Tremulous Forum
General => Feedback => Topic started by: Nosfore on March 24, 2007, 12:53:10 am
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I just played on a server with TJW new version of Tremulous. They told me that no thread discussed this new version, so I'll start one and give my opinions.
I found most of what I consider to be the alien strenghts have been diminished in some way. Namingly:
Bite reach
I agree that bite reach is ridiculously long compared to the model, but then.. it's now harder to hit. Harder to hit means harder to kill.
Regen
Regen speed is now really slow outside base. Meaning aliens loose much of their mobility.
Tyrant rush
Tyrant rush has been slowed and its duration reduced. You can no longer escape as easily as before, thus making hit and run less effective.
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I think those modifications are going the wrong way. Mobility is the key to alien victory. Anything hadicaping mobility makes aliens less enjoyable.
Also, in this new version, the build system has been modified. Buildings have to be marked for deconning. It's a good system and benefit equally to both team.
I did not play humans yet and look forward to see what are the changes. By the way, is there a changelog of some sort?
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What's your opinions?
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svn has auto changelog.
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svn has auto changelog.
and none of the balance changes are in svn
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Well, trem.tjw.org contains a list of most of his changes.
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I don't like any of them too. Especially long range for dretches :0
Ima gonna get owned.
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OM should have a healing aura.
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I'm reasonably certain I've been told that nothing has been changed about dretch range. That is unless it's changed in the past few days since I was told that :).
Yes, the changes are listed on the site, but that is massively massively out of date and many other things are different. You can confirm this easily by seeing that dretch is now back to 30 instead of 35 as it says. Personally, I really really wish he would keep the list updated so that we can know what rules we're playing with and what to test, but that is not the case.
Trample is better, not worse, but when you hold and release the button is changed.
SVN does not have any of such changes. That's correct.
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OM should have a healing aura.
doesn't it already have that?
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Regen is x1/3 when away from creep.
Regen is x1 when near creep.
Regen is x3 when near a booster.
Regen is x2 when near a Basy
Regen is x3 when near a +Basy.
It's not the overmind per se-- Really more the eggs. Does the OM generate "creep?" I don't know.
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It's not the overmind per se-- Really more the eggs. Does the OM generate "creep?" I don't know.
The OM makes creep. At least the kind you can build on....
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Tyrant rush has been changed for the better I feel. Before you couldn't very well chase down anything unless they were being blocked by a teammate. A quick pounce get away, a trample and turn around the corner where you can reach in time.
Also tyrant trample used to be charge while still trampling, I think that was fixed.
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I haven't played the new version, But the changes don't sound to my liking... :(
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Regen retarded out of base will be BS. I think that handicapping the aliens is stupid. Granted there are a few balance issues but no regen takes away there flexibility now that they have find a basi or run back to base if they take heavy damage. This cripples the Mara since it relies on attack regen attack regen. Ground headshot is what make dretchs deadly but I can make do with out it. Regen however is critical. Why not just make it where regen is off if you don't have a OM?
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Wouldn't the lowered regen off creep promote forward building, or at least forward eggs? You wouldn't need to run all the way back to the base, as eggs generate creep too.
I actually agree with above posts, though. In my opinion, lowering alien regen isn't the way to balance out aliens. However, the devs probably have some reason that has yet to be explained for it. I'll keep an open mind about it for now.
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can we get a list of the servers that are running the new version? it would be helpful to people who want to play the new version and to those who don't, at least until all servers are running the new version.(who knows it may happen)
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1.) Please move this to the mods forum ;)
2.) Domination version 4 now includes these changes
3.) The Aliens still win, though now with the help of Basis, Dretches, and poison moreso than Tyrants/A.Goons
4.) Its actually pretty fun
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TJW's server has these changes, as does the }MG{DominationMod server.
What people arent' mentioning is the Basi. It's reach is farther and the gas is much more effective, and it walks silently in addition to it's healing aura.
In trem 1.1, when s3 is reached, aliens all go tyrant/+goon and that is it, aliens dominate (for the most part). Now, it is worthwhile to stay as a basi or other smaller alien. I wouldn't say aliens have been nerfed, but the abilities of the aliens seems to have been spread out amongst the aliens. Tyrants are more vulnerable, dretches and basi less so. I used to dretch up 4-5 evos in s3 before I evolved, otherwise you just get killed against chainguns/lucys/etc. I don't on TJW's though, I dretch 2 and go adv. basi where I can still help my team and hopefully (as I get better at the basi) get some kills.
I never learned basi that well. Aside from "existential risk" I've never seen anyone all that effective with a basi. Basi's are loud, low hit points, and the adv. gas is usefull only if humans are s1. Lets face it, existential risk was a freak occurrence in that respect. I only remember seeing norfenstein play the new basi, though I suspect he is quite good at it too(he's DEADLY with the new basi :) )
Also, I understand that the turrets are faster. BUT, they take longer to spin up. I'm not sure yet, but based on a couple games I played yesterday, it seems that this will affect base building strategies for the humans significantly. Packing all your turrets together is less effective as they must all spin up, making it possible for a dretch to run over top of them all. Spreading them out a little makes it more likely that a turret or 2 will already be aimed near the enemy and won't have to spin up as much. I haven't tested that though.
Really, I suggest anyone who tries these changes to try it for a few matches and from both sides. I have all but ceased playing humans on regular servers but not on tjw's server. And on aliens, it is suddenly not all about getting the tyrant.
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We (mostly I) should have a justification for every change made so it's okay to ask... I just hope I can remember them all...
Bite reach
I agree that bite reach is ridiculously long compared to the model, but then.. it's now harder to hit. Harder to hit means harder to kill.
This hasn't been changed. I don't know what you're referring to.
Regen
Regen speed is now really slow outside base. Meaning aliens loose much of their mobility.
The point is to make aliens more reliant on their bases because humans are extremely reliant on theirs and this is the best way to even it out (and unfortunately making this more equal is important for balancing a whole lot of other things). But it doesn't hurt aliens to drop forward eggs around the map, and people are really starting to use basilisks more, so you'll get used to it.
Tyrant rush
Tyrant rush has been slowed and its duration reduced. You can no longer escape as easily as before, thus making hit and run less effective.
Mistaken here too. Hopefully the new hud (pester jex about that) will make the trample charging more clear, but it actually (if I remember correctly) takes slightly less time to charge up to full and all the rest of the time is a "buffer" you have before it releases automatically. And it does double damage now (was bugged before) and has major knockback with little or no (don't remember) delay between hits. Try trampling someone straight into a wall (but promise not to come back and complain about it being overpowered :))...
Also, I understand that the turrets are faster. BUT, they take longer to spin up. I'm not sure yet, but based on a couple games I played yesterday, it seems that this will affect base building strategies for the humans significantly. Packing all your turrets together is less effective as they must all spin up, making it possible for a dretch to run over top of them all. Spreading them out a little makes it more likely that a turret or 2 will already be aimed near the enemy and won't have to spin up as much. I haven't tested that though.
Exactly. Turrets now perform much better when spread out a little. I've seen more than one person try this version for the first time, see a dretch dance over their tightly clumped pack of turrets, and cry.
For the record:- Turret range has been increased from 300 to 400
- Turret angular speed has been increased from 8 to 12
- Turret damage has doubled (4 to 8 )
- Turrets must wait about a second (we're still tinkering with that number, I've asked tjw to try one second exactly most recently) after acquiring a target before firing, but they'll continually track a target within range so you have to be agile to trick them once they spin up
Please move this to the mods forum
Whoops, just moved it back to feedback. tjw's version is basically our testing ground for tremulous 1.2, so I think it's more appropriate to have it here. Plus I rarely check the mod forum...
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turrets are now overpowered
the spin up time only effects dretches, making it easier to get around them,because it still takes more time to kill a turr with another class tahtn the warm up.
The new alien creep regen is the cause of this problem
with crappy regen, and reduced tyrant hp, and double turret damage, aliens are slowed down to a halt attacking bases, as they cant regenerate faster than it takes to build new turrets, making human bases nearly invincible. also, crappy regen makes a base attack a suicide run, because by the time they kill a turret, they will be at low health, even more so because of the range, and will be easy targets, to even a naked rifleman that chases them, making humans get unfair creds for camping. in fact, the whole new turret spin up and regen encourages camping, for health and to kill dretches that try to make it around turrets and degrades the quality and fun of the game. tremulous is fine as it is, and even more fun with the quantity of new ideas, but the recent ones have been kinda crappy. also, as norsfore pointed out, the point of aliens is mobility, not camping. and aliens are base dependent, if they lose it, they pretty much for sure lose, plus om for evoing and booster for regen and poison.
please do not impliment theese ideas in 1.2, for the sake of the non boyscout players
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I for one do not agree with these changes. The turret speed was enough of a change.
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@AKAnotu
I don't agree with you... Sure, the new turret system may make it harder for tyrants to attack a human base, but that's kind of what it's supposed to do.
By making tyrants less effective at attacking bases, you promote other alien classes, making the ideal base attacking force a balanced army (like the humans) as opposed to all tyrants or advanced goons.
Basis have the healing aura, with will be crucial with the regen changes. Maras can dodge the turrets better (and was their something with their lightning and being able to better take down turrets? I can't remember.). Dretches can run past the turrets, and advanced goons can snipe.
I support these changes (at least in theory). Perhaps I am not qualified to speak, since I haven't played on a changed server yet. I'll be interested to see how the changes turn out once 1.2 is released.
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I'd like to point out to everyone that the list on http://trem.tjw.org/ has been updated. Thank you very much to whoever got around to doing that.
Though I have seen a few things in the .patch that aren't in that list.
Blaster damage +1
Chaingun spread increased
Tyrant claw width down
Norf, could you explain this one:
SHOTGUN_RANGE (8192 * 12) <- down from 8192 * 16
Hitscan weapons have a max range(??) and the shotgun's was reduced?
I don't understand the zap changes. It still seems useless. Damage for claw is 40 and for mara+ fires every 400 ms. Thus 40 * (1/.4)=100dps. Zap does 33. With a max of 3 targets, that's a max of 99 dmg, which is only about equal. Vs a single target, it's (obviously) only 33dps. This all tells me that it's only worthwhile if you can keep 3 targets in range for a reasonable amount of time. Unless the log saying "for all targets" means that zap ignores armor? Is that the case?
On a semirelated note, has anyone else's turret spinup sound stopped playing in the latest version? I miss it and trying to figure out why it's broken but only for me is driving me nuts.
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As for my opinions, some bases are still just impossible to siege. Humans in the ele on Karith seemed even more impossible than it was in 1.1 proper. I don't see how that game was winnable at all for aliens, and we DID have a reliable basy+ outside. Hell, that was even before the tyrant hp nerf.
What's the idea for breaking bases now- you need dretches and maras to run in first to "distract" turrets while tyrants can take advantage of the fact that turrets aren't clustered anymore to run in and hit important things?
Dretch HP needed that boost after Unlagged. I'm real disappointed to see it back down to 25.
Aside from the turrets, which I'm skeptical about but may be proven wrong, I mostly like the changes. Making aliens have more teamwork is the way to go, though it will annoy upper tier players that tend to killwhore on pubs, since the lack of having a reliable basy teammate in a pool of newbs will hurt that game considerably. I'd like to see Mara and Dretch HP upped, since both suffered very very considerably when unlagged went into effect. Maras can now barely survive a hop through a few humans, much less be the "barely gets kills, but lives forever" beast they once were.
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In my opinion, TJW broke more than he fixed with the regen, poison, tyrant, luci, and turrets.
Regen: Less alien mobility, and less team uniqueness. Also, if aliens are going to be more base dependent, then they probably need stronger bases, or at least defenses with more than 150 hp. D:
Poison: Can be incredibly lethal to any human without a medpack, 20hp to a bsuit, and the numbers go up from there. Also, aliens need to return to base even more. :cry:
Tyrant: Less claw speed, weaker charge, less hp, no regen aura. Makes tyrants relatively useless, especially with the new turrets. :evil:
Luci: half as fast ROF, can't kill much of anything with it, especially with the still-slow-as-mud projectile speed. :P
Turrets: cant pose much of a threat to skilled, agile aliens, but newbies and tyrants will be dropping like flies. :x
Result: Generally making the game even harder for newbies to pick up, and alienating many long-time players with drastic changes.
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I see all this stuff about turrets, but has anything been done/planning to be done to telsa generators?
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Sorry for the delay in responding, I had to actually test the new changes myself >_>
SHOTGUN_RANGE (8192 * 12) <- down from 8192 * 16
Hitscan weapons have a max range(??) and the shotgun's was reduced?
Yes, if I'm not mistaken hitscan weapons do have a maximum range, with 8192 effectively being infinity (I think Q3's railgun has the same range). I'm sorry I have no idea what the * 12, * 16 is about though.
I don't understand the zap changes. It still seems useless. Damage for claw is 40 and for mara+ fires every 400 ms. Thus 40 * (1/.4)=100dps. Zap does 33. With a max of 3 targets, that's a max of 99 dmg, which is only about equal. Vs a single target, it's (obviously) only 33dps. This all tells me that it's only worthwhile if you can keep 3 targets in range for a reasonable amount of time. Unless the log saying "for all targets" means that zap ignores armor? Is that the case?
No, you're right about the damage (not about the armor; I don't think we'll ever do something like that), but I think it's useless because turrets are still too able to track bouncing marauders. I've made another minor change to help with this, letting (skilled) marauders bounce around full bases without taking too much damage, and it's here that the zap is much better than the slash, even when you're not always getting three targets and breaking the chain frequently. I tried it instead with 50 damage on my own: filled the lamer spot on Niveus with just turrets and took out about half of them in one life. So 33's probably an okay value :) Can still use the slash when it's safer though. Don't consider the zap finalized yet either.
What's the idea for breaking bases now- you need dretches and maras to run in first to "distract" turrets while tyrants can take advantage of the fact that turrets aren't clustered anymore to run in and hit important things?
Hopefully dretches will never be vital in attacking bases, and tyrants have never really been best suited for it either. Marauders are intended to be the main base breakers -- at least 1.1 style bases.
Dretch HP needed that boost after Unlagged. I'm real disappointed to see it back down to 25.
This might just come down to a matter of opinion, but people shouldn't be relying on dretches as much as they do in 1.1; hopefully the higher classes will be appealing enough for them to upgrade as readily as humans do. I'm already seeing this with the basilisk improvement. And personally, coming from Gloom, I like the weak dretches (makes the shotgun more fun!).
Result: Generally making the game even harder for newbies to pick up, and alienating many long-time players with drastic changes.
I don't really see anything that's been made harder for new players yet, but there are lot of user interface things that haven't been implemented, so maybe you're confused there. Regarding your second point: long-time players can be alienated if it means improving the game. I'm not going to let Trem stagnate as long as I have any influence here. Besides, the code's open; like you said here (http://tremulous.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4107) someone very well might make a "nostalgia" mod. This is a good thing. Open source means the best ideas win and no one has to suffer in order to please "long-time players". Good thing too, since my ideas might all turn out to be crap. I'm not going to address your other issues though since your attitude seems to be getting in the way of acquiring accurate information. I'm sorry we don't keep everyone completely up-to-date very well.
I see all this stuff about turrets, but has anything been done/planning to be done to telsa generators?
We intentionally focused on getting turrets right first (and I hope hope we're close to there now). One thing I don't want to do is make teslas any stronger, since I think the game should be more volatile at higher stages to make stalemates less likely and better defense (as opposed to better offense) at higher stages goes against that goal. Teslas do nicely complement the new turrets though, so we're going to try dropping their dcc requirement and maybe also trading off some of their power for a price drop.
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Teslas are actually usefull now with the slow turrets! Infact, they are so useful (and since goon+ has moved to S2) they should be available at S2. Dretches are able to get into even the tightest of bases at S1 and S2 on maps like ATCS (I haven't seen the defcom do much to help turrets, does it give them any bonuses anymore?) and wreak havoc on early game builders, teslas need to be available sooner so that dretches wont completely overrun humans and goon+ rush them within 5 minutes of gameplay.
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Hopefully dretches will never be vital in attacking bases, and tyrants have never really been best suited for it either. Marauders are intended to be the main base breakers -- at least 1.1 style bases.
well what are we supposed to use tyrants for then, now that theyve been screwed over with better HUMAN bases, creep regen, and lower hp. you know as well as i do that at the end of most games, humans just sit around in their bases and camp, so what are tyrants supposed to do now? wait for the one or two people who come out? camp and do nothing? watch the maras die from the defenders as the humans pull of a relocate? i'm telling you, some good ideas, but bad implimentation
edit:whoops, wrong name in quote. sry norsefore!
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Humans sit around their bases and camp because the entire alien team has gone tyrant and will undoubtedly kill any human before they get half way to the alien base. Except the really good human players, who will make it 3/4 to within feet of the alien base before they get killed.
Taken as a whole, these changes will mean that tyrants will not be the end all be all of aliens, meaning there will be fewer tyrants at the end of games. Humans are much more likely to not camp then, particularly when there is the possibility that humans can actually kill 1 or 2 of those tyrants.
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Humans sit around their bases and camp because the entire alien team has gone tyrant and will undoubtedly kill any human before they get half way to the alien base. Except the really good human players, who will make it 3/4 to within feet of the alien base before they get killed.
Taken as a whole, these changes will mean that tyrants will not be the end all be all of aliens, meaning there will be fewer tyrants at the end of games. Humans are much more likely to not camp then, particularly when there is the possibility that humans can actually kill 1 or 2 of those tyrants.
which means that humans now win most games, instead of an even balance where humans actually attacked at s2 instead of camping to repair from sniping goons, and from what i've seen on tjw's, specing satgnu (i don't have a good enough ping to play there) and playing on domination mod. also, tjw's junk makes it super easy to relocate base, because it takes less turrets to defend and ward off aliens while building. actuall story: while playing a game with the tjw junk on, we (the aliens) killed the human base 4 times (FOUR, THATS 3 MORE THAN MOST GAMES) until we eventually ran out of evos, at which point humans stormed our base and won. ... FOUR FRIGGIN' TIMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <---------
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edit: nvm...i dont even want to comment because things change like 5 times a day and i have no idea whats going on
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if you let a ckit escape, and dont notice, then you deserve it.
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WHAT SHIT CHANGES TJW MADE
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WHAT SHIT CHANGES TJW MADE
So say we all...
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WHAT SHIT CHANGES TJW MADE
qft
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Rofl, i just tested the "new" adv-basi.
The basi is allready as powerfull as we could dream to be usefull while we are making a real teamplay
But futur adv-basi is a joke, a pure hax :
-You can grab from miles (750 ????? whatajoke why not 1500 ?)
