| 176 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 177 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| 178 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 179 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| 180 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 6 |
| 181 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 182 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 5 |
| 183 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| 184 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 185 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 10 |
| 186 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 187 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| 188 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 7 |
| 189 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| 190 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 6 |
| 191 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 195 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
+------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
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With the increase of speed to the dragoon and marauder gameplay is fast again and killing marauders is not boring anymore. I am pleased to announce Tremulous 1.2 is fun to play!
The dretch is significantly underpowered though. I'd vote for at least a +5HP increase.
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With the increase of speed to the dragoon and marauder gameplay is fast again and killing marauders is not boring anymore. I am pleased to announce Tremulous 1.2 is fun to play!
The dretch is significantly underpowered though. I'd vote for at least a +5HP increase.
I concur. Except that I would have the dretches value nerfed rather than its abilities increased. I mean come on, humans shouldn't advance whole stages by killing spiders. My little sister can do that and she doesn't get to buy big gunz afterwords............
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With the increase of speed to the dragoon and marauder gameplay is fast again and killing marauders is not boring anymore. I am pleased to announce Tremulous 1.2 is fun to play!
The dretch is significantly underpowered though. I'd vote for at least a +5HP increase.
I concur. Except that I would have the dretches value nerfed rather than its abilities increased. I mean come on, humans shouldn't advance whole stages by killing spiders. My little sister can do that and she doesn't get to buy big gunz afterwords............
The value doesn't make it any easier for a dretch to kill a human (which is the problem here). The HP increase is by far the best way.
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I'd prefer having the damage upped again myself, over a hp buff, I still prefer the 1.1 dretch, almost everything else I'm quite happy with 1.2/gpp.
Its just not as much fun anymore.
in 1.1, a good dretch could nom a large chunk of a human rush, and a good rifle or 2 could kill a dretchstorm(unless they ran out of ammo..)
in 1.2, rifle > Dretch. Period.
Somewhere in the middle would be nice, where 1 headbite + 1 footbite would still kill, but so they human has at least a slight chance to survive if naked and head-bitten.
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go go go final version :'(
come on i want to do 1.2 Movie :P
O_________O 400 fps movies !! xD
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It is by no means hypothetical.
http://stats.tremulous.net/tremstats/eu1/games.php
As you can see by the killing-curves humans nearly always have more kills in the start. EVEN though those games see fairly limited amount of teamwork.
It's not necessarily imbalanced for humans to get more dretch kills because dretches aren't worth as much as human kills. When I pull the stats for gpp4 I'll see how even it is in terms of credits.
The hypothetical situation is one in which this is actually a problem: since aliens are unambiguously doing more than fine at stage 1 in the games played on the official servers (and at stages 2 and 3...), I can't really justify buffing the dretch.
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I think the dretches are almost fine, but they are so hard to use against helmets. We do poll, yes?
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It is by no means hypothetical.
http://stats.tremulous.net/tremstats/eu1/games.php
As you can see by the killing-curves humans nearly always have more kills in the start. EVEN though those games see fairly limited amount of teamwork.
It's not necessarily imbalanced for humans to get more dretch kills because dretches aren't worth as much as human kills. When I pull the stats for gpp4 I'll see how even it is in terms of credits.
The hypothetical situation is one in which this is actually a problem: since aliens are unambiguously doing more than fine at stage 1 in the games played on the official servers (and at stages 2 and 3...), I can't really justify buffing the dretch.
This seems to me a bit of individual vs team playing. It's fine that dretches aren't worth as much and they are more likely to lose in a 1 on 1, logically that makes sense, but it isn't fun for the starting alien player.
Having a game where there is a countdown timer and than the first player to click wins the game could be called perfectly balanced, but I don't think it would be fun.
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The problem was that dretches were so useful that players would horde evos and not use any of the classes other than rant or goon. Aliens could dretch rush for free whereas humans had to spend credits due a naked rifle being so weak. So dretches got nerfed so that the aliens would have a reason to evolve (spend evos) instead of playing a free class at all stages.
The problem with the nerf is that humans got stronger at the same time. Dodge, pulse, flamer, and luci are now better and it made dretches even more weak. It is over balanced. Since humans are a lot stronger (especially seeing how dretches can't hurt rets), the dretch nerfs aren't needed.
And yes, dretches got a speed increase but it is not noticable considering dretches were already fast.
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Naked rifles suck against anything AS2, so why shouldn't dretches suck against HS2?
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Not true, Rifle Vs. Basi is a pretty fair fight if the basi starts at any significant distance from the human.
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The problem was that dretches were so useful that players would horde evos and not use any of the classes other than rant or goon.
I still do that in s2+, but usually with 3 and 4 evos, rather than 4 and 5 evos. This might be harder to do in a scrim, but I think that is anectdotal evidence that the dretch works quite well. If your entire team is dretch s2, that's a problem, but then that is usually because your team rushed to much. If you have a few maras/rants/goons to attract gunfire, dretches can be *quite* effective.
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Protip: poison humans with dretches in their base and then die to turrets before they can shoot you. Hit and run only works for big aliens; hit and die is the better strategy for dretches. Bullet damage gives them credits but structure damage does not, so the more damage the turrets do to you the less they get.
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Here are some thoughts.
Dretches are mostly balanced in normal public games when people don't have good enough aim to kill them before they can do anything or the player count isn't high enough that humans can just kill them because of their concentrated firepower.
While it takes skill to evade enemy fire it's really the humans that you are facing that determine how hard or easy it is for the dretch to win and that is why dretch has never been a fun class to play for me despite being balanced overall. I would really like to see it improved to make it more dependent on my own skill but i can understand if it won't happen for balance reasons.
Basilisk gas seems underpowered to me. While its disorienting effect can be useful its usually better to just grab the human and slash him because there is a long delay before you are able to slash after gassing and the gas range isn't much longer than grab range. Its still good when supported by other aliens or when you are gassing a group of humans but i would like to see its usefulness improved in 1vs1 combat which is how you fight most of the time. Perhaps improving it's range sligthly could make it good enough.
Teslas aren't useful when compared to turrets. They don't have to turn and they attack immediately but they do less damage, have shorter range and the knockback they have isn't strong enough to really stop aliens from attacking. Additionally because of mara zap/dragoon barbs you have to divide your defenses on a large area and they can't support each other properly. If they had longer range and increased knockback they could be useful to prevent aliens from reaching the base. Teslas would then be useful when combined with mg turrets which would then have more time to shoot the aliens before they can do damage. Also adv.dragoons would then be more important part of attacking human base because they could snipe teslas so adv.maras can get into the base more easily.
Defence computer isn't worth its cost in my opinion. It's repair ability is nice but it repairs too little. It's repair rate could easily be tripled and even then it wouldn't be too good. You would still need to repair things manually and replace lost buildings.
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Basilisk gas seems underpowered to me. While its disorienting effect can be useful its usually better to just grab the human and slash him because there is a long delay before you are able to slash after gassing and the gas range isn't much longer than grab range. Its still good when supported by other aliens or when you are gassing a group of humans but i would like to see its usefulness improved in 1vs1 combat which is how you fight most of the time. Perhaps improving it's range sligthly could make it good enough.
I find it handy as an opening move, come out of nowhere, gas them, and use it as cover to get a decent grab. No need to rush if they have no backup, so the cooldown doesn't really matter as long as you get the grab in.
It's also handy to support bigger aliens, and really fun against flamers :)
But yeah, wouldn't say no to more range.
Teslas aren't useful when compared to turrets. They don't have to turn and they attack immediately but they do less damage, have shorter range and the knockback they have isn't strong enough to really stop aliens from attacking. Additionally because of mara zap/dragoon barbs you have to divide your defenses on a large area and they can't support each other properly. If they had longer range and increased knockback they could be useful to prevent aliens from reaching the base. Teslas would then be useful when combined with mg turrets which would then have more time to shoot the aliens before they can do damage. Also adv.dragoons would then be more important part of attacking human base because they could snipe teslas so adv.maras can get into the base more easily.
What I was is either RA2 prism tower style thing, or tesla-trooper style thing. Either way a way to boost them so they can do a lot more.
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So my recommendations:
* Grenades only explode if the player who expended it, is alive.
* Remove adv dragon snipe splash.
* Either Adjust adv mara zap OR increase the Telsas range.(its low, and it takes little to block it**
* AND\OR Lower the stage requirement for Hives\Telsas
The grenade "not exploding after death" seems like a reasonable change. Recently, I was only able to wound
the overmind with my pain saw, but my post mortem grenade, that fired after I was already naked at the armory, took
the overmind out with 2 aliens. There wasn't a damn thing they could do about it either, hardly fun, and they killed
me quickly.