-With unlagged, target is grabbed "2xattackerping" ms "in the past".
-you can temporary grab 2 humans who are in the "grab-line"
-You just have to wallwalk 5 sec to regen from 50 to 100.
-adv basi gaz works with bs and helmet.
-The grab range allow you to grab a bs and jump around him without leave the grab, the gaz affect him so he cant hit you and for the few bullet you could take you have an instant regen.
futur-adv-basi > bs chaingun
bs chaingun > futur-adv goon
futur-adv-basi > futur-adv-goon .......
current personal aptitude of adv basi are good enought, only players are nubs.
You really should decrease the basi aptitude, regen x3 for other alien, ... OK, but x3 for basi himself oO, decrease grab from 750 to 550 at least.
I m playing with (CY) clan (european clan), since 3 week we are playing with a strategy WITHOUT goon at s1 (and s2) (so only mara and basi), we have won all the aliens rounds vs different team and human have NEVER reach s2 before our s3.
When you have to use basi and mara because you cant (or in our case, dont want) use the goon, you start to realize how powerfull they are.
I could post you all the demo from the matches to prove it, mara and basi are already enought stronger to pown human in s1/s2 alien vs s1 human.
Instead of mooving the adv goon from s3 to s2 and making stronger the basi (basi dont need that to pown), you should better move goon from s1 to s2 without decrease his ability.
Our first alien round with that strat.
demo 4v4 full mara (http://hevenet.org/~freak/lawl/demo/CYvsVarachnidemara.dm_69)
I will up you soon some other demo vs other team with mara/basi teamplay.
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WHAT SHIT CHANGES TJW MADE
WHAT CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM SHARRAKOR MADE
I understand the need to vent sometimes. Aliens will now need to play a little more as a team instead of the rogue loners they were. Sure there was alien teamwork, but the game did not rely on it like it does with the humans.
I say Good Job TJW and Norfenstein, and thank you.
edit: On these changes I mean, thanks to everyone involved really!
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WHAT SHIT CHANGES TJW MADE
WHAT CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM SHARRAKOR MADE
I understand the need to vent sometimes. Aliens will now need to play a little more as a team instead of the rogue loners they were. Sure there was alien teamwork, but the game did not rely on it like it does with the humans.
I say Good Job TJW and Norfenstein, and thank you.
Yeah, really people. Remember that the devs aren't trying to mess up the game. Criticism is, of course, good, but only if it is constructive. Just saying they have made horrible changes doesn't help much.
Also, I completely disagree with people saying tyrants have been weakened into uselessness. Just because tyrants aren't the perfect solution to taking down a human base doesn't mean tyrants still present a significant threat to humans outside of their base. Tyrants have their places, but the alien's team strategy should not be just evolve up to tyrant once you hit S3. Remember, this is what the devs wanted, and what is best for the game.
One thing that might be worth consideration is devolution for the aliens. This would need to be implemented very carefully, so as not to completely overpower aliens, but it would help with the different places for different aliens.
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I like all the changes except 2. That means I like:
- The Building system
- Alien regeneration
- Goon changes
- Marauder changes
- Basilisk changes
- Unlagged
- Lucifer changes
I look at the changes from playing on both teams, if one thing is changed, it helps when I'm playing the other side. But I dislike 2 specific things
Unlagged and Alien hit points
With Unlagged, humans are dealing a lot more damage. Specifically, the rifle is connecting much more and making Stage 1 and Stage 2 brutal for aliens. I think all aliens need their hit points buffed around 5-10 points due to how the game plays now.
Tyrants
If Stage 1 and Stage 2 are harder for aliens, at Stage 3, tyrants are no longer the pay off and solution to cracking human bases. Tyrants had 3 advantages previously
- High hitpoints
- High damage
- Relatively high ground speed
Now,
- Nerfed Health- Isn't really that big of any issue.
- No Regeneration- Is a big issue for tyrants.
- Nerfed swipe range- Is a skill issue, encourages people to play better.
- Nerfed trample (increased charge time)- Huge issue for tyrants. The reduced ground speed, specifically the 3-4 seconds it takes to charge a trample, makes tyrants too easy to kill. Anyone can run down a tyrant and finish them off if they come close to a human base.
Right now, tyrants are only good for defending the alien base and killing lone humans. Tyrants don't stand an ice cube's chance in hell when it comes to attacking the human base
Outside of the changes, the alien team is in crisis. Stage 3 doesn't mean anything anymore to aliens. Since tyrants aren't gamebreakers, aliens only need Stage 2 and advanced dragoons.
The problem is that alien loose so much for the benefit of advanced dragoons.
1) All aliens, other than the tyrant, suddenly because 'useful' because tyrants are so useless. But that isn't a gain, its just the default.
2) Aliens loose the ability to control the map without tyrants. Basically, advanced dragoons can be killed by the pulse rifle, flamer, chaingun, and lucifer cannon reliably. Other aliens don't fare much better.
The only thing that kept humans in check were tyrants or the fear that aliens would get to Stage 3 and have tyrants.
Personally, I always thought tyrants were overpowered but they were necessary. The major problem is that everyone evolved to tyrants, shifting the balance of power into aliens' side greatly.
If the developers have the balls to nerf the tyrant as much as they have, they should have the balls to take them out. I never thought tyrants were a 'fair' class at Stage 3 but I can't imagine what else would work. Might as well cook up something else. I'm not angry or complaining, I'm just giving you my perspective. Aliens are in big trouble and the only reasons why they win TJW's server is from sheer skill.
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Good point with tyrants. I agree that they should be powerful aliens that humans fear. Maybe they have been weakened too much to even be a threat outside of the human base.
I'm wondering: with the new turret system (especially the double damage but slow turrets), am I right in assuming that basis and maras have a better time surviving in the first stages of an attack than tyrants do? Maybe with some tweaking, we can keep tyrants powerful but weak against strong turrets, while still allowing smaller aliens to stand up against the turrets.
Right now when aliens attack a human base the strong tyrants and goons go in first to soften up the heavy defenses, and are followed by weaker aliens when the turrets are down. With turrets being highly effective against slower aliens, the new attack would be basis and maras going in first and attacking the turrets, and tyrants come in to finish the base once the turrets are gone. I kind of like the second way.
The other (rather obvious) plus of this system is dretches can run around the turrets and maybe kill a few humans if non-turret human defenders can't take them down. This would help discourage humans overly camping.
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TRAMPLE IS NOT NERFED
Trample now works more like pounce - you have to actually let go of the button. If you let go of the button at the right time, then the trample is EXACTLY THE SAME as it always was. If you let go earlier, it also actually works. If you let go later, it works about the same: this is just a punishment for people that hold the button down all the time. The truth is, you have all the power of the old trample and all the additional control of being able to fire it earlier/more precisely to get around corners and through straightwaways during your escapes. This and the increased chaingun spread do a good job to balance the 350HP for some tasks.
In addition, trample now works VERY WELL as an attack. If you trample from full or near-full charge vs a full-health bsuit and press it against the wall to score multi hits, it dies in less than two seconds. If you trample a helmet/larmor, it dies almost instantly.
This power makes up for the changes in swipe length/width, though those barely need to be compensated for in the first place because, as was said, you can just play better :).
Though I do agree with you about the dretch HP. Unlagged + the low regen really needs dretch HP back to 30, like they were considering for a bit.
And re: Mad_Joe:
Goons and Rauders take down turrets. +Goons and Rants take down Teslas. Dretches do at the moment manage to score a good deal of kills in vs a s1 (no tesla) base, but honestly I see that more as encouraging camping than discouraging it, since you need human defenders to take them out.
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Goons and Rauders take down turrets. +Goons and Rants take down Teslas. Dretches do at the moment manage to score a good deal of kills in vs a s1 (no tesla) base, but honestly I see that more as encouraging camping than discouraging it, since you need human defenders to take them out.
That could be a problem. Maybe it'd be time to greatly increase the range and power of the reactor zap attack. Well, power would only take a small increase but range definitively needs a good improvement. In fact, a basi can kill a reactor near a wall/ceiling without taking any damage at all.
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Goons and Rauders take down turrets. +Goons and Rants take down Teslas. Dretches do at the moment manage to score a good deal of kills in vs a s1 (no tesla) base, but honestly I see that more as encouraging camping than discouraging it, since you need human defenders to take them out.
That could be a problem. Maybe it'd be time to greatly increase the range and power of the reactor zap attack. Well, power would only take a small increase but range definitively needs a good improvement. In fact, a basi can kill a reactor near a wall/ceiling without taking any damage at all.
Defense computer does this now. It increases the power of the reactor zap; perhaps the range too, I don't remember.
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Good point with tyrants. I agree that they should be powerful aliens that humans fear. Maybe they have been weakened too much to even be a threat outside of the human base.
I'm wondering: with the new turret system (especially the double damage but slow turrets), am I right in assuming that basis and maras have a better time surviving in the first stages of an attack than tyrants do? Maybe with some tweaking, we can keep tyrants powerful but weak against strong turrets, while still allowing smaller aliens to stand up against the turrets.
When I played...it was better to take 5 evos and use an advanced marauder and then a regular marauder to attack the human base than to use a tyrant. I actually killed a lot of turrets as a dretch. Humans need telsas now because marauders and dretches can jump into a human base and do damage before turrets lock.
TRAMPLE IS NOT NERFED
Trample now works more like pounce - you have to actually let go of the button. If you let go of the button at the right time, then the trample is EXACTLY THE SAME as it always was. If you let go earlier, it also actually works. If you let go later, it works about the same: this is just a punishment for people that hold the button down all the time. The truth is, you have all the power of the old trample and all the additional control of being able to fire it earlier/more precisely to get around corners and through straightwaways during your escapes. This and the increased chaingun spread do a good job to balance the 350HP for some tasks.
I really disagree. I played around with trample and I couldn't get it work without just holding it. It doesn't 'launch' like a dragoon pounce. Its must be some fine balance between moving and not moving or its just nerfed. Quite frankly, thats a too definitive of a change to throw on players without documentation. I need to see some specifics on how to trample cause otherwise, its too slow.
Chaingun spread doesn't mean much. Powerful turrets + tyrant slower speed = riflemen killing you when you escape. People seem to forget that tyrants have to escape. I played aliens with Norfenstein and even he wasn't using tyrants. When he did, and he did, he got killed pretty quickly later.
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Aliens used to have S2 being the "useless" stage, no decent upgrades. Now, just the Basi and 'Rauder beefed up makes S2 a powerful stage for aliens. The +Goon's move to S2 and the 'Rant's nerfing has made S3 the "useless" stage. If the +Goon were to be moved back to S3, but the +Basi and +Mara were kept the same, I think that aliens would have both S2 and S3 being useless and it would be meaningful when the Overmind says "We Have Evolved(to stage 3)"
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...I see that more as encouraging camping than discouraging it, since you need human defenders to take them out.
Good point, I hadn't thought of that.
You could make the argument that even if you need human defenders to take them out, the humans need to leave the base and attack so the aliens won't continue to score kills slowly until S2 and +goons.
That argument has problems though, and the question is if that works in practice.
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The new rets are bad enough. But now +goons show up very quickly. The humans are dead too. The nerfed regen wasn't as bad as I thought as long as someone listens on your team. However rant really does need its regen back.
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One thing that might be worth consideration is devolution for the aliens.
Sorry, this is never going to happen. It's been brought up before but it's one of those things fundamental to Tremulous's design that humans have the advantage over aliens of being better able to adapt to changing situations, with the tradeoff of having to rely on a structure to do it.
TRAMPLE IS NOT NERFED
I really disagree. I played around with trample and I couldn't get it work without just holding it. It doesn't 'launch' like a dragoon pounce. Its must be some fine balance between moving and not moving or its just nerfed.
The trample has only been improved, specifically to offset the slash (which, mostly, has only been toned down by requiring more skill). It takes one second to fully charge the trample, all that extra time is for your benefit so you can decide better when and where to release it. Don't strafe while charging though, and backstepping is a good way to cancel it. It does twice as much damage as it did before (there was a bug) and smashing humans against walls can result in the only instant-kills in the game. Plus you can hit a whole hallway full of humans instead of just one with a single trample.
Quite frankly, thats a too definitive of a change to throw on players without documentation. I need to see some specifics on how to trample cause otherwise, its too slow.
When we're done making changes, then we'll make sure everyone knows how to use every class and hold an actual open beta. TJW's server is really just for he and I to tune the game to how we want it, but everyone is also welcome to play and comment (and we pretty much couldn't test at all if you didn't, so thank you for just playing!), but consider it alpha, not beta. Don't lose credibility now by giving bad feedback (sharrakor, techhead, AKAnotu), when it's not even useful to us (i.e. about something that might change anyway). Not directing that at you temple, just asking you not to expect too much too soon. I'm actually thrilled we're moving along so quickly, at least between tjw and myself (though, really, he's doing all the hard work and, as an aside: anyone blaming him instead of me for changes they don't like tells me instantly that they're not informed enough to be giving feedback yet). I hear the new HUD will have a charge indicator that will make the tyrant's trample ability crystal clear. The person to bug about that is Jex ;) (hint hint).
Chaingun spread doesn't mean much. Powerful turrets + tyrant slower speed = riflemen killing you when you escape. People seem to forget that tyrants have to escape. I played aliens with Norfenstein and even he wasn't using tyrants. When he did, and he did, he got killed pretty quickly later.
From playing last (I assume that's when you saw me temple) chainsuits seem to be the only thing really left unbalanced. And in the games I played humans barely camped at all. At stage 3 aliens were the ones that actually had to stand back and defend (which is such a departure from 1.1 that it tells me this game actually can be balanced!). You're right about the chaingun spread not meaning much; I'm considering other means (means other than just changing numbers) of balancing it that won't change its role as a "big game hunter". And I personally have no problem with unlagged and the 25 health dretch. I'm personally not done testing yet though, so I could very well change my mind on some of the things that have changed recently and gotten complaints from a number of people (namely the dretch health and turrets versus dretches, and probably some things I'm not remembering at the moment). However, most of the changes that have been in for a while that keep getting complaints I am not going to reconsider. So you're wasting your time suggesting aliens regen equally everywhere or the advance goon be moved to stage 3 (or any of the classes moved between stages at this point).
Keep in mind as well that we (or at least I) don't want the game to be as slow-paced as it was in 1.1. Games are going to much more exciting in 1.2 (you may see one somewhat big change to facilitate this fairly soon) so I'm a little skeptical about complaints about turrets getting destroyed more quickly.
Also, about the regeneration? So many people speak like it was actually useful during battles. It wasn't; you needed to rest several seconds for it to even kick in. All the "nerf" did was make camping outside human bases less possible. Which means aliens might actually have to return to their bases nearly as much as humans do. Which means humans get to leave their own bases more often.
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I just played some frustrating games.
I'll start with the positives:
I figured out how to trample with tyrants and yes it is better. Trample more powerful and faster.
Now the negatives:
Any competent human team can completely control the game.
Turrets
With a defender, nothing can survive going near the human base. Turrets spread out ensure that at least 1 will lock on and blast away an attacker. Bases can damn near defend themselves until SD. With a defender, you aren't going to be killing any reactors.
Tesla Generators
The range is rediculous. True story:
I went to the human base as a dretch. There was a tesla behind a turret. By the time I got 4-5 paces from the turret, the tesla zapped from behind it. It had to be about 8-9 steps away from me. Imagine if I was a dragoon or tyrant.
The Reactor
When did this become a weapon? The super zap range is ridiculous. Its so ironic because:[list=1]- The selling point of 1.20 is that marauders and basilisks are supposed to be better. But these class (and I've killed reactors with both) can't possibly survive a reactor zap and new turrets.
- Big aliens get zapped by the reactor more now because the range hits them well before they get near it.
- Dretches aren't going near the base. Turrets fire slower but the reactor will zap them like a tesla.[/list:o]
Chainguns
They have increased spread. However, with Unlagged, every human weapon is hitting more frequently. The chaingun spread is nullified by the increased accuracy of Unlagged. With a battlesuit and chaingun defender, aliens can only suicide into the human base. They surely won't be walking away. The chainguns were killing dretches consistently and from moderate range. Something is wrong with this picture.
Regeneration, Speed, and Unlagged
I figured why aliens are able to survive in 1.10: - Aliens can regenerate as they flee. The longer they can dodge, the more their hit points regenerate. They increase their overall survivability.
- Every server and every FPS has lag. Aliens survive simply because you can't be completely accurate. With Unlagged, it doesn't matter how fast an alien moves, it will take damage. Any competent player will be able to kill an alien if they have range.
- With increased accuracy on the human team and decreased regeneration on the alien team, aliens can not launch prolonged attacks and rarely escape an attack.
The Alien Problem
Its too hard to generate evos.
With Unlagged, dretches are a non threat if the human has range. Without dretches, aliens don't have another weapon to use.
Its too hard to sustain attacks on humans.
With humans dealing more damage and bases dealing more damage, a larger alien can't survive a direct assault. Its much harder to escape and regenerate. If you die, you end up as a dretch and fighting to earn evos to return to the main confrontation at the human base. This is basically giving the map to the humans.
The Human Problem
No risk.
Overall, humans can camp and starve aliens of credits BUT with no real repercussions. - Aliens crawling the map, so what? Hit them a few times and they will be forced to go back to the base, leaving the map open.
- If aliens rush them, so what? What is going to survive the exit?
- If aliens hit Stage 3, so what? What's going to tear down their base? How is it going to come back after it hits the defenses?
What are aliens supposed to do?
I'll stop giving feedback after this. I'm feeling really pissed off about this now because humans have so much more control over the game. Its really lame to see the game go in such a direction.
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^^^ Above Post, totally agree... aliens are crap, they cant defend, their regen and all that nerfed, aliens ARE NERFED!!! Admit it ppl, TJWs has done more harm than good to the game play...
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^^^ Above Post, totally agree... aliens are crap, they cant defend, their regen and all that nerfed, aliens ARE NERFED!!! Admit it ppl, TJWs has done more harm than good to the game play...
You know, you should read Norfensteins posts, it would give you more credibility.
I'm actually thrilled we're moving along so quickly, at least between tjw and myself (though, really, he's doing all the hard work and, as an aside: anyone blaming him instead of me for changes they don't like tells me instantly that they're not informed enough to be giving feedback yet
Also, about the new chaingun spread, I would say it hurts the humans probably more than aliens would like you to believe, even with Unlagged. With some training, lag doesn't matter at all with a chaingun so Unlagged doesn't help. With an increase in spread it makes it even more impractical to kill an alien at range with it. Chaingun is a short range weapon.