Recently I was able to kill the overmind with a pulserifle. The aliens had built a crappy base and didn't defend properly.
I move to suggest a ban against the pulserifle as well since the overmind is supposed to be invincible and anything threatening it's existence should be banned.
For the overmind!
Recently I was able to kill the overmind with a pulserifle. The aliens had built a crappy base and didn't defend properly.
I move to suggest a ban against the pulserifle as well since the overmind is supposed to be invincible and anything threatening it's existence should be banned.
For the overmind!
I once killed the Overmind with an alien. Guess we have to get rid of those too....
Pointless strawmans.
I said, its my opinion the grenade should not explode regardless of whether the human is alive or
not. The pulse rifle requires you to be alive to kill the om, however the grenade does not, now please
explain WHY a human weapon should be unstoppable on release and why it shouldn't be changed.
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Because that's it's point.
Variety makes things fun.
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Yeah lets waste 6 evos on one ret, wonderful, when you can take out several with 3 evos.
Never thought of that before?
FYI: rant costs 5 evos, and with that tactic you are *supposed* to survive, or wait for a better chance. Or take out several rets and die. So stop your stupid exaggerations.
Typo, said 6, meant 5. The tyrant dies because it takes so much damage from rets, in effort to kill one, and then
is immediately killed by chainsuits camping their base. While I can manage the same feat on adv mara, for less evos.
How is this an exaggeration? So you refute it by calling it *stupid*, effective.
(regarding pulse rifles:)
I said I would PREFER that is the dominate way to take down a base, but since its its not as effective
as suicide missions, no one does it. (unless its gren spam, and kill ceiling structs) Are you alerted now?
Really? Noone does it? It is much more effective then suicide rush... (if you have more then 0 teammates that is).
Its still a suicide rush, with the pulse rifle but its MORE effective to use the pain saw- grenade kamikaze instead.
(given the aliens have no sky overmind options)
Well they are supposed to run from the grenade, not stare at it. If the human got far enough to drop the gren right next to OM, then the aliens deserve that. If the human manages to do that repeatedly, enough to take out OM, then the aliens deserve that too.
So if the aliens don't camp their base, and meat shield the door, they deserve it huh? In a battlesuit, I can charge into most alien bases and get my grenade on the om. Why not exploding marauders on death? If the humans let it get that close, they deserve it, correct?
If you manage to get to the overmind, saw most of it's hp, and throw grenade, then the aliens sucked. (Even more if 2 aliens stayed around to admire the shiny human technology).
This happens almost every game, regardless of the skill of the alien team, its extremely hard to stop. What makes a
good alien team is the ability to keep making overminds over and over all game. Do you even play?
If you think it will be possible to get to overmind, drop grenade, and survive for 5 seconds after that (more then once a month by luck), then I should inform you that this is a multiplayer game. Not single player. You play it by connecting to a server with preferably 5 or more players.
Do it all the time, at the door use the medkit, wedge yourself into the om with a painsaw while you fire a grenade. In about 5 secs, you are dead, and then the grenade explodes taking out the om. What does your second line have anything
to do with your 1st line, Its a multiplayer game? ok... Still has no bearing on how easy it is to take an om down
via that method.
If the aliens need to be rebuilding eggs because of gren rushes, then they either suck at building or wallwalking, and deserve it.
I agree about eggs, however it does not apply at all to the overmind.
Dragoons still have to aim to use their barbs efficiently. Same with mara.
Barely, I just chuck barbs, I don't aim, and I hit whatever I was *chucking* at...
Noone needs to inform them. If they camp, they lose, they will get it eventually. That's how it is supposed to be.
You read a little too deeply into that, it was a joke, aka please inform human to stop camping :|
It also 30 minutes of boredom.
It is great against dense human bases, making them not impenetrable. It tks if the player using it sux. It still needs to be aimed to be more useful.
The regular non splash snipe was ALSO perfectly fine against dense human bases, why add splash too?
(Oh btw, why the newlines in the middle of sentences O.o)
Why does this matter? Why not "sucks" instead of sux, since we are nitpicking.
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The grenade "not exploding after death" seems like a reasonable change.