Of course, the majority of games played are with players who don't have enouth training so I guess Unlagged helps here :)
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The turrets are more powerful but you need a decent builder to build them. If there set up trem 1.1.0 style as a dretch I can very well almost take out a human base. Its ridiculous. However if the base is built right its damn near indestructible.
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I hear the new HUD will have a charge indicator that will make the tyrant's trample ability crystal clear. The person to bug about that is Jex ;) (hint hint).
Is there any chance that this HUD will also indicate whether you're inside/outside a regen aura and what strength that aura is? I find it difficult to tell whether you're "close enough" to a basy or even just don't notice that one has wandered by and regenned me.
I just played some frustrating games.
The Alien Problem
Its too hard to generate evos.
With Unlagged, dretches are a non threat if the human has range. Without dretches, aliens don't have another weapon to use.
The increased ability of poison makes generating evos as a dretch much, much more easy.
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The increased ability of poison makes generating evos as a dretch much, much more easy.
Not to mention basi gas. I've been gassing people and letting others take the kill. Helping the team is helping yourself in Trem. Gassing a bsuit and watching the dretch swarm clean it up is fun ;)
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Yes, but to get poison and basigas you need S2, and that's not happening with these dretches and unlagged. Aliens are nerfed, face it. The game was better as 1.1, and personally, I hope that these changes stay on tjw and SATGNU. Aliens are meant to be able to control the map and crack bases. Humans are meant to use teamwork to fight them off. Aliens are the hunters, humans are they prey, it should stay that way.
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Any competent human team can completely control the game.
Believe or not this has always been the case. We're just now seeing the skill requirement for this brought down to a more practical level. Hopefully this does not mean the "ceiling" of what truly competent teams can accomplish has gone up as much.
Tesla Generators
The range is rediculous[sic]
Obviously dretches are going to be crushed by teslas. I was considering toning them down anyway though, and doing it by range might be the best way.
The Reactor
When did this become a weapon? The super zap range is ridiculous.
This was one of TJW's experiments in response to me wanting teslas and dcc's decoupled. I haven't even tested it yet, but we're already thinking of other alternatives. Besides, who actually attacks the reactor before the armoury/medistation/teles/everything else?
Chainguns
Did you read my previous post? I know it was long, but so is yours ;) I said I thought chainguns were the most unbalanced thing left in the game and I'm working on a solution.
The Alien Problem
Its too hard to generate evos.
Its too hard to sustain attacks on humans.
With humans dealing more damage and bases dealing more damage, a larger alien can't survive a direct assault. Its much harder to escape and regenerate. If you die, you end up as a dretch and fighting to earn evos to return to the main confrontation at the human base.
This is also being addressed. Killing structures will yield funds so, in theory, if you accomplish anything in a base raid and die (which should be an okay thing to have happen in a fast paced game) you'll probably have resources to do it again. Also: PLEASE do not comment on this until we've implemented it and actually tried it. I had to take a moment to decide whether to disclose something we're only in the planning stage for because of some peoples' quickness to prejudge. I don't mind theoretical discussions about balance (enjoy even, if it's with someone keen), but the forum medium is not a place where it's productive.
I'll stop giving feedback after this.
Please do if it's making you angry. Wait till we're finished. And then wait even longer while playing until you see the big picture. We really didn't intend for people to get this involved before we finished precisely because seeing things in an incomplete state can lead to very unhappy people, which can lead to discouraged devs. Try to imagine from our perspective if we'd had feedback like this every step of the way in making Tremulous 1.0 and 1.1. And you seemd to enjoy the product of that; change isn't always bad.
Also, about the new chaingun spread, I would say it hurts the humans probably more than aliens would like you to believe, even with Unlagged. With some training, lag doesn't matter at all with a chaingun so Unlagged doesn't help. With an increase in spread it makes it even more impractical to kill an alien at range with it. Chaingun is a short range weapon.
With the new change I have in mind (disrupting the chaingun if the wielder takes damage, so skill is introduced in chaingunning via dodging, and so skilled aliens can fight them without taking as much damage) the spread should probably indeed go down, to at least where it was before so it can be used for chasing big aliens (although I can't say I noticed the difference of 200 at all). Note again that this has not been implemented yet, no one can test it yet, so here and now is probably not the spacetime for feedback on it.
Is there any chance that this HUD will also indicate whether you're inside/outside a regen aura and what strength that aura is?
Absolutely.
Yes, but to get poison and basigas you need S2, and that's not happening with these dretches and unlagged. Aliens are nerfed, face it. The game was better as 1.1, and personally, I hope that these changes stay on tjw and SATGNU. Aliens are meant to be able to control the map and crack bases. Humans are meant to use teamwork to fight them off. Aliens are the hunters, humans are they prey, it should stay that way.
If you feel the balance was perfect in 1.1 then you're going to have to fork the code to keep playing it with all the non-gameplay improvements. We're making 1.2 because we weren't finished with 1.1 (duh). Things are going to keep changing until we're finally satisfied and we knew from the beginning that this would upset vocal conservatives, but we also decided then not to let that stop us. Instead of trying to convince us (me, really) that your way is right, maybe you should start looking around for like-minded people interested in a backport.
Alternatively you could learn how to actually persuade people, that's handy in a lot of life's situations.
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2 questions:
How are aliens supposed to attack the human base anymore?
Without regeneration, what is the advantage of the alien team?
Strategically, the alien game relies on humans failing. Aliens don't have any proactive way to take humans out. Unlagged has everyone dealing more damage. Turret range and damage has them killing big or slow aliens. And if you do manage to escape the human base, you have to survive the long journey all the way back to your base to regenerate. Which that doesn't happen often because a chasing human can finish you off too easily. Even humans get a medikit and sprint. Aliens get to pray no one chases them.
I was so embarrassed when I killed about 3 humans in the base with a dretch and got totally owned by the new turrets when I tried it with a goon. I know how to play a goon. I'm damn good. But even attacking turrets are risky because they hit farther. Therefore, when you are trying to get away, the turret can get some extra hits in. More powerful hits at that!
I don't know what the fuck anymore with the alien team.
And Heaven help the alien team when humans get chainguns and battlesuits. Its a wrap once humans realize how much more useful that combo is. Can't attack the base, can move around the map without getting hurt and having to run back to your base.
Good tyrants used to battlesuit/chaingunners out. Now good tyrants are trying to relearn trampling and swiping.
But I will tell you want makes me angry...
No chomping while pouncing? That's some TJW specific hate.
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Okay, I'm all for these changes. I like the whole idea except alien's lame regen. These changes are simpily coming at us too quick. Everyone is going to be noobs again and as temple said, we're going to have to relearn alot of skills. If you slowly added these changes as then the community would better adjust to them. It's like taking a fish out of the water and asking him to adapt to life on land, it will die, and so will the Tremulous community if these changes come at them to quick.
How's THAT for persuasion?
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And I know the whole point of the changes...
You want aliens to work better as a team. But nerfing tyrants and making the humans stronger isn't the solution.
Why?
Because when I switch teams and playing humans, nothing is going to stop me. Hell, only tyrants can stop me now. When the good human players come out the woodwork and start playing humans, you will see the imbalance.
Between 2 decent teams, games are close enough as is. But the human team as lost nothing. The alien has lost a lot. The tyrant needed a change but this is just over and beyond what I expected.
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alien regen? go adv basi.
watch what happens to the hummie base when the tyrants heal 3 times the speed they used to.
and mara zap!
I love the new mara!
you need to relearn some stuff.
and I can dretch up evo's faster on TJW's than anywhere else.
or go basi, grab somone, and get evo for assisting.
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I honestly haven't tested this yet (beacouse of my hard disk crashed on my gaming computer :( ) but what I see in comments and after looking up the change list i come to conclusion that human base defences have been taken up too much in line of damage & range. Aliens seem to lose the point of being alien. Things I love being alien is their movement speed and how they can move by using walls and such plus the regeneration that allows them to use whole map like it was infested by them. Also basilisk should not be the class with healing aura since its the one that should be silent assasin and I can't get my self to fit with idea of assasin medic. If you want a healing class give it to granner or make new one.
Now to the good points since i've sounded like flamethrower.
I like the idea you are building up with tyrant charge *hears blood and flesh squishing between wall and tyrant*. Basilisk gas idea is fantastic (I never found the hurting gas usefull).
Then some ideas that ran through my mind.
After seeing many comments about the healing aura I got an idea of new class or modification to an alien class that could come with many difrent auras (random or chosen like classes) that would give them self an ability (like faster regeneration, cloaking, poisonus claws, vampirism etc.) and share it with others of same class so that larger groups of this class would have many abilities while loners would be... well.. alone :wink:
Or mibie give all current classes some short of ability by default that would be shared everyone near them.
Examples:
Granner - Armor (for aliens in base du'h)
Drech - Speed
Basilisk - Poison Attacks
Adv Basilisk - Cloaking
Marauderer - Vampirism
Adv Marauderer - Attack Speed
Dragoon - Attack Range
Adv Dragoon - Attack Damage
Tyrant - Regeneration
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Aliens + Teamwork = Bad
IMO
Aliens are bounty hunters, they're supposed to be strong warriors that can fend for themselves. I agree that aliens should have some teamwork considering they basically have a hive mind, but from what I've seen, alien teamwork doesn't work unless it's an endgame tyrant rush (Trem 1.1). Aliens just aren't meant for teamwork. If you want both teams using teamwork, make hummies vs hummies, but I just think that aliens should stay as they were, one man (beast) armys.
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No offense Whitebear, but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE play these changes for a couple days before remarking. These changes WILL require a change of strategy, alien and human (based on what I've played). They will require strategy that you and I are not presently aware of, and may not even be planned, but will grow out of the changes. But you have to play to find out how the changes will really affect the matches.
Temple, a basi just outside of human base can gas any follower and the pursuit will pretty much halt, not to mention that it will be the place where all the other aliens are waiting, healing and more than happy for the free evo :D Sure the human can somewhat still follow, but their aim goes all to hell (except Wiggity, darn you wiggity! ;) )
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Anyone try the new Painsaw yet?
In the last version I played, it had the range of a Basilisk swipe.
Not only does it make chasing down aliens with it even easier, it also makes the flamethrower a complete waste of money for hunting anything but a Marauder.
Then again, it probably was tweaked again since the last time I played.
EDIT: Also, if aliens are to be more base dependent, they also need stronger bases. The alien building hitpoints are pitiful compared to human defenses.
For reference:
Alien Structures:
Overmind 750 hp
Egg 250 hp
Acid Tube 125 hp
Barricade 200 hp
Trapper 50 hp
Hive 125 hp
Hovel 375 hp
Human Structures:
Reactor 930 hp
Telenode 310 hp
Medistation 190 hp
Turret 190 hp
Armory 280 hp 1.1.0 (420 hp current tjw's)
Repeater 250 hp
Defense Computer 190 hp
Tesla Generator 210 hp
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No offense Whitebear, but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE play these changes for a couple days before remarking.
I know... I just kinda commented with basis of reading change log... I will try these changes tomorrow or friday when my new hard disk arives. I won't take any offence of post nice as that ^^
About current (1.1.0) team work:
Human either have 2-4 players that know each other from past games bit better and then 2-3 others tag along them and work as squad while couple of them press taunt here and there OR there is clan members that do same drill OR they use team speak. Ofcource there is one more method where Some one yels "RUSH!" and everyone runs from base and find it minute later raped by few dragoons and tyrants that came from other way.
Alien Team work seem to base on the "RUSH!" yel but mostly aliens just wait around the corners attacking with hit & run method using turns while other one attacks other one heals from last attack.
Can we please have some squad system using GUI menus and voice menus?
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If you think trem needs more teamwork, put in a voice chat system. Have the ability to mute others out of your speakers and add antiflood control of course, but this is what we need, not broken Tyrants and Lucis.
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And you think rts game does not need teamwork among the units?
The game gets your adrenaline pumbing when you are able to cordinate attack well enough destroy s3 base with single wave. I've was able to do some thing near enough one twice in all time i've played trem. Once on human and once on aliens.
Both requierd TeamSpeak beacouse there were no sound menu for basic manuvers.
If you have ever played MOHAA (Medal Of Honor: Alied Assault, q3 engine game) You know how much teamwork gives you advanage over loners.
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Aliens seem to play better alone. Also, I suggested an ingame chat in my last post ;)
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If you think trem needs more teamwork, put in a voice chat system. Have the ability to mute others out of your speakers and add antiflood control of course, but this is what we need, not broken Tyrants and Lucis.
Post about it when you have the beta ready :)
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If you think trem needs more teamwork, put in a voice chat system. Have the ability to mute others out of your speakers and add antiflood control of course, but this is what we need, not broken Tyrants and Lucis.
Post about it when you have the beta ready :)
:evil:
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Aliens + Teamwork = Bad
IMO
Aliens are bounty hunters, they're supposed to be strong warriors that can fend for themselves. I agree that aliens should have some teamwork considering they basically have a hive mind, but from what I've seen, alien teamwork doesn't work unless it's an endgame tyrant rush (Trem 1.1). Aliens just aren't meant for teamwork. If you want both teams using teamwork, make hummies vs hummies, but I just think that aliens should stay as they were, one man (beast) armys.
Biggest shit ever ...
I dont know what kind of players you have in your clan or what kind of clan you play with, but alien teamplay rules more than alone skilled aliens.
Stop playing ffa men and try to play war vs serious clan.
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I was in a clanwar (some time ago, with my last clan), and in my experience, yes, alien teamwork works, but not when it is forced upon the team like it is being with these changes.
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On this point i m totaly agree.
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On aliens being solitary...
Personally, I agree with that aliens should be powerful beings able to defend themselves. However, if you want them to be totally solitary, you run into a logical problem. Aliens would be much too overpowered if only one alien was a match for a group of humans, let alone if aliens were able to assault a human base by themselves.
Right now, a lone alien has a pretty big advantage over a lone human, provided they are at the same level of upgrades (dretch/basic human, tyrant/bsuit, etc.). Provided they maintain that an alien, outside of the human base, is still a threat to a lone human, I'm fine with the aliens. It'd be nice to have them completely self-sufficient, but then they'd probably be too overpowered.
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The aliens seem perfect in 1.1.0, self dependant, that's the word. Aliens are interdependant when they choose to be, but they dont need to be, and again, I dont think they should be.
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I want to thank Norfenstein and TJW for all the hard work they have been doing to better tremulous.
Persionaly I think all the changes have good.
They require a differnt playing style, and some have had a steep learning curve, but in overall I think tremulous 1.2 will be better and more balanced.
Also, to all the people complaining about 'enforced teamwork'. Its a team game. Go play quake 3 death match. The whole point of team games is teamwork. If your not going to work with each other, then there is no point there being teams is there? If you want tremulous death match, make a mod, or quit playing. No one is forcing you to play.
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Humans have teamwork, aliens dont.
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Aliens=fast, flexible, and able to function with out a base. This is reflected all over the game. The alien's pitiful defense structures with out a trapper, There fast to move and can get just about anywhere, and can regenerate. To make them dependent on a base takes away there ability to wear down the humans.
You say all you need is a basi to regen. A naked hummie can kill a unskilled basi which is bad for public games. I think all these changes were due to the noobs yelling that aliens were over powered when in fact they just don't know how to play the game.
The overall formula is trem 1.1 was fine. Some changes are nice like the tyrant charge. However the rest of the changes have left aliens at the human's mercy.
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How are aliens supposed to attack the human base anymore?
Marauders, marauders, marauders. I think I've even managed to convince tjw to change the zap again just so it will be exactly suitable for attacking bases (turrets at least).
And Heaven help the alien team when humans get chainguns and battlesuits.
Working on it.
No chomping while pouncing? That's some TJW specific hate.
This was my change, not his. Being able to chomp while pouncing completely negated the pounce as a weapon (chomping actually disabled any damage from the pounce). Being able to chomp and pounce would be extremely overpowered. I think pouncing is more fun the headbiting, it's more balanced at stage 1 because it's not locational, and less prohibitively difficult for new players. Hence no biting while pouncing. The goon's primary weapon is supposed to be the pounce -- that's what makes it a unique class. The bite should only be for when one is already in very close range to a human (say, after pouncing one into a corner). Complaints about this sound to me like a refusal to change strategy.
And I know the whole point of the changes...
You want aliens to work better as a team.
No, you don't know the whole point of the changes, which is why you should stop playing until you start enjoying it again (may I suggest when we announce an open call for beta testers?). The only point of the changes in aggregate is to make the game more fun. Forcing aliens to use more teamwork was never a goal of ours. I think Dasprid had a misunderstanding somewhere along the line with our intention of making all the alien classes useful throughout the game, instead of only the goon and tyrant being useful like in 1.1. We realize that expecting too much teamwork on public servers (which is what we're balancing for) is a bad bad idea.
Okay, I'm all for these changes. I like the whole idea except alien's lame regen. These changes are simpily coming at us too quick. Everyone is going to be noobs again and as temple said, we're going to have to relearn alot of skills. If you slowly added these changes as then the community would better adjust to them. It's like taking a fish out of the water and asking him to adapt to life on land, it will die, and so will the Tremulous community if these changes come at them to quick.
That's the problem: these changes aren't meant for the community at large. They just happen to be open to everyone because that's how we do things, and people are playing with them. You're curious and like the game and want more and to see where we're going, but without seeing the finished product it might look, well, wrong. Other people can tilt their heads a little and think "yea, I can see it". I'm very sorry that the only solution is to wait, but would it have been better if we'd hidden all this and just said SOON (http://www.planettremulous.com/) until it was all done? Not to mention that to truly fix some things that are broken you have to break other things. So we can't have every release be fun and balanced. We try to avoid that of course (and there's still value in testing a broken game), but we're going for a finished product, not an entertaining circus of modifications.
How's THAT for persuasion?
You weren't really arguing anything there, but I'm extremely impressed, and glad.
I honestly haven't tested this yet...
Then honestly, your feedback isn't what I'm looking for :). I'm having enough of a time fending off the people who actually have tried it ;) (some thought-worthy ideas though).
And with regards to that, I want to thank temple and Plague Bringer (now that he's shown he can be polite :)) for caring enough about Tremulous to get worked up over our little 1.2 experiment. We're not trying to ruin the game, but we are changing it. You will have to change with it too, and as we're working on it that means anyone following along is going to be, essentially, a perpetual noob. And it may be that you're too attached to 1.1 to ever like 1.2, but we'll have to wait to truly find out.
Also, thanks David (and everyone else mentioning praise). We know a lot of people like the changes, but they don't have much reason to speak out.