Sorry, but saying it 10 times won't make it so.
* If a human makes it within a grenade's throw of the OM, the alien's defense (en-route plus active and passive within base) has failed. Likewise for maras being able to get off more than one zap before dying.
Please read my above posts.
Yes, mara being able to get off more than one zap BEFORE dying,there is the key. However
the human can get off 1 big AoE AFTER dying, it cannot be stopped, kicked, muted, redirected, nothing.
* wave after wave of nades/maras isn't possible - if the team gets completely full before launching a rush (not likely without scrim discipline), they still get only 2 or 3 waves before being exhausted, unless they own the defenders along the way.
Generally, only 3 adv mara wave zaps are needed to take down the human base core. However wave after wave, of grenades
is possible, since the post mortem grenades easily earns 200 creds when it explodes, while you are dead.
* nade is just noticeable because of the delay between trigger and effect. Do you also think luciballs, pulses and barbs should also vanish when the defender dies? Would you be happier if the delay were .4 sec instead of 4? As a human I would, since I'd have a chance of nading those pesky lisks when no one else is around.
No, and apparently you didn't read what I posted, I said lucis require aiming, charging, and firing, however
the grenade requires one key press, with no aim. Unfortunately an almost instant explosion of the grenade, once he
dies is just even worse, its suicide bomber time. Why is it a tough request, the human needs to live long enough to
see his bomb explode?
If you rush alone and are caught by a basilisk, and your only recourse is a post mortem grenade, then by the above
posters comments, you deserve your fate. You shouldn't rush alone.
* comparing a game to RL is silly but I'll do it anyway - how many WW-II grenades or land/sea mines operate the way you want? They are *supposed* to do their thing without human involvement.
Not only is it silly. its also strawman, and nothing I can say in relation to the *game* could refute it.
To repeat: if grenades get to the OM then the builders and defenders aren't doing their job. S2 is supposed to be more powerful than S1, and if grenades exist before trappers, or mara+'s before helmets, then the S2 team deserves to win.
1) This may have applied to 1.1 but not 1.2 with slower build point regen.
2) Also I am not talking about pre-stages, I am refering to s3/s3, so making stage comparsions is pointless.
To repeat: If any team can attack other teams primary structure, it should not have a weapon, with a strong AoE,
that fires after a defending team successfully kills the attacker.
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1) This may have applied to 1.1 but not 1.2 with slower build point regen.
2) Also I am not talking about pre-stages, I am refering to s3/s3, so making stage comparsions is pointless.
To repeat: If any team can attack other teams primary structure, it should not have a weapon, with a strong AoE,
that fires after a defending team successfully kills the attacker.
And you are making the rules what should or should not be part of the game?
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The grenade "not exploding after death" seems like a reasonable change.
Maybe it does if you believe area effect weapons are inherently bad for the game or the grenade in particular is imbalanced, but if you don't it instead seems arbitrary and counterintuitive.
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The grenade "not exploding after death" seems like a reasonable change.
Maybe it does if you believe area effect weapons are inherently bad for the game or the grenade in particular is imbalanced, but if you don't it instead seems arbitrary and counterintuitive.
They did pay good $$$ for it.
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Scrape, why does it matter if the suicide attacker deals damage before or after death? It's still a specific amount of damage per rush. It's even easily dodgeable. And once again, if you manage to nade OM, the aliens don't have a clue how to build. In a proper base you won't even get a good look at OM before being trapped+swarmed/molten/mauled. And the nade usually does not give back 200 creds, while in your examples it would need to give 600 for bsuit+nade.
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To satisfy scrape's argument, the nade could be a suicide vest that explodes when the attacker dies. The end result would be identical, or worse since aliens hearing a nade sound at least have a chance to flee. (The human can flee too with nades, but the topic is suicide rushes, not hit & runs.)
Therefore whether the nade explodes before death or after is immaterial, and the argument for disabling nades after death (but not before) is a red herring. You're saying you don't want nades at all. I disagree.
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Dretches are mostly balanced in normal public games when people don't have good enough aim to kill them before they can do anything or the player count isn't high enough that humans can just kill them because of their concentrated firepower.
Yes. The problem is that in places like ATCS' tunnel one single good human can win the whole alien team because of the dretch being so utterly useless. And it really doesn't help how good of a dretch you are.
Basilisk gas seems underpowered to me. While its disorienting effect can be useful its usually better to just grab the human and slash him because there is a long delay before you are able to slash after gassing and the gas range isn't much longer than grab range. Its still good when supported by other aliens or when you are gassing a group of humans but i would like to see its usefulness improved in 1vs1 combat which is how you fight most of the time. Perhaps improving it's range sligthly could make it good enough.
True it's useless too. IMO viable solutions would be either the range boost or shorten the delay between your next attack.
Teslas aren't useful when compared to turrets. They don't have to turn and they attack immediately but they do less damage, have shorter range and the knockback they have isn't strong enough to really stop aliens from attacking. Additionally because of mara zap/dragoon barbs you have to divide your defenses on a large area and they can't support each other properly. If they had longer range and increased knockback they could be useful to prevent aliens from reaching the base. Teslas would then be useful when combined with mg turrets which would then have more time to shoot the aliens before they can do damage. Also adv.dragoons would then be more important part of attacking human base because they could snipe teslas so adv.maras can get into the base more easily.
That sounds interesting. I like the making adv. dragoons more important.
Defence computer isn't worth its cost in my opinion. It's repair ability is nice but it repairs too little. It's repair rate could easily be tripled and even then it wouldn't be too good. You would still need to repair things manually and replace lost buildings.
The repair rate value now (3) could be made 15-ish.
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Yes. The problem is that in places like ATCS' tunnel one single good human can win the whole alien team because of the dretch being so utterly useless. And it really doesn't help how good of a dretch you are.
*cough*Bullsh*t*cough* In a 1v1, a good human owns a good dretch. But not in a 3v1. And certainly not a whole team v1. (We're talking S1 here, not flamers and lucis vs dretches.)
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Yes. The problem is that in places like ATCS' tunnel one single good human can win the whole alien team because of the dretch being so utterly useless. And it really doesn't help how good of a dretch you are.
*cough*Bullsh*t*cough* In a 1v1, a good human owns a good dretch. But not in a 3v1. And certainly not a whole team v1. (We're talking S1 here, not flamers and lucis vs dretches.)
Yes because needing 3 good players to kill 1 good player is fine
Today morning i had 2 small (3-5vs3-5) games, I was playing as human in both. In first, I was building, my teammates feeding resulting in s1 vs s3 but we managed to win. In second I decided to start shooting aliens right away. I managed to get us to s2 without dying (or with one death but that's unlikely) and special pussying (1 return to base for ammo IIRC) only with rifle. I knew they were newbies, I consider myself as a good player, but, hell, I would never manage to get aliens to s2 as dretch without dying even against newbies.
Said value difference (70 credits if I count correctly (2000/9 ~220 - 150 (dretch value)) does not and will never balance that out.
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Yes. The problem is that in places like ATCS' tunnel one single good human can win the whole alien team because of the dretch being so utterly useless. And it really doesn't help how good of a dretch you are.
*cough*Bullsh*t*cough* In a 1v1, a good human owns a good dretch. But not in a 3v1. And certainly not a whole team v1. (We're talking S1 here, not flamers and lucis vs dretches.)
In a 3v1 too, easily. You can just keep going backwards with your dodges if you feel insecure.
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Try putting http://bobis.boldlygoingnowhere.org/demo.dm_70 (http://bobis.boldlygoingnowhere.org/demo.dm_70) in base/demos, /demo demo, and seeing what happens at 1:00, even though aliens lost horribly on this one. Sure, it's not every day I'm able to do that :).
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The problem with the 'rifle in ATCS hall' scenario is not the weakness on dretch, it's the campability of that location + lack of domination makes camping a valid tactic. It is much more difficult for a human to go there and kill dretches if dretches were already waiting, then to snipe incoming dretches from long range.
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You also gotta think in terms of the power being transfered. 3 dretches may kill one human and have a partial (unusable) evo each, while if a human kills 2-3 dretches he has 300-450 credits. That equates to a lasbattery/armor getup(meaning if he can rifle 3v1 dretches in the first place, aliens are screwed), which continues the spiral of the imbalance. If there are an equal number of humans and aliens in atcs hall, (dretches), and the humans are covering eachother properly, no force of dretches stands a chance to have power transfered to their team.