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Hmm, this is an interesting point:
...make it (the tyrant's charge) so you have to use it immediately after charging up so it's not possible to just sit behind a door or corner and instantly kill anything that comes in front of you.
The Tyrant's hold-down-and-release-when-ready charge (and a more powerful one at that) completely goes against this statement. Who's idea was this new charge? tjw's or Norfenstein's?
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Hmm, this is an interesting point:
...make it (the tyrant's charge) so you have to use it immediately after charging up so it's not possible to just sit behind a door or corner and instantly kill anything that comes in front of you.
The Tyrant's hold-down-and-release-when-ready charge (and a more powerful one at that) completely goes against this statement. Who's idea was this new charge? tjw's or Norfenstein's?
You still have to use it within a few seconds and stopping movement loses the charge. That's hardly counter to "not possible to sit behind a door or corner."
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I didnt know that much.
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This is not a gameplay suggestion at all but, whatever. When making a name with colors, the ^# counts towards the maximum character limit. (ex - ^1{^3MMD^1}Bringer{^3L1^1} counts as 21 (?) characters, while {MMD}Bringer{L1} only counts as 16) It's really annoying when you're trying to color you name the way you want but you cant because the color codes wont fit. Perhaps in the next version color codes wont count towards the max character limit of a name, unless tehre is a reason for this, and if there is, what is it?
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This is not a gameplay suggestion at all but, whatever. When making a name with colors, the ^# counts towards the maximum character limit. (ex - ^1{^3MMD^1}Bringer{^3L1^1} counts as 26 characters, while {MMD}Bringer{L1} only counts as 16) It's really annoying when you're trying to color you name the way you want but you cant because the color codes wont fit. Perhaps in the next version color codes wont count towards the max character limit of a name, unless tehre is a reason for this, and if there is, what is it?
the ^'s take up space in memory, so they have to count towards the limit
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Damn. Is it possible to increase the character limit +1 everytime a ^ is added or something? I doubt it :(.
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/name ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Well erm... You get the picture.
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I want changes. I'm dead bored of Tremulous. These changes are fine but they will unbalance a game that was pretty closed to balanced already.
What I'm missing here is 2 major points:
Survival. How are aliens to survive anymore or prevent humans from advancing on their base?
Humans are long ranged, aliens are close ranged. Without regeneration or increased hit points, aliens are weak against pot shots (i.e. humans just shooting from a distance without committing to an attack).
The best defense is a good offense. The alien offense is limp without regeneration. Humans will quickly dominate quickly if these changes hit active servers.
"Have a basilisk around to regenerate your health" is what you will say. That answer is unsatisfactory because humans will learn to hunt down basilisks first. Basilisks aren't in the best position to defend themselves as is. They are white and have to run or wall walk to evade. Not only that, but basilisks still have issues with getting team killed or team killing others(TJW and I were both basilisks and we were killing each other).
Suggestion: Give the dragoon the regen aura simply because it can defend itself a lot better than a basilisk. You could justify it by saying that dragoons cost more.
Alien offense
The human has - Battlesuits and chainguns
- Battlesuits and lucifer cannons
- Battery pack and pulse rifle
- Shotguns
as the engines to drive their offense. Lasguns, massdrivers, painsaws, and flamerthrowers are good in certain situations but they will never have the force and flexibility as the previous weapons/armor combinations.
What do aliens have?
They used to have dragoons and tyrants. What you have said is 'Basilisks and Marauders'. You can give basilisks and marauders all the damage in the world, but they will never have ability to drive an offense like dragoons and tyrants.
People will play them marauders and basilisks more because the changes have makes them as useful as a tyrant or a dragoon. There is no question about tyrants needing a change. Sadly, marauders and basilisks cannot replace dragoons and tyrants.
The current hit points of alien classes do not work with the 1.20 changes. Basilisks' regen aura isn't enough.
Norfenstein
Marauders, marauders, marauders. I think I've even managed to convince tjw to change the zap again just so it will be exactly suitable for attacking bases (turrets at least).
That silly, here's why:- Turrets shoot further, outside and inside the base. More turrets will be shooting at a marauder due to this range.
- Humans bases can be built in open areas away from walls. No wall jumping.
- Marauders are very slow when not jumping. How can they dodge inside a base with turrets that never miss?
- 1 Chaingun. Either kill the marauder in the base or catch 'em on the way out.
Marauders have always been suicide units for attacking the human base. They aren't the most optimal class for doing so unless you have evolution points to burn.
Norfenstein [About Chainguns]
Working on it.
Okay.
Norfenstein
This was my change, not his. Being able to chomp while pouncing completely negated the pounce as a weapon (chomping actually disabled any damage from the pounce). Being able to chomp and pounce would be extremely overpowered. I think pouncing is more fun the headbiting, it's more balanced at stage 1 because it's not locational, and less prohibitively difficult for new players. Hence no biting while pouncing. The goon's primary weapon is supposed to be the pounce -- that's what makes it a unique class. The bite should only be for when one is already in very close range to a human (say, after pouncing one into a corner). Complaints about this sound to me like a refusal to change strategy.
How can a dragoon chomp a human running and dodging? Not every map is tight hallways.
Pounce is balanced by armor. - It is a little weak against light armor
- More weak against light armor and helmet
- barely a threat with a battlesuit.
Dragoons need pounce to deliver their chomps. Pounce is a weapon and transportation, at least to skilled players. This is like saying humans can't shoot while moving. This change would help humans in Stage 1 but neuter dragoons in Stage 2 and Stage 3. Are dragoons supposed to be viable?
Norfenstein
No, you don't know the whole point of the changes, which is why you should stop playing until you start enjoying it again (may I suggest when we announce an open call for beta testers?). The only point of the changes in aggregate is to make the game more fun. Forcing aliens to use more teamwork was never a goal of ours. I think Dasprid had a misunderstanding somewhere along the line with our intention of making all the alien classes useful throughout the game, instead of only the goon and tyrant being useful like in 1.1. We realize that expecting too much teamwork on public servers (which is what we're balancing for) is a bad bad idea.
I'm not really sure of what's going on anymore.
- Tremulous 1.10 was unfinished.
- Alien need more teamwork.
- Aliens shouldn't be just goons and tyrants.
- The game needs to be more fast paced.
Right now, I think a lot of changes have been made on personal preference because its hard to justify some of them. Some of the changes in the human base seem like personal 'wouldn't it be cool if...' improvements.
It pisses me off because it feels like I'm playing someone's mod. ...And these changes will become a mod if you aren't being serious and taking an honest look at them. Its going to be like Counter Strike: Half the players will playing the old version and the other half will play the current version. That's bad for an already small game.
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heh trem originally WAS a mod ;) so technically you are playing someons mod temple.
PErsonally these changes are really getting me pumped for 1.2, I won't suggest changes since I haven't tried tjw server yet. Would rather play the finished version when its ready than spoil the fun :) But in regards to the chainsuit issue norf, have you guys possibly considered changing the chaingun to act more like a minigun complete with spin up/spin down cycles? Might not be as effective if it took time before it started unloading its payload and took longer to start firing again once you stop? Could potentially turn the chaingun from an uber spread rifle into an actual chaingun... :)
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These changes are fine but they will unbalance a game that was pretty closed to balanced already.
I can't disagree more. Tremulous was broken. "Balance" was only achieved by sacrificing fun, which to me is unacceptable. And I don't think it's possible for you to accurately predict how these changes will affect them game when even I can't do so all the time. We're not afraid to change things we've already changed when it's obvious they're not working, or even when they could just be better. That alone should indicate that none of us know exactly how 1.2 will turn out.
How are aliens to survive anymore or prevent humans from advancing on their base?
Not survive as much and allow humans to advance better (or just play with different strategies)? With funds earned from destroying structures, dying won't matter as much for aliens, and before now everyone was complaining about humans camping in their bases. Now you're complaining about them advancing too much?
The alien offense is limp without regeneration
We do not want alien "offense" to be "waiting outside the human base". And that's the only thing we've taken away with reducing regeneration outside of creep.
Marauders have always been suicide units for attacking the human base. They aren't the most optimal class for doing so unless you have evolution points to burn.
You haven't made the connection between the turret change (including the most recent one) and marauders being base attackers yet?
Dragoons need pounce to deliver their chomps.
Pounce first, then chomp. I see great goon players do this already and it's almost as overpowered as flying headbites.
Right now, I think a lot of changes have been made on personal preference because its hard to justify some of them. Some of the changes in the human base seem like personal 'wouldn't it be cool if...' improvements.
I think I can justify every one of them (or could when they were made, it's not like I can remember everything we've done). Many of the new feature are indeed "wouldn't it be cool" because we're trying to make the game more fun. Fun requires balance and balance is worthless without fun.
It pisses me off because it feels like I'm playing someone's mod. ...And these changes will become a mod if you aren't being serious and taking an honest look at them. Its going to be like Counter Strike: Half the players will playing the old version and the other half will play the current version. That's bad for an already small game.
We're taking this extremely seriously. No change is made simply on a whim, I do in fact have to justify changes to the other devs, and I don't do so with just with my extensive experience, but with acutal logic. The community isn't going to be divided and destroyed because of any changes because we already don't all play together. Many people pick one or two servers on which they play exclusively and we have over a hundred servers. Our exchanges don't seem to be getting anywhere, temple, so I'm going to stop on my end until more changes have been made for you to comment on.
But in regards to the chainsuit issue norf, have you guys possibly considered changing the chaingun to act more like a minigun complete with spin up/spin down cycles? Might not be as effective if it took time before it started unloading its payload and took longer to start firing again once you stop? Could potentially turn the chaingun from an uber spread rifle into an actual chaingun...
I want to reduce the spread. I envision the chaingun as a weapon for chasing down big aliens (i.e. what it's most used for now, just less lame). I figured just adding a spinup time (or a cooldown time for that matter) wouldn't help any because, really, battlesuits just turn it on and leave it on until the alien is dead. But I don't want to take that spammability away from the gun, it just needs some skill involved, and the only thing I could come up with is if the alien actually stays and fights, and the human can't dodge well enough, the constant fire of the chaingun should be nullified somehow. I'm open to other suggestions on how to keep the chaingun in its current role as a big alien chaser (which, btw, is weirdly different before humans get battlesuits; no other weapon changes so much across stage ups... I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that) without the lameness.
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Consider the chaingun+bs combo as beeing an entirely new S3 weapon :)
As for a possible change for the chaingun, what about spin up time and forcing the player to stop firing if it takes some damage. For example, more than 20 pts of damage at a time stuns you slightly and makes you start the spin up procedure again.
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Consider the chaingun+bs combo as beeing an entirely new S3 weapon :)
As for a possible change for the chaingun, what about spin up time and forcing the player to stop firing if it takes some damage. For example, more than 20 pts of damage at a time stuns you slightly and makes you start the spin up procedure again.
Just a thought, have the chaingun heat up and overheat? Not so fast that you couldn't chase down big aliens, but so that you wouldn't want to run it constantly and find yourself outside of base with a weapon that you can't use for a bit.
edit: though I fear that would encourage Norf's devestating blaster attack :p
Funny, some may actually think I'm kidding :)
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nah have seen norf with blaster. He makes it look like a friggin sniper rifle :P
Overheating might work though I think it may come down to keeping it spammible still as an issue. The biggest issue with chaingun and BS is the accuracy. IT's rare to see people use chaingun in light armor since it cuts back on your mobility, BS on the other hand seems to fix how the cg is fired. Or at least that's the common belief: before BS - crouch to retain control of the weapon.
Another possibility might be reducing the damage ratio per bullet. Not sure what the current hp loss per bullet is but perhaps if it was 3/4 or 1/2 of what it currently is it'd be less lame to see entire teams of chainsuits.
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nah have seen norf with blaster. He makes it look like a friggin sniper rifle :P
Overheating might work though I think it may come down to keeping it spammible still as an issue. The biggest issue with chaingun and BS is the accuracy. IT's rare to see people use chaingun in light armor since it cuts back on your mobility, BS on the other hand seems to fix how the cg is fired. Or at least that's the common belief: before BS - crouch to retain control of the weapon.
Another possibility might be reducing the damage ratio per bullet. Not sure what the current hp loss per bullet is but perhaps if it was 3/4 or 1/2 of what it currently is it'd be less lame to see entire teams of chainsuits.
It'ss only 75DPS!!! If you reduce it like that, it'd be better to fight aliens with a rifle.
Reduce it in 1/2 : weapon plain sucks!
Reduce it in 3/4 : nearly same DPS than lasgun and exactly the same damage total without a batery pack. At that point you know what to do.
Thinking on the issue, I'd say that the chaingun is FINE as it is. Increase spread will greatly reduce the damage at range to the point that lasgun and rifle are much better. Reduce also it's effectiveness in close range will make the weapon plain useless. In fact, humans use the chaingun mainly for it's effectivemeness in CQB I'd say. The fact that aliens are often chased and killed with it is probably a byproduct of the fact that humans are still equipped with it when comes the time to chase them. Lasgun is a as good a weapon for that role if the target has some advance :)
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Norfenstein
I can't disagree more. Tremulous was broken. "Balance" was only achieved by sacrificing fun, which to me is unacceptable. And I don't think it's possible for you to accurately predict how these changes will affect them game when even I can't do so all the time. We're not afraid to change things we've already changed when it's obvious they're not working, or even when they could just be better. That alone should indicate that none of us know exactly how 1.2 will turn out.
I'm not buying it.
Tyrants were the only thing broken in 1.10. Everything else is debatable.
Changes are welcome but nerfs have to be dealt with better. I think too much is hinging on marauders and basilisks.
Norfenstein
Not survive as much and allow humans to advance better (or just play with different strategies)? With funds earned from destroying structures, dying won't matter as much for aliens, and before now everyone was complaining about humans camping in their bases. Now you're complaining about them advancing too much?
The problem is that aliens are close ranged and once they retreat, its hard to regain position against long range attackers.
Its fine line between encouraging humans and taking away their risk.
Norfenstein
We do not want alien "offense" to be "waiting outside the human base". And that's the only thing we've taken away with reducing regeneration outside of creep.
Humans get medikits and armor. Aliens get basilisks.
Aliens have to risk a forward egg just to regenerate.
Aliens lose build points to regenerate that could be used to defend their weak base.
Aliens have to spend 1-2 evos for mobile regeneration.
Aliens lose a possible attacker for regeneration.
Aliens mobile regeneration cannot defend itself or escape as well as other classes.
If a forward egg is hid on the ceiling, you can't reach it to regenerate.
If a forward egg is made available for the team to regenerate from, its in plan sight of human attackers.
Alien radar doesn't say teammates, so they have to track down or follow
basilisks around.
Humans don't have risks like that.
Humans don't have to use build points outside of the base.
Humans don't have to send a defenseless bulider across the map.
Humans don't have to pay credits to regenerate (the basilisk cost evolution points).
Humans get free, rechargable, instant use regeneration.
Humans don't have to specific use any gear just for their teammates sake.
Medikits are actually better than alien regeneration right now because it works when you want and a lot faster.
Norfenstein
You haven't made the connection between the turret change (including the most recent one) and marauders being base attackers yet?
This is where we are breaking down.
Turrets can't shoot through each other. But I'm a marauder and jumping, all turrets in range can shoot me. Turrets have longer range and more damage. So jumping is actually killing me. When I played a marauder, I would damage structures, barely escape once turrets shooting, and the human team would just repair. Nothing changed. It was just a waste of time and risking 2-3 evolutions on my part. When I played aliens, we rushed the human base plenty of times but we weren't able to kill structures consistently. I'm not even factoring in defenders.
If they had a tesla or defensive computer, the knockback would kick me around before I could get started.
How can marauders counter that?
Norfenstein
Pounce first, chomp. I see great goon players do this already and it's almost as overpowered as flying headbites.
I hope you made a mistake when you said flying headbites.
What they do is pounce and chomp while flying. The chomp cancels any pounce damage. That's what makes it balanced.
You underestimate the human team. If you have ever played a goon versus a Stage 2 human with helmet/light armor and a pulse rifle, there is no question why you need pounce and chomp. Humans run fast. You can't can't catch them and kill them without pouncing and headbiting them. If its an open area, dragoons and marauders are really at a disadvantage against fleet-footed humans. And humans can sprint, making it damn near impossible to catch them. That's the reality right now, these changes make it worse.
You could use a basilisk but it would get team killed. If it dies, there goes your regeneration.
Norfenstein
I think I can justify every one of them (or could when they were made, it's not like I can remember everything we've done). Many of the new feature are indeed "wouldn't it be cool" because we're trying to make the game more fun. Fun requires balance and balance is worthless without fun.
A lot of people are having fun right now. These changes are taking away fun from the aliens at the expense of improving humans. Its cutting off your nose to spite your ear.
Norfenstein
We're taking this extremely seriously. No change is made simply on a whim, I do in fact have to justify changes to the other devs, and I don't do so with just with my extensive experience, but with acutal. The community isn't going to be divided and destroyed because of changes because we already don't all play together. Many people pick one or two servers on which they play exclusively and we have over a hundred servers. Our exchanges don't seem to be getting anywhere, temple, so I'm going to stop on my end until more changes have been made for you to comment on.
The gods must be crazy.
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It'ss only 75DPS!!! If you reduce it like that, it'd be better to fight aliens with a rifle.
I thought chaingun was 100 DPS, according to SatGNU wiki.
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I thought chaingun was 100 DPS, according to SatGNU wiki.
According to the bricosoft wiki, it is 75 DPS. And I think I'm the one who filled in the data myself :)
And according to that: http://svn.icculus.org/tremulous/trunk/src/game/tremulous.h?rev=888&view=markup
#define CHAINGUN_PRICE 400
#define CHAINGUN_BULLETS 300
#define CHAINGUN_REPEAT 80
#define CHAINGUN_K_SCALE 1.0f
#define CHAINGUN_SPREAD 1000
#define CHAINGUN_DMG HDM(6)
6 * 80 / 1000 = 75
I'm right. But I might have misrepresented the meaning of the REPEAT value.
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Consider the chaingun+bs combo as beeing an entirely new S3 weapon
I s'pose there's nothing better to do... because
The biggest issue with chaingun and BS is the accuracy. IT's rare to see people use chaingun in light armor since it cuts back on your mobility, BS on the other hand seems to fix how the cg is fired. Or at least that's the common belief: before BS - crouch to retain control of the weapon.
...before stage 3 you can't run with it and get the most out of it. It's okay that it takes on a new dimension at stage 3; lower stages are supposed to be more defensive anyway. So the chainsuit solution can't consist of changing the spread only (as I've found out). Just lowering the damage just means it will take longer to kill things, which doesn't actually solve the problem (increasing spread makes killing small things take longer, but that's irrelevant because it's meant for big aliens).
The fact that aliens are often chased and killed with it is probably a byproduct of the fact that humans are still equipped with it when comes the time to chase them. Lasgun is a as good a weapon for that role if the target has some advance
I... don't think so. Lasgun is 45 dps pretty much guaranteed (since it's perfectly accurate... it used to have the same firing rate and I think damage as the rifle and was wildly overpowered because of its accuracy and constant fire) and the chaingun is 75 dps, which is I think enough to make up for the spread against big aliens at chasing range. It's like a hitscan pulse rifle. Lowering its spread will make it even better for chasing and I think not make it useless in close quarters if aliens can do something to counter it. In fact my idea is to force aliens to turn around and fight if they're not already far enough away, because they'll have better odds up close trying to kill the chaingunner if they have the skill advantage.
Just a thought, have the chaingun heat up and overheat?
Similar to spinup/spindown (and a suggestion I made when I first started playing Tremulous :)) in that it effectively lowers the damage by reducing the time it can fire. I was thinking it'd be better if skill was involved (on the part of both the alien and human) in cutting off damage.
As for a possible change for the chaingun, what about spin up time and forcing the player to stop firing if it takes some damage. For example, more than 20 pts of damage at a time stuns you slightly and makes you start the spin up procedure again.
This is along the lines of what I was thinking, but playing with hard values like 20 and a fixed spinup time makes balancing hard and us balancers uncomfortable. So I thought, maybe: have the chaingun just cut out for a number of milliseconds directly proportional to damage taken. But to be significant this might have to be a rather large time of not firing, which I imagine would feel a little silly conceptually. So I concluded that having damage knock the human's aim around would accomplish basically the same thing (small damage would effectively make the chaingun spread larger for a moment, big damage would actually disorient the human if was firing at the time it was taken).
To temple: I'm not going to debate the changes made up utill now with you anymore, but I can disabuse you of some things:
What they do is pounce and chomp while flying. The chomp cancels any pounce damage. That's what makes it balanced.
That's what made it unacceptable regardless of balance. Using the pounce is what makes the dragoon fun, so it should be what the dragoon uses to attack. One-hundred damage for a pounce plus 160 damage for a headbite is very obviously overpowered, but forcing players to choose between an easier and more fun to use 100-damage pounce and a harder to use, less fun 160-damage flying headbite was not a choice I wanted players to have to make. Add on top of that that the bite cancelling pounce damage was completely unobvious to seemingly everyone, and convinced apparently everyone that the bite was the only useful attack of the goon. This no longer the case. You can still "pounce and chomp", just not chomp while pouncing. If tjw's 5-year old son can use it effectively I think you can too.
A lot of people are having fun right now. These changes are taking away fun from the aliens at the expense of improving humans. Its cutting off your nose to spite your ear.
You sound like the only one unable to adjust.
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I'm with temple on this one, I'm not going to repeat any of his points, but
These changes are taking away fun from the aliens at the expense of improving humans. Its cutting off your nose to spite your ear.
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I side with temple and plague. The aliens have been screwed.
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(... chaingun ...)
There is quite a lot to talk about the chaingun.
As for comparing it to the lasgun to chase alien, it's simply a matter of the relative alien size while you are chasing. Against small aliens or medium sized aliens that have some good advance on you, it's worse than lasgun. Against big aliens it's somewhat better. Lowering too much the damage/accuracy might very well make the lasgun a plain better weapon for chasing aliens. Still, the chaingun has more chances to keep you alive in CQB. Unfortunately, you are talking about greatly reducing the chaingun usage in CQB so I guess it would be better to change nothing on it's damage potential at range.
As for the knockdown effect when hit, you can maybe make it like in Metroid Prime where quite often, a strong hit will completly disturb your ability to fire back. Represented by Samus wildly moving her arms around, partly protecting her head with her hand. With good visual feedback, you can easily make it happen and make it believable.
PS: as for those who wait for the battlesuit to use the chaingun, it's not like the knockback effect when firing is hard to fight back with careful mouse movements :) Slightly less accurate of course, but not as bad as most think.
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To temple: I'm not going to debate the changes made up utill now with you anymore, but I can disabuse you of some things:
What they do is pounce and chomp while flying. The chomp cancels any pounce damage. That's what makes it balanced.
That's what made it unacceptable regardless of balance. Using the pounce is what makes the dragoon fun, so it should be what the dragoon uses to attack. One-hundred damage for a pounce plus 160 damage for a headbite is very obviously overpowered, but forcing players to choose between an easier and more fun to use 100-damage pounce and a harder to use, less fun 160-damage flying headbite was not a choice I wanted players to have to make. Add on top of that that the bite cancelling pounce damage was completely unobvious to seemingly everyone, and convinced apparently everyone that the bite was the only useful attack of the goon. This no longer the case. You can still "pounce and chomp", just not chomp while pouncing. If tjw's 5-year old son can use it effectively I think you can too.
You don't sound like you play dragoons at a high level. Pounce is a weapon that also happens to be a fast means of transportation. In Stage 1, pounce is definitely a weapon. Pounce helps finish people off or an alternative strategy when you can't land a chomp on a fast moving human. But its preferable to use chump when possible because it deals 120 damage to the head and only affected by helmets or battlesuits (as opposed to 100 damage that is negated by both light armor/helmet or battlesuits).
On top of that, the chomp width is lowered. So it will be even harder. You are killing a once useful class and saying 'I can't adjust'.
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Most of the arguments here are total bs, probably from the fact that there will be change. Playing one or two games with some proposed, unfinished changes will not give you an idea of fun or balance. Many of the changes require playing different from how people have been playing for a year. In order to actually know whether a change is more fun or more balanced, you have to learn how to play with that change, just like you learned to play in the first place.
That takes more time than 1 or 2 matches, and it takes more than conceptual argument over the proposed changes. If you have a better idea than "your changes suck" or "this is overpowered, fix it", "don't nerf this", etc., etc., people would be more than happy to read about it. People, however, are a bit less than happy to read the mostly pointless arguing.
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i complained a lot at first, but after watching temple make a fool of himself over the changes, i decided not to do the same.
i trust the devs will do a good job making 1.2 more balanced than 1.1.
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Most of the arguments here are total bs, probably from the fact that there will be change. Playing one or two games with some proposed, unfinished changes will not give you an idea of fun or balance. Many of the changes require playing different from how people have been playing for a year. In order to actually know whether a change is more fun or more balanced, you have to learn how to play with that change, just like you learned to play in the first place.
That takes more time than 1 or 2 matches, and it takes more than conceptual argument over the proposed changes. If you have a better idea than "your changes suck" or "this is overpowered, fix it", "don't nerf this", etc., etc., people would be more than happy to read about it. People, however, are a bit less than happy to read the mostly pointless arguing.
I've laid out a lot of arguments with clear meanings and anecdotes. I took a lot of time to try to be clear and avoided being antagonistic. I've play more than 1-2 matches. I've played with TJW and Norf. I've specifically played marauders and basilisks. I could be like everyone and else and just say 'SHIT CHANGES'. But I'm trying to help Norf see what I'm saying.
Have you played the changes?
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To temple: I'm not going to debate the changes made up utill now with you anymore, but I can disabuse you of some things:
What they do is pounce and chomp while flying. The chomp cancels any pounce damage. That's what makes it balanced.
That's what made it unacceptable regardless of balance. Using the pounce is what makes the dragoon fun, so it should be what the dragoon uses to attack. One-hundred damage for a pounce plus 160 damage for a headbite is very obviously overpowered, but forcing players to choose between an easier and more fun to use 100-damage pounce and a harder to use, less fun 160-damage flying headbite was not a choice I wanted players to have to make. Add on top of that that the bite cancelling pounce damage was completely unobvious to seemingly everyone, and convinced apparently everyone that the bite was the only useful attack of the goon. This no longer the case. You can still "pounce and chomp", just not chomp while pouncing. If tjw's 5-year old son can use it effectively I think you can too.
You don't sound like you play dragoons at a high level. Pounce is a weapon that also happens to be a fast means of transportation. In Stage 1, pounce is definitely a weapon. Pounce helps finish people off or an alternative strategy when you can't land a chomp on a fast moving human. But its preferable to use chump when possible because it deals 120 damage to the head and only affected by helmets or battlesuits (as opposed to 100 damage that is negated by both light armor/helmet or battlesuits).
On top of that, the chomp width is lowered. So it will be even harder. You are killing a once useful class and saying 'I can't adjust'.
that change has been up on pretty much every server since tjw's admin system became the standard, i don't know why you complain about it now.
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To temple: I'm not going to debate the changes made up utill now with you anymore, but I can disabuse you of some things:
What they do is pounce and chomp while flying. The chomp cancels any pounce damage. That's what makes it balanced.
That's what made it unacceptable regardless of balance. Using the pounce is what makes the dragoon fun, so it should be what the dragoon uses to attack. One-hundred damage for a pounce plus 160 damage for a headbite is very obviously overpowered, but forcing players to choose between an easier and more fun to use 100-damage pounce and a harder to use, less fun 160-damage flying headbite was not a choice I wanted players to have to make. Add on top of that that the bite cancelling pounce damage was completely unobvious to seemingly everyone, and convinced apparently everyone that the bite was the only useful attack of the goon. This no longer the case. You can still "pounce and chomp", just not chomp while pouncing. If tjw's 5-year old son can use it effectively I think you can too.
You don't sound like you play dragoons at a high level. Pounce is a weapon that also happens to be a fast means of transportation. In Stage 1, pounce is definitely a weapon. Pounce helps finish people off or an alternative strategy when you can't land a chomp on a fast moving human. But its preferable to use chump when possible because it deals 120 damage to the head and only affected by helmets or battlesuits (as opposed to 100 damage that is negated by both light armor/helmet or battlesuits).
On top of that, the chomp width is lowered. So it will be even harder. You are killing a once useful class and saying 'I can't adjust'.
that change has been up on pretty much every server since tjw's admin system became the standard, i don't know why you complain about it now.
Right now, goons are not physically able to chomp when pouncing. The mechanism you are thinking of is chomp canceling pounce damage, which I'm fine with. I don't like way that goons have to land before chomping on 1.20.
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I tried the goon again today, since lately I've been focusing on other aliens that have changed recently and wanted to see for myself if temple had a good point about it. In one-on-one fights in reasonably favorable locations, I was owning chainsuits with the pounce. My conclusion: I need to stop wasting time replying to you now before I start to get uncivil. I do appreciate your politeness though, but we are not getting anywhere. You're critiquing an unfinished product whose final state you can't predict. And you're not even using accurate information to do so.
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after being off for a day or two, i'm jumping back in
and i'm making more organized posts, so the sensibillity kicks in
i agree with temple 100%
btw,i'm going to state an objection, give a norfenstein like answer, then debate that, as most of my criticizims have been taken
ALIEN OFFENSIVENESS..ESS
Aliens have been screwed attackwise, they need something as an offensive breaker (or whatever the name is)
tyrant trample has been made better (definately! SQUISH!) and offense does not mean "camp outside the human base"
so what does offense mean? throw your hard earnd evos at the unstoppable death machine base? maras aren't the only answer. I have an equasion for you mara+zap+walljump-turret damage-camping human (what's the rush, aliens cant attack with nerfed regen)-reactor's ultimate god tesla hp whore attack=dead mara+dead alien base(because of the credits the human got)=UNbalanced game.
ALIEN REGENERATION LACK OF....REGENERATION-NESS....ness..end underline
alien regen is nerfed, making base attacks a suicide run, forward eggs are easily taken down, and basilisks dont fit in the role as a healer, as they are a stealthy ninja assasin, not a support role like another granger!
basilisks healing is fine, you can defend the eggs, and grangers can still run away
so, who's defending the egg? the dead alien bodies from the overpowered turrets? another math equasion dead aliens+egg near human base+camping and chasing creds=sawed egg. no comment.
this was not meant as a beta, and is not finished, so no comment.
why release it then? to cause complaints like this? this seems to be the only plausible reason. whoa! i just noticed that this computer has weird up and down arrow keys! lets make that the centerpiece of a new crappy homemade computer model! when people hate it, we'll say it's unfinished. GENIUS! (it really has funky keys tho)
humans are overpowered
not so! aliens just require more teamwork, are easier to kill, their map traveling abilities aren't what you expect, they are more easily killed, have crappy regen and crappy comeuppance for it, and have more specific roles!
what's the difference? nothing noticeable!
i know i came off as a little harsh, but i believe that with some tweaks this can be a fun new version of trem, but seriously.
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I tried the goon again today, since lately I've been focusing on other aliens that have changed recently and wanted to see for myself if temple had a good point about it. In one-on-one fights in reasonably favorable locations, I was owning chainsuits with the pounce. My conclusion: I need to stop wasting time replying to you now before I start to get uncivil. I do appreciate your politeness though, but we are not getting anywhere. You're critiquing an unfinished product whose final state you can't predict. And you're not even using accurate information to do so.
I can only be as accurate as I'm provided information.
All I have to say is when I played humans, there was no fear in my heart. None. The only thing I possibly feared was running out of credits and a double-team by Stage 2 aliens with a fresh poison buff. I KNEW I was going to win because I spent enough time losing on aliens to learn their weaknesses and was able to exploit them.
Poison is nice now. I will give you that.
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Right now, goons are not physically able to chomp when pouncing. The mechanism you are thinking of is chomp canceling pounce damage, which I'm fine with. I don't like way that goons have to land before chomping on 1.20.
no, goons weren't able to chomp in midpounce in every single one of tjw's qvms, and since up until very recently that was the most popular qvm to use on servers not deserted by their admins, it has been like that forever on almost every server.
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i dont see why chomping midpounce is so important anyways. the only server i ever do it is r1's server because his 99 dmg pounce sucks.
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Right now, goons are not physically able to chomp when pouncing. The mechanism you are thinking of is chomp canceling pounce damage, which I'm fine with. I don't like way that goons have to land before chomping on 1.20.
no, goons weren't able to chomp in midpounce in every single one of tjw's qvms, and since up until very recently that was the most popular qvm to use on servers not deserted by their admins, it has been like that forever on almost every server.
Can't think of a server I've played on, other than TJW, where I can't chomp midpounce.
edit: This is a new change, cause its on the changelog from trem.tjw.org.
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Can't think of a server I've played on, other than TJW, where I can't chomp midpounce.
just because you think you're chomping doesn't mean you really are.
edit: This is a new change, cause its on the changelog from trem.tjw.org.
from http://tjw.org/tremulous/old/tremulous-svn809.patch, dated august 11th+ // no bite during pounce
+ if( ( pm->ps->weapon == WP_ALEVEL3 || pm->ps->weapon == WP_ALEVEL3_UPG )
+ && ( pm->cmd.buttons & BUTTON_ATTACK )
+ && ( pm->ps->pm_flags & PMF_CHARGE ) )
+ {
+ return;
+ }
edit: i fail at bbcode
edit3: found earlier evidence of that change.
edit5(?): don't ask
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The no chomp while pouncing change has indeed been there for a while now to help balance s1 vs s1. It seems like it wasn't because the client was required to download a new pk3 to remove the chomp sound that was played, although it actually only did pounce damage.
I agree with Norf: Dragoon pounce pretty much owns right now.
The regen change was also made a while ago and up untill these threads came up most people who initially complained about it (and actually kept on playing instead of just quitting) got over it when they realized that Adv Basi heals as fast as a booster. A decent Adv Basi is quite hard to kill whenever its not doing anything suicidal, and its the perfect class to zerg rush mass driver users. Its pretty much a support unit available for anyone who doesn't have enough frags to get a goon or mara+ but wants to really help their team advance.
One less attacker? I say one less annoying dretch blocking the big aliens while trying to be useful in s3.
TBH, I think you guys are having trouble adapting your 1.1 strategies for the changes, it's meant to be played differently. Its not actually 'released' yet, and its likely that things will change some more. In the time I've been around the Trem community, balance changes for the next version were always available on a server for pretty much public testing. I see no reason why this should change now.
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I like the changes a lot. For games 5-7 people or so per team, I think it's very well balanced. I haven't been able to play any larger games than that yet, but the balance starts to break down when teams get much smaller than that.
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why release it then? to cause complaints like this?
It's important to me that the people I debate use good logic. This is flawed logic. "Releasing" an alpha version (it's one server, with the patch incidentally being available to other servers that already think it's fun and good enough to use, with no announcement calling for beta testers), has not caused any complaints. You have chosen to complain. I'll take feedback on an alpha version; some people can understand the development process and contribute constructively. Others, apparently, cannot.
For the record, on tjw's server in this first week of April (so far as his stats have been updated) aliens have won 44 games, humans have won 38, and there have been 7 draws. I'm not sure when it was last reset (couldn't be more than a few weeks ago), and 224 data points isn't enough to draw a confident conclusion from, but the overall balance graph (http://tremulous.sourceforge.net/balance/tjw-lame_regen5/overall.png) for our working version is tending far far better towards exactly balanced than 1.1 ever did. Compare. (http://tremulous.sourceforge.net/balance/main/overall.png)
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I've got to respect Norf and TJW for keeping the developement process open to all. Norf is taking great effort to answer questions, explain some of the reasoning and accept input. Things are just in a R & D mode (pre-alpha) and not even beta yet. I haven't played enough games yet to offer valid opinions, but I would like to request that the change logs (http://tremulous.tjw.org/) be kept as current as possible. That would really help correlate some of the things players see in-game with changes made.
It's good to see some decent player counts on tjw's server. It shows people are interested.
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For the record, on tjw's server in this first week of April (so far as his stats have been updated) aliens have won 44 games, humans have won 38, and there have been 7 draws. I'm not sure when it was last reset (couldn't be more than a few weeks ago), and 224 data points isn't enough to draw a confident conclusion from, but the overall balance graph (http://tremulous.sourceforge.net/balance/tjw-lame_regen5/overall.png) for our working version is tending far far better towards exactly balanced than 1.1 ever did. Compare. (http://tremulous.sourceforge.net/balance/main/overall.png)
I have to agree with Diggs. Props for the open development strategy. I got a lot of help in setting up a development environment in IRC (I have some ideas I want to try out). That said, the entire syscall incompatibility issue is a pain: I think it broke the in-game menus.