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The problem with the 'rifle in ATCS hall' scenario is not the weakness on dretch, it's the campability of that location + lack of domination makes camping a valid tactic. It is much more difficult for a human to go there and kill dretches if dretches were already waiting, then to snipe incoming dretches from long range.
The scenario works in so many other places too. Take Karith's Alien Main Entrance, Arachnid's Alien Ramp, the whole Nexus map etc. etc... I've yet to see an unhostile map/room for dretches.
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Just don't feed the rifles... Wait for them to come near.
With proper domination you can just ignore the camping rifles. And then own them with goons since they didn't get funds from map control. 2-3 dretches should be able to defend from 2-3 rifles in most cases if they can wait behind corner until the rifles get near. Also since aliens are much faster, they sometimes have the chance of respawning and then killing the fleeing human, while humans almost never get that chance. Just don't make dretch as easy as it was in 1.1.
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Just don't feed the rifles... Wait for them to come near.
With proper domination you can just ignore the camping rifles. And then own them with goons since they didn't get funds from map control. 2-3 dretches should be able to defend from 2-3 rifles in most cases if they can wait behind corner until the rifles get near. Also since aliens are much faster, they sometimes have the chance of respawning and then killing the fleeing human, while humans almost never get that chance. Just don't make dretch as easy as it was in 1.1.
In practise what you described does not happen, even when you wait behind a corner. You can't always just avoid humans, such as in the ATCS tunnel example. If you ignore the humans completely, where do you get the evos for goons? The problem is that you usually need to waste even 3 dretches to get one rifle kill (which even can yield only 1/2 evo).
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As I said:
The problem with the 'rifle in ATCS hall' scenario is not the weakness on dretch, it's the campability of that location + lack of domination makes camping a valid tactic.
The proper fix IMO would be to add domination, as it makes offence 10x more important.
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Am I the only one thinking about how you can ignore the ATCS tunnel and just attack via the center, which is a far better area for the Aliens?
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Am I the only one thinking about how you can ignore the ATCS tunnel and just attack via the center, which is a far better area for the Aliens?
Yes. Why be different when you can be the same as everyone else?
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Am I the only one thinking about how you can ignore the ATCS tunnel and just attack via the center, which is a far better area for the Aliens?
Sure, assuming any humans are dumb enough to solo that way and you can easily get past the default turrets. Usually it's about as effective as hiding in your base though.
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It's trivial to evade the new default turrets. The best places for dretches to get humans is flanking them in the hallway and standing on the medi.
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You know what, If luci and tyrant were removed from tremulous all together, i wouldnt give 2 shits.
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You know what, If luci and tyrant were removed from tremulous all together, i wouldnt give 2 shits.
If luci was removed, I'd quit trem.
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You know what, If luci and tyrant were removed from tremulous all together, i wouldnt give 2 shits.
Congratulations on displaying your uniqueness.
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You know what, If luci and tyrant were removed from tremulous all together, i wouldnt give 2 shits.
If luci was removed, I'd quit trem.
Luci should be put back how it was and tyrant should be properly nerfed. :P
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No way. With the luci how it is, there is MUCH less spam, and you can actually use it to fight aliens from farther away and/or chasing. I'd call it much more a a skill weapon now.
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We'll just agree to disagree.
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We'll just agree to disagree.
what else is new? >.>
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6 users- wow.
Maybe Tremulous community will wake up after Thanks Giving... I've got a gift for the strongest who've lasted this long.
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I miss this game.
Especially playing NON ATCS maps. Thanks for the 6 year old discussion on rifles vs dretch though.. I agree dretch does poorly against good H. Disappointed they toned down its damage in 1.2 but Basi/Mari underplayed because of low dps.. maybe they wanted you to play those more? IMO Dretch or Mara needs a special move like dive down from air.. being stuck in hang time is awful as dretch.
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@xenocidal http://forum.grangerhub.com/ (http://forum.grangerhub.com/)
You can grab a fresher client from https://github.com/wtfbbqhax/tremulous/releases/tag/Oct-22-2016
Cheers,
BlowFish
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@xenocidal http://forum.grangerhub.com/ (http://forum.grangerhub.com/)
You can grab a fresher client from https://github.com/wtfbbqhax/tremulous/releases/tag/Oct-22-2016
Cheers,
BlowFish
Tremulous.x86-64.exe has stopped working (Win 10 x64)