I like some of the changes (the lucy alt is now useful, pounce just looks better with knockback, and the new tyrant charge sounds interesting, but I haven't had a chance to try it out). The aliens being tied to creep is not something I'm particularly fond of at the moment, but we'll see how that goes - it might be better with a slightly faster regen on creep, which would make sense but not change play too much. I do agree that the reaction to some of the proposed changes are a bit 'knee-jerk'ish. It never hurts to try something on a single server.
I'll see if I can run some statistics over the numbers you have. Is that data available anywhere?
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Bases sieges are now almost impossible. All it takes is 2 humans with helmets to run out and suicide on the basi and the rest of the team to come out in force kill the aliens and own there base.
However if your aliens with humans camping outside your base your screwed. Unlagged makes the MD god. You got 2 MD's and a lasgun. The moment the door opens you have 64 damage right off the bat plus what ever the lasgun is doing. This plus no chomp and pounce and no regen makes the goon useless.
Dretch isn't worth crap because of the MD. Basi is out too. Marauder has the best chance however its low HP plus nerfed regen means it needs to make the kills quick. This pattern is even worse if humans are S2 or S3 due to armor. So your stuck in your base. If you attack in numbers sure you kill the humans. Now you have 2 options wait for them to come back or suicide into there base. Hmm not alot of options there.
Now we go from fun 25 minute tug of war games. To 5 to 10 minute games of alien rape if the human team is any sort of compenant.
I understand these are alpha and fairly far along but right now I can not see this trend of nerfing aliens going anywhere. Balance is not about the units which were balanced pretty well its the players. Any game with a pro in it is unbalanced already if they join. Hurting the aliens does not help. The only thing I've seen done to humans to balance this is the chaingun spread and turret warm up. Those don't matter unless your a dretch. [/b]
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Takes twice as long to do anything with a luci also. Twice as long to fully charge a primary, and twice the length between secondary shots. The luci went from a tank to a seige weapon that needs heavy cover from anything larger then an ant.
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Only noobs need cover, anyone with half a mind can go out and perform a complete hostile takeover with a luci.
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You cant do jack with the charge times now.
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ok, i've just played even more games, now with the new update, and have tried out the new zap, gas, and trample
I now award tjw the AKAnotu's wtf this is screwed seal of approval
congrats!you are the first one to recieve this distinguished award!
please make one seffylight!
the new zap is supposed to be for base breaking, and for the super fast repeat time it's good for that. however, you also made it like (eggageration), 1dps. no seriously. i tried it on a dying (as in death screaming) POISONED battlesuit, and it didn't kill him, in fact, i was better off biting after the medkit, as it didn't even do enough damage to keep hurting during the 1hp a second stage of it. pathetic. the trample is now really hard to use as an attack, so i'll get back to you on that, but it's pretty creepy. the basilisk gas is kinda crappy, because after using it, you can't slash for a couple seconds, so how does it even work, as it goes away faster than you can slash again...however, the new bsuit look height is extremely fun, but makes it harder to saw things, as you have to look down (even for goons, lol) and can cause strange deaths because of that.
it's unbalanced, and in the endgame, can take ten muinits of boring camping to finish, ruining the fast paced action of trem that makes it so fun. it's kinda late, so i'll add more in an edit
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Twice as long to fully charge a primary
Wrong, fully charged shots should take exactly the same amount of time as they did before. It's only less than fully charged shots that take longer. And it no longer has a minimum charge requirement. I think the secondary attack speaks for itself.
I'll see if I can run some statistics over the numbers you have. Is that data available anywhere?
I don't know where or how Timbo/tjw keep that data. The best I can offer you is this (http://tremulous.tjw.org/teamwins_long.php) for use with your own log files.
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After more playing and really trying to do things the new way...
Teamwork
I see where TJW and Norf are going with this and its okay. Actually, my frustration has been with teammates that refuse to work together. As aliens and humans, if people play specific roles, I can see them winning.
This is hardest for aliens because aliens are melee ranged and cannot see each other on their radar. The alien radar should show what classes are around so you can see find a basilisk (since aliens need them for mobile regeneration). A team of 2-3 marauders or 2 advanced dragoons with a tyrant to defend their retreat forms a good base attacking party. Throw in a basilisk or a forward egg, and you have sustainable attacks. The key is having enough people together. Without it, base attacks just don't work.
I'm going to give run down on the basics
Aliens
Everything from structures to the classes need a boost in hit points. With regeneration drastically decreased, aliens are too susceptible to risk-free 'pot shots' by humans. Its cheap and it delays games. If aliens have to adjust to Unlagged, humans need to something to counter balance it. They need to commit to being aggressive rather than camp and chase down worn out aliens.
FYI: Aliens haven't been getting evolution points for killing structures. I know humans get them.
Dretches
Pros: Dretches are just right at Stage 1. They can get in a human base and take out campers. At Stage 2, a naked or weakly armored human can be instant killed with bite and poison damage (not considering medikits). I had a lot of success with letting humans run the map and sneak attacking them.
Cons: At human Stage 2, helmets make dretches less threaten due to being able to locate them. I think dretches are pretty relative in power with rifle men and that's good.
Basilisks/Advanced Basilisks
Pros: Basilisks are worth the 1-2 evolution points now. They can actually kill something quickly and the gas effect is very helpful.
Cons: Team-killing. It pretty fair considering humans can teamkill each other too but it makes the class less desirable.
Helmets and harassment. Once humans get more experience, they will go after the basilisk first. Maybe that's intended but it also makes playing a basilisk less desirable.
FYI: Basilisks haven't been getting evolution points for grabs.
Suggestion I would like gas if it worked more like a projectile. Something like hive swarm. It wouldn't need long range, just long enough to keep advanced basilisks from getting sniped or hunted as much.
Marauders/Advanced Marauders
Pros: Wider claw range is better. Advanced marauder zap is fun and a lot easier to use.
Cons: Honestly, I'm not impressed with basic marauders. It feels like aliens are going to need 2 or 3 marauders zapping to hurt the human base. I feel zap needs more damage per second. Right now, it looks cool but feels like it isn't hurting structures and that may discourage people from playing the class.
Dragoons/Advanced Dragoons
Pros: Still powerful against stage 1 humans. Advanced dragoons fit stage 2 to me because it takes time to snipe a human base and stage 3 is too long to wait. They add needed pressure to divide the human team between rushing and defending.
Cons: They are bigger and next to basilisks, I feel they are bad for getting picked on. Humans can easily abuse their larger hitbox size. Its balanced because a human can spend a lot of credits and get killed by a poisonous dretch or basilisk.
Suggestion I would give advanced dragoons (not regular dragoon) the old chomp range because they have to defend themselves. Since they can't pounce and regenerate like they used to, at least make so that advanced dragoons can stand their ground better.
Tyrants
Pros: Trample is better now. Its faster to charge and deals more damage. A powerful combination is a basilisk hold a human still while a tyrant tramples them. All in all, tyrants still have their most of their old power despite changes and make the best defender class. They are in line with battlesuit/chaingun or battlesuit/lucifer cannon combination.
Cons: Trample is not all its cracked up to be. In a fast fight, you can be killed trying to charge a trample. It is easy to under charge. The increased view height and decreased maul range makes mauling a challenge. They cost 5 evolutions points and its going to take awhile before players develop the skill to use tyrants well.
By and large, tyrants cannot camp outside the human base because they are so easy to hit and have so much health to regenerate. They have to be moving or close to a source for healing.
Poison/Boosters
Pros: Its deadly and faster. Hands down, I think poison is the best base defense the aliens have because it forces humans use the medikit and defending aliens can keep poison on them while at the base. The regeneration factor makes boosters worth risking a forward egg. I think it is balanced like the medistation.
Cons: The poison buff is lasts a shorter time. I think makes aliens feel like they have to rush to use to before it wears off and it could lead to feeding or breaking away from the team.
Suggestion Aliens need something better than a time duration to control poison. I would suggest aliens can use the medikit button/functionality to trigger when they will have the poison effect. It could be balanced by only having 1 charge. Humans can control when they use their medikit and they can control how much ammo they use. Aliens should be able to control their poison buff better.
Humans
Overall, the human team is more fun to play. The stamina increase is too helpful. Good base building is more rewarding with the new turrets and the need for tesla generators. Before, humans would plop down a bunch of turrets and hope they last. Players would gear up and pray to make it to the alien base. The team feels more controlled.
No comments on the blaster.
Rifles
Pros: Unlagged makes them hit more. The spread isn't as bad, though most players probably wouldn't notice. They may not kill the bigger aliens by they can ward them off. It is what it is, a good way to get credits for other weapons.
Cons: Traditional drawback, no new issues.
Painsaws
Pros: It has a longer range and is actually good at attacking. Aliens are going to have a harder time abusing a painsawer trying to reach their base.
Cons: This isn't a substitute to a long range weapon against good aliens.
FYI Sprint and saw is a powerful combination. Personally, I'm afraid of 'painsaw militias' defending human base. Maybe the increased range is more powerful than people realize.
Suggestion: Maybe the cost of the painsaw should be looked at. Overall, its not a huge issue but it worth keeping tabs on.
Shotguns
Nothing new about them.
Lasguns
Pros: With Unlagged, more stray shots land. Not really a huge benefit to a weapon that is hitscan.
Cons: Honestly, bigger aliens don't fear lasguns and shouldn't. It only going to kill dretches and other stage 1 aliens. Using it when aliens are stage 3 and somewhat at stage 2 will be a liability
FYI: It is more accurate and excellent at pelting aliens from a distance without risk, thus forcing aliens to regenerate more often. Aliens are finding that using a dretch isn't as useful and the dretch is not threatening the whole game (and they shouldn't be).
Mass Driver
Pros: Its accurate, reliable at long range, and powerful. This is becoming a long range shotgun.
Cons: Traditional drawback, no new issues.
FYI: Due to slow alien regeneration, the mass driver has been powerful in combination with the helmet to snipe and chase down attacks. Tabs need to be kept on it because a good mass driver shooter, or worse a pair of shooters, can be brutal. It only takes 3 dretch kills for a helmet, light armor, and mass driver (excluding the battery pack).
Chainguns
I don't understand the changes between the old and the new chaingun. I don't want to comment until I understand the changes better.
Pulse Rifles
Nothing new about them.
Grenades
Nothing new about them.
Flame Throwers
Pros: Longer range and less self damage because the flame moves faster than a human can run. The flame thrower is a lot more fun to use and feels useful instead of suicide.
Cons: Maybe its just me, but the flame spread seems smaller, so it will need to be aimed more accurately.
FYI: It seems unfair to me that dragoons and tyrants get their range reduced but flamers get their range increased. Maybe it is just me.
Lucifer Cannons
Pros: Faster secondary shot is great for ammo consumption. The lucifer cannon isn't such a ammo hog and dretches can't waste your ammo before you get their base.
Cons: 2 second cooldown between primary fire shots. No more spam happy dretch killing fun. This lowers the rapid fire use in the alien base to harass them. Personally, I've played on the SST server when players were forced to charge for 2 seconds before firing the lucifer cannon. It doesn't really affect the damage per second of the weapon and I think it is an improvement. Humans aiming at their feet to kill dretches over and over was lame. Now, players have to pay more attention.
Turrets
Pros: More power and more range. These turrets are very good at discouraging large aliens and forces aliens to do more than rush the base. They add more risk the alien attack and encourages teamwork to overpower the turrets.
Cons: Turrets take longer to start firing on an alien. Some say this allows dretches to run around and get kills in the human base. Humans will not have an run-to savior anymore when staying inside the base. The new turrets force human builders to do more than clump them up and force defenders to take a more active role. I think this is an improvement in the overall gameplay of Tremulous.
Tesla Generators
Pros: These are actually needed now because of the slower turrets. The defensive computer is no longer needed to build them. Tesla Generator have a second lease on life.
Cons: Easy to snipe or swipe.
FYI: I know I had complained about their range but now I think its okay for an stage 3 structure with a slightly higher build cost. They should be good at killing dretches.
Reactor/Defensive Computer
I don't know all the details of this improvement so I could be off a little.
Pros: The reactor can super zap with the defensive computer. Since this is available at stage 2, humans have a version of the telsa generator. The defensive computer also gives alerts when the base is attacked.
Cons: Requires a defensive computer and not that useful past stage 2. At stage 3, humans get tesla generators and they serve the same role with more range due to positioning. As for the alerts, human will probably have a defender in the base anyway.
Past Objections and comments
With the exception of details about damage or ranges, I stand behind what I said in past posts. The only wild card in my opinion is the user interface improvement hinted at by TJW.
With both teams being base dependent, humans will have dedicated alien defenders and more aliens in the base from the need to regeneration when attacking They will have to use teamwork and numbers to attack the alien base. With aliens, they will have to use teamwork and numbers due to the deadliness of the human base and weakened individual power (and because the armory is about twice as strong and can't be killed as easily).
I don't know if that will be more fun. Consider the experience on a public server.
Right now, TJW's server plays mostly standard maps. These maps are smaller than many of the newer maps. When aliens have to fight on a larger battlefield, the loss of regular regeneration and dependence on their base will be a hard transition.
The underlying 'ranged versus melee' issues between humans and aliens will continue to frustrate players. Hit points, Hit points, Hit points. Think of the alien hit points.
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I have to agree with temple and the hit points. Unlagged makes even 300 pingers deadly to an alien. Couple that with no regen it hurts badly. I just think your putting to much trust on the tremulous community to work as a team in public servers.
Team work is already hard enough right now because you have to type your messages. Voice communication or hotkey commands like in battle field are a huge must have. Team Speak is only practical in clan matches. If your going down the team play root at least help us improve communication. There just isn't enough keys to make all the binds you need and have there where there easy to get too.
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Twice as long to fully charge a primary
Wrong, fully charged shots should take exactly the same amount of time as they did before. It's only less than fully charged shots that take longer. And it no longer has a minimum charge requirement. I think the secondary attack speaks for itself.
You're just making thing confusing now.
Things are getting too fucking complicated, this is a pointless change. Luci should beep when it's fully charged, not 2 seconds after.
Along with the Tyrant charge meter you need a luci charge meter, or make the damned thing beep when it'll shoot a fully charged blast.
And, do you mean that the longer you hold luci the weaker it gets?
Here's what I mean
++++*---o
LEGEND
+ = charging (getting stronger)
* = fully charged
- = loosing charge (getting weaker)
o = beep
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Twice as long to fully charge a primary
Wrong, fully charged shots should take exactly the same amount of time as they did before. It's only less than fully charged shots that take longer. And it no longer has a minimum charge requirement. I think the secondary attack speaks for itself.
You're just making thing confusing now.
Things are getting too fucking complicated, this is a pointless change. Luci should beep when it's fully charged, not 2 seconds after.
Along with the Tyrant charge meter you need a luci charge meter, or make the damned thing beep when it'll shoot a fully charged blast.
And, do you mean that the longer you hold luci the weaker it gets?
Here's what I mean
++++*---o
LEGEND
+ = charging (getting stronger)
* = fully charged
- = loosing charge (getting weaker)
o = beep
luci has a longer repeat on the primary attack, the firing rate remains the same if you fire fully charged blasts, but you have to wait longer if you don't charge to full, so whether or not you release a full blast, you start charging the next one at the same time.
@temple: goon+ range is unchanged
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An interesting take on the MD follows.
Dretches don't care if you boost the MD damage, a one shot kill is a one shot kill.
Increase the damage to at least 40, but increase the cooldown to give it a nearly equivalent DPS.
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Here is how I think the game stacks up.
s1vs1=alien advantage due to crappy start base and new turrets.
s2vs2=human advantage due to unlagged and helmet.
s3vs3=Humans win hands down. The new chainsuit is deadly.
s2 H vs s1 A=humans win in no time at all.
s2 A vs s1 H=Bout the same as s1 vs s1 but tipped toward aliens due to poison
s3 H vs S1 A= human win. Not questions asked.
s3 A vs S1 H= if the humans have there base built right this game is still to close to call since tyrants die the moment they enter and a few MD shots will send a adv goon running for cover.
S3 H vs S2 aliens= Still a human win. TY for the deadly chain suit.
S3 A vs S2 H= balanced could go either way.
My point is the game is not getting any closer to balance. Aliens win easily if they rush at the beginning. But after humans hit s2 its goes down hill.
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Here is how I think the game stacks up.
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My point is the game is not getting any closer to balance. Aliens win easily if they rush at the beginning. But after humans hit s2 its goes down hill.
That's all extremely theoretical speculation and can't touch concrete evidence. These two graphs were linked to in one of Norf's posts:
previously alien to human wins ratio is about 1.7 (http://tremulous.sourceforge.net/balance/main/overall.png)
now alien to human wins is about .88 (http://tremulous.sourceforge.net/balance/tjw-lame_regen5/overall.png)
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Here is how I think the game stacks up.
...
My point is the game is not getting any closer to balance. Aliens win easily if they rush at the beginning. But after humans hit s2 its goes down hill.
That's all extremely theoretical speculation and can't touch concrete evidence. These two graphs were linked to in one of Norf's posts:
previously alien to human wins ratio is about 1.7 (http://tremulous.sourceforge.net/balance/main/overall.png)
now alien to human wins is about .88 (http://tremulous.sourceforge.net/balance/tjw-lame_regen5/overall.png)
Call me ignorant, but isn't 142/150 = .94?
... maybe the chart has changed since you posted it...
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actually, as people keep saying, FUN BEFORE BALANCE!! even if it's balanced, most games i play on the tjw servers have long portions of camping and credit starving depending what team your on, making the game less fun, if none at all. you should pm random players asking if they enjoyed the game during and after to get a chart of fun as well. just saying
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previously alien to human wins ratio is about 1.7
now alien to human wins is about .88
Well, that's certainly more balanced. The problem is, that change is HUGE! You must've either nerfed the aliens a lot or buffed the humans a lot (or both) to get a large chagne like that so quickly.
A large change like this is bad, you should've taken it slowly.
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actually, as people keep saying, FUN BEFORE BALANCE!!
Hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha
I cant believe people are seriously posting this.
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I've only played with these changes a bit, but i made sure to try both human and alien to get a feel for things. I didn't play much though because the changes are pretty shitty for overall game balance.
I'm not writing an essay on this but IMO too many of the changes are basically made to give unskilled players a much bigger chance against the skilled. I don't know, or particularly care who has a say in the changes, but it's obvious they are trying to compensate for lack of skill on their end with most of the changes.
Basically, a human team that doesn't completely suck ass is going to win a huge majority of games. Any alien victories will be because of a quick rush, or because of a mistake on the humies part.
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previously alien to human wins ratio is about 1.7
now alien to human wins is about .88
Well, that's certainly more balanced. The problem is, that change is HUGE! You must've either nerfed the aliens a lot or buffed the humans a lot (or both) to get a large chagne like that so quickly.
A large change like this is bad, you should've taken it slowly.
the change didn't happen quickly, it happened over months, you just didn't care enough to pay attention to it. first aliens had no regen at all when not on creep, then 1hp/sec for all aliens, then 1/3 normal regen (as it is now), tyrant aura was changed from 2x regen to giving surrounding aliens normal regen, but not the tyrant himself (and tyrant regen buffed from 7 to 9), booster regen changed from 2x to 3x, tyrant aura moved to regular basi, and the aura affected the basi itself, as well as a 2x aura on adv. basi, the basi auras changed from 1x and 2x to 2x and 3x. after that i can't remember the specific order of the changes, but each of those changes was tested for a couple weeks before the next one, and each of them made the game a lot more fun (well, after 1hp/sec, that one sucked pretty badly for balance, but now that i think about it, more because none of us had adjusted to it at the time)
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If people like Akanotu do not like the changes, Norfenstein and tjw have done a good job. Now we can only hope they will push on and make sure people like Akanotu actually stop playing Tremulous and just leave.
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An interesting take on the MD follows.
Dretches don't care if you boost the MD damage, a one shot kill is a one shot kill.
Increase the damage to at least 40, but increase the cooldown to give it a nearly equivalent DPS.
If you increase the damage and cooldown you make it less useful vs swarms and more useful for camping. Well that is my opinion anyway.
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Hey, he fixed the dretch bounding box issue.
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While I voiced my opinion very early about these changes, I kept the later comments to myself due to the alpha nature of the TJW testing server.
After having played for a few days on it I feel inclined to repeat my early feelings about the changes.
The core idea behind the changes is what's wrong here.
I do agree that Trem needed change. It needed balance and a slight change of pace.
However, I also believe that aliens were close to perfect from day one and started to go downhill with the TJW and R1 changes. All changes, not just the recent ones.
One main problem is that people have continually nerfed the aliens instead of increasing human power.
Trem needs a monster tyrant, it needs alien regen, it needs kamikaze drethches, etc. All humans need is something to counter it.
I like the new H base changes a lot, but not with nerfing large aliens on top of that. IMO, either do one or the other, preferably NOT nerf aliens.
By nerfing the aliens rather then simply giving humans a fighting chance, you are killing the core fun part of playing Trem.
Before, alien S3 meant "oh shit" to humans. Now it's "cool shit, faster creds". If this isn't a 180, I don't know what is.
What needed to be done IMO is make higher alien clases more expansive, so you avoid having a 90% Tyrant team.
Get rid of the silly sharing system.
Give humans more powerful weapons (not lucy powerful but chaingun powerful, e.g. dependent on skill rather then stupidity) and a good base (one change I like)
I hope you guys get the idea.
Don't get me wrong, not all change is bad. However, having TJW and god-knows-who be in charge of development is pure shit.
No disrespect to TJW, as I appreciate you hard work. But it's mod material. Not core game.
I'd just rather have Timbo, Jex or any other original dev give two shits about this game.
Having a "3rd party" do the game you take credit for is very weak as well as very "3rd party" biased. TJW currently decides what he likes and puts it in. Not the devs.
Instead of an open source, open community development style that a game like Trem deserves, you have chosen to do close to nothing behind closed doors for over a year.
There is a reason why the core population of Trem has moved on.
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I'd just rather have Timbo, Jex or any other original dev give two shits about this game.
Having a "3rd party" do the game you take credit for is very weak as well as very "3rd party" biased. TJW currently decides what he likes and puts it in. Not the devs.
Instead of an open source, open community development style that a game like Trem deserves, you have chosen to do close to nothing behind closed doors for over a year.
There is a reason why the core population of Trem has moved on.
last time i checked, norf was an "original dev", he is responsible for almost all of the balance changes.
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While I voiced my opinion very early about these changes, I kept the later comments to myself due to the alpha nature of the TJW testing server.
After having played for a few days on it I feel inclined to repeat my early feelings about the changes.
The core idea behind the changes is what's wrong here.
I do agree that Trem needed change. It needed balance and a slight change of pace.
However, I also believe that aliens were close to perfect from day one and started to go downhill with the TJW and R1 changes. All changes, not just the recent ones.
One main problem is that people have continually nerfed the aliens instead of increasing human power.
Trem needs a monster tyrant, it needs alien regen, it needs kamikaze drethches, etc. All humans need is something to counter it.
I like the new H base changes a lot, but not with nerfing large aliens on top of that. IMO, either do one or the other, preferably NOT nerf aliens.
By nerfing the aliens rather then simply giving humans a fighting chance, you are killing the core fun part of playing Trem.
Before, alien S3 meant "oh shit" to humans. Now it's "cool shit, faster creds". If this isn't a 180, I don't know what is.
What needed to be done IMO is make higher alien clases more expansive, so you avoid having a 90% Tyrant team.
Get rid of the silly sharing system.
Give humans more powerful weapons (not lucy powerful but chaingun powerful, e.g. dependent on skill rather then stupidity) and a good base (one change I like)
I hope you guys get the idea.
Don't get me wrong, not all change is bad. However, having TJW and god-knows-who be in charge of development is pure shit.
No disrespect to TJW, as I appreciate you hard work. But it's mod material. Not core game.
I'd just rather have Timbo, Jex or any other original dev give two shits about this game.
Having a "3rd party" do the game you take credit for is very weak as well as very "3rd party" biased. TJW currently decides what he likes and puts it in. Not the devs.
Instead of an open source, open community development style that a game like Trem deserves, you have chosen to do close to nothing behind closed doors for over a year.
There is a reason why the core population of Trem has moved on.
I agree 100% on all your points. This change is more political than necessary.
The sure fire 'magic bullet' change to Tremulous would be an anti-tyrant weapon. But its easier to play with with the tremulous.h file than code and model a new weapon. I'm sure a lot of people would help but I don't think some developers want anyone touching their game. So, instead we get a change that greatly slows down the game in the name of speeding it up. All that is sped up is killing aliens. That's fun to some people.
Its ironic personally because I don't even like playing Aliens any more but in order for me to have fun, I like to know both teams are balanced. Honestly balanced. Handicapping the Alien team isn't achieving balance or fun.
If you think aliens were broken before 1.20, give me some of what you are smoking. Tyrants were overpowered, that's it.
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last time i checked, norf was an "original dev", he is responsible for almost all of the balance changes.
I was talking about TJW and R1ch.
Norf has only recently started working in conjunction with TJW.
@temple
As far as the anty tyrant weapon goes, Dyin and I have been working on it for a while now and I have posted about it somewhere in this forum.
The gun code is close to finished and model is 100% done, however I'm quite reluctant to continue work on it or release it considering the new changes.
We'll see what comes out as 1.2
I'll make a decossion then.
Fact is, while messing with the current code is easier and faster* then introducing new stuff from scratch, it's worth the effort IMO.
This game shouldn't have come down to half assed ideas and lazy face lifts that take away from the original and quite cool idea.
So many unofficial gameplay changes have been introduced and accepted as the norm over a period of over a year that the game has become very frustrating to play. That's quite a huge change from the initial standalone release.
*apparently not that fast since there hasn't been one single official release since the the standalone.
Might be just my experience with OpenSource and GLP games, but I'm used to official bug fixes and changes on a monthly basis.
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last time i checked, norf was an "original dev", he is responsible for almost all of the balance changes.
I was talking about TJW and R1ch.
Norf has only recently started working in conjunction with TJW.
@temple
As far as the anty tyrant weapon goes, Dyin and I have been working on it for a while now and I have posted about it somewhere in this forum.
The gun code is close to finished and model is 100% done, however I'm quite reluctant to continue work on it or release it considering the new changes.
We'll see what comes out as 1.2
I'll make a decossion then.
Fact is, while messing with the current code is easier and faster* then introducing new stuff from scratch, it's worth the effort IMO.
This game shouldn't have come down to half assed ideas and lazy face lifts that take away from the original and quite cool idea.
So many unofficial gameplay changes have been introduced and accepted as the norm over a period of over a year that the game has become very frustrating to play. That's quite a huge change from the initial standalone release.
*apparently not that fast since there hasn't been one single official release since the the standalone.
Might be just my experience with OpenSource and GLP games, but I'm used to official bug fixes and changes on a monthly basis.
Are you talking about the gun with the 'sweet spot' fire. Cause that would be good.
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If your going to make all these changes add these too
1. Acid tubes and trappers are now combined, no more trappers just tubes
2. Humans only have 75 life, 100 with bsuit
3. Luci full charge only does 150 damage
4. Humans move slower
5. Medikit works slower
6. Acid tubes have more range
7. Lucispam shots fire slower and do less damage
I bet all the human players would go berserk over this... I play humans and aliens and I would hate the new changes. Camping humans already make rushing enemy base harder, but with superturrets and slower regeneration alien team is just gonna go on suicide missions. Please dont make these changes :granger: :granger:
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Are you talking about the gun with the 'sweet spot' fire. Cause that would be good.
Yes, that's the gun.
Dyin kindly nicknamed it "Fivelink".
You'll have to ask him why :wink:
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last time i checked, norf was an "original dev", he is responsible for almost all of the balance changes.
I was talking about TJW and R1ch.
Norf has only recently started working in conjunction with TJW.
the only change to gameplay that r1ch made was reducing pounce damage to 99 iirc, the only changes tjw made to gameplay were the goon nerf (no chomping midpounce), a slight poison buff (which norf then buffed much more) and dretchpunt. the rest of the changes were made with the knowledge of the devs.
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If you increase the damage and cooldown you make it less useful vs swarms and more useful for camping. Well that is my opinion anyway.
Exactly what I mean.
Running up to a mass-driver as a dretch with your buddies has become analogous to running up to a flamethower. Complete and utter suicide. Except that mass-driver has an unlimited range.
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But its fun to camp at one end of transit and pick off the dretchies >.>
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Just in, your build timer now equals the build-time of what you just built.
However, this raises 2 concerns with me.
1. No more faster timers on Advanced builders, they both have the same now. Not the big worry, though.
2. Human buildings often take less than 10 seconds to build, while alien buildings usually take more than 15. Humans can now set up their bases much quicker than aliens.
In the time it takes to set up an egg and a booster, Humans can build a Repeater, Armory, and Medistation. (30 seconds)
In the time it takes to set up a barricade (Buffed now, 8bp 300hp) and two acid tubes, humans can set up 5 turrets... (50 seconds)
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While I think most of the changes I've seen on the TJW list so far seem reasonable, I must admit I agree with an earlier poster that the basilisk is an illogical choice for a healing aura. Assassin/debuffer makes sense. Assassin/healer does not. Lisks have to do a lot of travelling in inaccessible places to do well in their assassin role, which means no healing for the poor non-wallwalkers who would be hard-pressed to locate the lisk in the first place... If aliens -did- have a way to locate lisks with the alien 'radar', it also may not be very fun for stealth-loving lisks to have every wounded alien training humans to their location.
I think the other lisk improvements will stand well on their own without the extra baggage of healing powers.
If lisks must be the medics, then give them a more in-character way to do it instead of the aura. Let them have an infrequent healing gas that instantly gives all aliens exposed a persistent healing effect comparable to their 1.1 heal rate for a time, or let them drop an object that sits for a minute and creates a healing aura. If you really want to have fun with this, make it so lisks have a special attack that makes a promptly killed human become an alien-healing aura maggot or something. But please don't make lisks be forced to just stand around healing.
In the same vein, I am concerned that even as forward bases are made more essential to aliens, grangers have been made less fun to play by slowing them down. Now not only do grangers need to travel more, they can't get there as fast. Boy! Sign me up to granger!
If they must slog their way to the front, at any speed, they will need escorts... so maybe give -them- the healing aura and let that teamwork element develop naturally.
Just my $.02
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I've been playing on trem.tjw.org since the very first of these changes. the main reason that lisks got the healing aura was because tyrants were way too strong at the time and lisks were hit very hard by the regen nerf, if you got caught by a lasgun at range you were basically dead. lisks actually still do very well as assasins: you can sit near the human base healing larger aliens and feed off the humans chasing down injured goons and tyrants, or just use the chaos caused by larger aliens to pick off stray humans. it also makes adv. lisk a much more worthwhile upgrade (although you could argue that the new gas is good enough to warrant the second evo), there was basically no reason to spend twice the evos for 2hp/sec->3hp/sec and 25 extra hp unless you had evos to waste, 4hp/sec->9hp/sec is a much larger difference. It also makes them somewhat unique among the aliens: they go down quickly due to low hp and a very large hitbox compared to the dretch, but if they live through one fight they are ready for the next one in a matter of seconds (and i would much rather see that attribute on a lisk than a tyrant).
ps: please come own me on trem.tjw.org sometime.
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Any hope for any of the following?;
Gibs, changing the side of the screen your gun is on, different taunts for humans to choose from, alien claws on the screen (in place of the gun).
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Any hope for any of the following?;
Gibs, changing the side of the screen your gun is on, different taunts for humans to choose from, alien claws on the screen (in place of the gun).
no, maybe, yes, yes (respectively)
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Aww, no gibs. Meh, we can live.
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... Assassin/debuffer makes sense. Assassin/healer does not. ...
Sorry to say this, but the problem is I don't see an assassin class fitting into Tremulous at all; anything a basilisk can do offesnively a goon can do better. The challenge might be more fun, but more likely than not you'd be doing more for your team with a higher class. Making the basilisk a healer/debuffer lets people with few frags help their team, and hopefully people will consider its offensive abilities superior to the dretch's so they won't feed as much with the latter.
I am concerned that even as forward bases are made more essential to aliens, grangers have been made less fun to play by slowing them down. Now not only do grangers need to travel more, they can't get there as fast. Boy! Sign me up to granger!
The reason for this was it just wasn't fun for humans to have a ridiculously difficult time killing an otherwise defenseless 0-frag class. On maps where wallwalking presents significant opportunities for escaping humans grangers were just too good at endlessly prolonging games. I haven't seen anyone else complain about the speed being less fun, only that they get killed more often.
Any hope for any of the following?;
Gibs ...
no
Really? I'd like gibs, especially witth the tyrant squish... we'd need models though... I wouldn't expect new human taunts, but someone (Stannum?) was working on visible alien weapons a while back...
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I am concerned that even as forward bases are made more essential to aliens, grangers have been made less fun to play by slowing them down. Now not only do grangers need to travel more, they can't get there as fast. Boy! Sign me up to granger!
The reason for this was it just wasn't fun for humans to have a ridiculously difficult time killing an otherwise defenseless 0-frag class. On maps where wallwalking presents significant opportunities for escaping humans grangers were just too good at endlessly prolonging games. I haven't seen anyone else complain about the speed being less fun, only that they get killed more often.
How about you make the Granger move normal speed when the OM is up?
Stops the endless endgame eggspam, allows forward bases.
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I am concerned that even as forward bases are made more essential to aliens, grangers have been made less fun to play by slowing them down. Now not only do grangers need to travel more, they can't get there as fast. Boy! Sign me up to granger!
The reason for this was it just wasn't fun for humans to have a ridiculously difficult time killing an otherwise defenseless 0-frag class. On maps where wallwalking presents significant opportunities for escaping humans grangers were just too good at endlessly prolonging games. I haven't seen anyone else complain about the speed being less fun, only that they get killed more often.
How about you make the Granger move normal speed when the OM is up?
Stops the endless endgame eggspam, allows forward bases.
Lol. Yeah, I agree. Lag them shitless when the OM is down, but give them a chance when it's up. Transit; Aliens cannot move base because the grangers are slow as mud. Any map with a large starting base; aliens cannot fortify/move because it takes them fifteen minutes to get to the other side of the base.
EDIT (Better idea): If you believe that the problem lies in the granger's speed while wallwalking, just nerf their speed while wallwalking, but give them normal speed on the ground.
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kevlarman wrote:
Plague Bringer wrote:
Any hope for any of the following?;
Gibs ...
no
Really? I'd like gibs, especially witth the tyrant squish... we'd need models though... I wouldn't expect new human taunts, but someone (Stannum?) was working on visible alien weapons a while back...
Unfortunately, Stannum and etc. have seen more active days, eh?
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I know unlagged and creep heal are here to stay and as such I'd like to propose something.
How about making aliens faster to compensate for unlagged and creep heal benefits to humans?
I believe that it would bring back the old feel of trem while still allowing humans to hit where they aim.
Currently, dretches, basilisks and goons are too easy to kill, regardless of their skill lever simply due to unlagged.
Speeding up those classes would allow aliens to fight effectively while allowing humans to take them down with skill.
Also, aliens would take even more skill since a faster dretch would really require piloting skills with the increased speed.
Basilisk is already too slow, unlagged or not.
As for the goon, with such a large hitbox, unlagged hurts them the most.
Increasing speed would allow a good player to live a bit longer while still requiring skill to take on multiple humans at the same time.
(by speed I mean walking speed, NOT the goon pounce)
Just a though.
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Really? I'd like gibs, especially witth the tyrant squish... we'd need models though... I wouldn't expect new human taunts, but someone (Stannum?) was working on visible alien weapons a while back...
i meant that gibs weren't being worked on, the gun change is something like 3 lines of code, and "new human taunts" sounds a lot like the vsays that are planned for 1.2
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... Assassin/debuffer makes sense. Assassin/healer does not. ...
Sorry to say this, but the problem is I don't see an assassin class fitting into Tremulous at all; anything a basilisk can do offensively a goon can do better. The challenge might be more fun, but more likely than not you'd be doing more for your team with a higher class. Making the basilisk a healer/debuffer lets people with few frags help their team, and hopefully people will consider its offensive abilities superior to the dretch's so they won't feed as much with the latter.
Something with that just doesn't stick. With helmets, basilisks are in trouble. Even more so when close to the human base. Advanced basilisks stand their ground better due to gas. But overall, it still sounds like people will be playing the weak class.
Not to flame but it still seems like its the weak class.
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My current hopes/suggestions. I do think they're relatively thought out :)
Thanks as always to Norf for continuing to read this thread.
Please please please remove Unlagged on the saw. People were just beginning to learn the might of the lagsaw militia in 1.1 + unlagged. The range buff for 1.2 makes it way too strong. I don't really have issue with the range buff on its own or the lagsaw on its own, but the combination is nuts. Since the range is supposedly necessitated by the new bsuit height, please de-unlagged it.
While the granger speed nerf has done its job, it's also making base moves and forward bases (which are now more important than ever) a greater pain than they should be. ER has a good point about Granger being even more unfun to play. Perhaps you could consider another method of preventing the eggspam: maybe one of the ones in this thread? A little more speed while the OM is up (maybe 0.8 or something) OR normal speed, but slower during wallwalk both sound like good alternates.
I've always been for adding friendlies to alien radar to reduce rants blocking each other, but I do believe it's more necessary now than ever. I've been told that the new HUD will inform you when you're in range of a basy/booster/creep, but could this also include some kind of directional indicator, if you still do not believe in putting friendlies on the radar? At least tell me which direction the basy is in so that I can spin around and find/follow it. My ideal would have blue blips for friendlies that grow in size in proportion to their class (to not block rants) and glowing blue dots to indicate basy/booster. But even if you won't do that, please, some subset of that information to tell where to find healing would go a long way.
I really like the current trend of making every class/gun/building more useful, but can we do something similar to the Hive? Hives in their current state are mediocre at best but I don't know a decent player that wouldn't rather build another Trapper over a hive any day. Hell, I'd take 1 trapper over 2 hives. I'm not sure if they need a damage buff or a BP decrease or what, but at least one of those would really help.
The thing that troubles me about the regen still is that it validates the Jettard: the alternate form of camping that we all love to hate. Now instead of laughing at how useless the guy at the top of ATCS/Transit/Karith is, an alien will find himself with half health by the time he reaches the base as a result. I suppose one could argue that making those newbs useful might be good for the game, but as an alternative I'd like to see conisderation for some limit on the Jetpack. Let it only be used for 30 seconds out of every 45 or something. Such a change would still allow for all the legit uses of a jetpack but prevent newbs from annoying the crap out of everyone while being a useless, camping, spamming drain on their team.
Questions of balance aside, Phreak's faster aliens would be enjoyable as hell to play for those of us that play aliens like they're on speed all the time, but I think it would have too much of a steep learning curve and be very very difficult to play at lower FPS. Besides, a little strafejumping makes you faster anyway.
Not to flame but it still seems like its the weak class.
I'd like to see you spec or play with {SGA}Ender for a while and see how "weak" the Basy can be in 1.1, then tremble at how crazy it's going to be when all his stats are buffed considerably. Alternately, wait about 3 weeks for ER to learn how to play with again in Unlagged-style Trem and watch him too. :)
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Not to flame but it still seems like its the weak class.
I'd like to see you spec or play with {SGA}Ender for a while and see how "weak" the Basy can be in 1.1, then tremble at how crazy it's going to be when all his stats are buffed considerably. Alternately, wait about 3 weeks for ER to learn how to play with again in Unlagged-style Trem and watch him too. :)
I know how to play a basilisk. There isn't a reason for me to CHOOSE a basilisk, outside of supporting with regeneration.
Even Norf admitted that there is nothing a basilisk can that a dragoon can't do better. A player doesn't make the class because if they are good, they can be even better with a stronger class.
I think the marauder and basilisk are too unique in their playstyles. They aren't played because they are weird, not because they are weak. Their playstyle makes them weak, not their hitpoints or damage. Hell, basilisks are pretty tough right now, but the issue is do you risk 1-2 evos to show off when a goon does the same thing (kill enemies), just easier? Its the ease that makes goons 'better', not really the damage numbers.
As a human, a gun is a gun. Its just a matter of learning their particular speed and damage. Marauders and basilisks aren't like any other class. I think its like expecting humans to use the massdriver or jetpack all the time.
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I, personally, consider it a wasted evo. Support units are great, but I'd rather be a 1.1 rant; I can heal my team and pound the shit out of human base; rather then a 1.2 basi; sitting on the sidelines, watching the destruction, 5 evos, but not evolving and joining the fun because your team needs a medic.
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I know how to play a basilisk. There isn't a reason for me to CHOOSE a basilisk, outside of supporting with regeneration.
you've obviously never seen a single +goon rip through 3 bsuits at once because they were slowed and grabbed by a basi+
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That would fall under supporting.
I know how to play a basilisk. There isn't a reason for me to CHOOSE a basilisk, outside of supporting with regeneration.
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But the basi gets evo for it, so you can use it when you only have 2 evo.
Its never going to be as good as the goon, it costs less.
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you've obviously never seen a single +goon rip through 3 bsuits at once because they were slowed and grabbed by a basi+
I've seen a blaster own a goon with full health. At the end of the day, it's still a blaster & the lasgun is still miles better.
The basi class modifications sound interesting at the very least, but I worry how it'll effect gameplay on the pubs. I suspect weaker players will continue to feed (despite now having the chance to offer a supporting role) & the better players will be playing the basi class.
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I know how to play a basilisk. There isn't a reason for me to CHOOSE a basilisk, outside of supporting with regeneration.
you've obviously never seen a single +goon rip through 3 bsuits at once because they were slowed and grabbed by a basi+
I love the idea of that. However, it sound damn near impossible with tk'ing the basilisk or the basilisk getting focus fired immediately.
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I know how to play a basilisk. There isn't a reason for me to CHOOSE a basilisk, outside of supporting with regeneration.
you've obviously never seen a single +goon rip through 3 bsuits at once because they were slowed and grabbed by a basi+
I love the idea of that. However, it sound damn near impossible with tk'ing the basilisk or the basilisk getting focus fired immediately.
i've been the basi that pulls that stunt, you do end up dying roughly half the time. evos usually aren't an issue because you can feed off the humans trying to chase down goons escaping from the vicinity of the human base.
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Maybe I'm the only one that sees this and correct me if my assumption of your assumption is wrong, but it's not like everyone always has a full set of evo's lying around. I agree, I'd rather be a rant than a basi any day of the week, but with all these increases to basi, I'm at the point where my playstyle will change an actually include the basi. Normally, I'd have 0 to 2 evo points and laugh at the idea of evolving. I'd play dretch till I got enough points to evolve into a bigger alien alltogether no matter what stage humans were at. At S2 and S3, this is obviously going to cause me to feed human a bit while I get my evos. I may not be so bad at feeding, but everyone else on the pub isn't going to be so great at not feeding. It is my hope that the 1.2 healing/upgraded basi is going to encourage more people to choose basi while they're working their way up to a higher class alien which will result in helping the team by healing and making people think twice about feeding since they just spent an evo point.
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i think the basi is an awesome class. if only i knew how to use it >.>
but as seeing that the new :advmarauder: is FREAKIN SWEET [longer range of attack;infinite zap] . you gotta love that infinite zap when a :battlesuit: is running @ you and you just keeping going backward and you kill it in bout 10seconds WOOT. and another new buff >> the new Flamer is also FREAKIN SWEET with the longer range. all those goons that you kept backing up to that kept hitting you out of flame ranger are now dead :P. and those new :turret: ... they strongly favor skilled aliens since they have a time delay [and move turn slower *i think*] which makes them easy to spin your dretch round them and kill em. The new :tyrant: and :battlesuit: view heights are pretty cool. you can now ks w/ tyrant while looking over dragoon's head with the longer reach :P. its only drawback is that its hard to see basi's on the ground right in front of you. well those were my 2 cents .
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Currently, dretches, basilisks and goons are too easy to kill, regardless of their skill lever simply due to unlagged.
Please please please remove Unlagged on the saw.
I really don't feel like unlagged has unbalanced anything, and especially don't see how disadvanting people with high pings is a sensible way to balance something specific. EDIT: kevlar explained to me there's a little more to it than just having better aim with unlagged, so I won't be opposed to at least trying the saw without it.
Speeding up those classes would allow aliens to fight effectively while allowing humans to take them down with skill.
Making aliens faster would completely defeat the purpose of changing regen in the first place. And I don't agree that dretches, basilisks, and goons are too easy to kill. I don't play on servers with huge player loads however, so maybe that's the difference.
Perhaps you could consider another method of preventing the eggspam: maybe one of the ones in this thread?
I did have another idea (making them fall off walls when damaged), but I'm not yet convinced the slower speed is too much. Maybe wall-falling combined with a smaller reduction in speed.
[Hives suck.]
Yea, agreed, but it's not a high priority at the moment.
Such a change would still allow for all the legit uses of a jetpack but prevent newbs from annoying the crap out of everyone while being a useless, camping, spamming drain on their team.
Kind of contradicting yourself there? I haven't felt like jetpack camping is much of an issue, but I'll pay more attention to it in the future to see if I change my mind.
Even Norf admitted that there is nothing a basilisk can that a dragoon can't do better.
It's a one frag class. You can use one to get more frags to pay for your goon, or stay basilisk and support your team. I don't see why anyone is complaining about the basilisk unless they were particularly fond of the challenge of a "skill" class. They're actually useful enough now that people (even average players) have a reason to evolve from dretch to stop feeding as much. Medic has the right idea.
I think the marauder and basilisk are too unique in their playstyles.
Erm, what? You want the alien classes to be less interesting? :o
but I worry how it'll effect gameplay on the pubs
No one has to speculate since you can play these changes right now on trem.tjw.org (among other servers).
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No one has to speculate since you can play these changes right now on trem.tjw.org (among other servers).
I ping 300+ at tjw's. I'll wait and see how it is in the final.
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Lakitu and I were talking about the jetpack thing Norf, I do not think he painted a clear enough scenario. Maps such as Karith, Transit, ATCS, hell anything with a high cieling will have someone become what I refer to as a jettard. This is someone with no armor or helm, just a jetpack and something annoying like a driver or a las gun or even just a rifle. And what this person does is just sits way up high in an area of no strategic value whatsoever and spams and spams and spams. They are campers for sure, they're just campers that chose to be somewhere that isn't 5ft from their base. If we put a 30 second limit on the jetpack, it would require someone to use it only as a means to reach high places. Come to beer-graden mid transit or karith, you'll understand exactly what kind of people I'm talking about. These people in 1.1 were mild annoyances because after you walk past the jettard's line of sight, you regen your hp. But say you get hit by a stray lucifer cannon shot/fallout or get MD'ed twice, in 1.2 you're now at a significant disadvantage and potentially you have to abandon an attack altogether. Or possibly a lucky MD kills your retreating alien. Being a jettard at the top of a level and serving nothing more than being a nuissance isn't a real service to your team. With reduced alien regen, I feel that without some kind of limit on the jetpack, more noobish/camper activity is going to increase.
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I think the marauder and basilisk are too unique in their playstyles.
Erm, what? You want the alien classes to be less interesting? :o
No, less gimmicky and more useful.
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When tjw moved his server, I went from a ping ~150 to a ping <20 and I couldn't tell the difference.
Thank you unlagged, I am mediocre both ways.
I still suck at saw, even with the new range buff.
The flamer speed now leaves noticeable gaps in the stream of fire.
I do think that you took away to much of what Tyrants were meant to be, a powerhouse.
Dretch = Stealth hunter
Basilisk = Stealth trapper
Marauder = Agile hunter-killer
Dragoon = Precision killer
Tyrant = Powerful killer
But now they have been 'norfed' past usefulness.
People complain about them being an end-all final solution for aliens, but the evolution system leaves them no choice. Once a Tyrant, stuck a Tyrant.
In summary, many of Tyrant's problems
1. Still costs 5, and still stuck as Tyrant.
2. Still slow and unwieldy, but now harder to escape.
3. Less range and slower repeat on slash.
4. Removed aura, reduced niche in teamwork.
5. Weaker regen and 350 hp, easier to get killed.
6. Still a big easy target, and noisy enough to hear coming.
On the bright side:
1. With an advanced basilisk, has 27hp/sec regen.
2. Stronger stampede offensively.
3. Still has the best damage dealing capabilities compared to other aliens, but not quite worth it anymore.
Call me if I missed anything.
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Played this a bit more to get a better feel for things, and I still gotta say the changes heavily favor humans. Sure, a human team full of clueless rambo's will still most likely lose (though not as often as they should), but a smart human team using teamwork just steamrolls aliens like they were retarded toddlers. This might be fine for some pubs where the majority of players are pretty shitty overall but it's a joke for any real organized matches or games with a lot of better players.
Downing tyrants 1on1 is now incredibly easy w/ a chainsuit, a group of humans tear through them like butter. Mara's are a bit more effective on offense, but still go down extremely easily because of unlagged and their now ineffective dodging skills. Though in 1.1 w/ unlagged mara's are little more then cannon fodder anyways, so it's an improvement there at least. Basi's are a bit more useful, but comes nowhere close to counteracting the rest of the nerfs aliens got.
To cut the rant short (pun lol), I still believe that those making all these changes are listening way too much to people who lack serious skill. In Vanilla 1.1, a human team that is offensive and works in teams is frightningly effective and there is little the alien team can do against them. These changes basically make such teams pretty much unstoppable.
I will say these settings would suck pretty bad for clan matches though. A good human team can allready tear through aliens easily, this just takes away most of the aliens s3 advantage and makes things even easier.
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I quit playing Tremulous for a couple of weeks and now I'm back again.
After playing 1.10 servers, I ready for these changes. I want these changes. They aren't the best ideas, imho. But if aliens got a little bump in hitpoints, I think they will be doable.
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If there is anything I am dying to see, its locational damage on mara zap.
Zaps you in the face, it electrifies your skull, until your eyes bug out like this and you die: :eek:.
Conversely for legs, not too bad. :-?
Its the only thing that would make zap even somewhat useful against light armor.
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Question
If unlagged is basicaly included in trem 1.2, will it be possible to turn it off ?
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Yes.
And after its introduction and acceptance into the mainstream, and most of the bugs and exploits (Note: Lagsaw) are worked out, it might just become always on.
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After playing with Unlagged on the Dretch Storm server, I can't play without it now. It easily compensated for once Aliens get used to it. Also, Aliens can score hits better themselves.
I think most of the changes will be dealt with well by the community.
I think the changes could designed differently to improve gameplay but whatever.
I just want to see camping outside the Human base to end and the whole '10 tyrants knocking down your door' gameplay slack up.
My only beef is the Sudden Death gameplay. No armory/no overmind building in SD is lame. I don't know if TJW changed that. 1 thing that has really been on my mind is giving aliens and maybe even humans more buildables to make the game more like a RTS game. That way it isn't all about the armory or overmind. Maybe a tyrant buildable and if you kill that, no more rants. Whatever, just my 2 cents.
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New basilisk is bullshit. Just wanted to say that on the record.
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New basilisk is bullshit. Just wanted to say that on the record.
I agree. It's not hard for me to consistantly kill battlesuited humans, and in 1.1 I can hardly kill naked humans. I can only wonder what guys like ExistentialRisk could do in 1.2, especially with delayed turrets.
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New basilisk is bullshit. Just wanted to say that on the record.
I agree. It's not hard for me to consistantly kill battlesuited humans, and in 1.1 I can hardly kill naked humans. I can only wonder what guys like ExistentialRisk could do in 1.2, especially with delayed turrets.
I've played with risk and he can lock down 2 humans with the new basilisks. That gas makes it even worse.
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I've played with risk and he can lock down 2 humans with the new basilisks. That gas makes it even worse.
Just shows how really, really good ExistentialRisk is, doesn't it?
There are players out there who could lock down 2 humans with a dretch without breaking sweat, doesn't mean dretches are overpowered.
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I've played with risk and he can lock down 2 humans with the new basilisks. That gas makes it even worse.
Just shows how really, really good ExistentialRisk is, doesn't it?
There are players out there who could lock down 2 humans with a dretch without breaking sweat, doesn't mean dretches are overpowered.
So are you saying the new basilisks are balanced?
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So are you saying the new basilisks are balanced?
Seems that way. OF course, none of us have that much experience, but I know they don't end games single-handedly. They still have the weakest attack of any offensive class.
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So are you saying the new basilisks are balanced?
Seems that way. OF course, none of us have that much experience, but I know they don't end games single-handedly. They still have the weakest attack of any offensive class.
I play on TJW any time there is more than 5 players. Basilisks are fine currently. In 1.20, it is impossible to break their grab unless they mess up.
It makes basilisks much better to learn but feels overkill.
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That doesn't matter if they never get behind you, and even then going aroound with a teammate will save your life more often than not.
Lest we forget, they're still basilisks. They still have a terrible DPS and can only take two shotgun blasts to the face. Two mass driver shots, three if they're advanced.
It makes basilisks not only much more entertaining to play (since the gas is actually worth a damn and is one of those few attacks that can be devastating while still not doing any damage) but also actually something to fear more than a dretch.
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So are you saying the new basilisks are balanced?
Seems that way. OF course, none of us have that much experience, but I know they don't end games single-handedly. They still have the weakest attack of any offensive class.
I play on TJW any time there is more than 5 players. Basilisks are fine currently. In 1.20, it is impossible to break their grab unless they mess up.
It makes basilisks much better to learn but feels overkill.
the fact that you could just walk out of grab was a bug that was never intended.
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That doesn't matter if they never get behind you, and even then going aroound with a teammate will save your life more often than not.
Lest we forget, they're still basilisks. They still have a terrible DPS and can only take two shotgun blasts to the face. Two mass driver shots, three if they're advanced.
It makes basilisks not only much more entertaining to play (since the gas is actually worth a damn and is one of those few attacks that can be devastating while still not doing any damage) but also actually something to fear more than a dretch.
With the grab, they get behind you a shit load easier. That's why I say 1.10 basilisks are fine. They will own you from the rear but that's it. 1.20 basilisks can touch and run behind you with a a lot more play room.
The gas is just fucking annoying. Its like any other crowd control or AoE effect in other games. When spammed, too fucking annoying. Only battlesuits can deal with either gas or grab effectively without being hassled and that's S3 armor.
They cost 1-2 evos so basically you will be dealing with it. This isn't a small thing, its going to be a source of annoyance.
Combine that with grab and basilisks are too much of a hassle. Lord help you if there are 2 basilisks. I look at basilisks like I view flamers on no FF servers. Bullshit.
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the fact that you could just walk out of grab was a bug that was never intended.
What about jetting out of a grab?
After playing with Unlagged on the Dretch Storm server, I can't play without it now. It easily compensated for once Aliens get used to it. Also, Aliens can score hits better themselves.
Why would we want aliens to score hits better than themselves.. whatever that might mean?
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jetting out of grab/trappers is fixed in svn, not tjw's patch.
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the fact that you could just walk out of grab was a bug that was never intended.
Basilisk grab is completely effective until you get battlesuits. That covers S1 and S2, regardless of gear.
The big issue here is a grab, from any direction, will slow the human long enough for the basilisk to get behind it. Helmets allow you spot them in advance but if they get near you prior to killing them, you can potentially lose far more that 1-2 evos worth of credits because of a long ass grab time.
No weapon, medikit, or armor is going to matter once you get behind the human with a basilisk. Its not balanced. If grab time was lessened based on armor...I could see why a 1-2 evo basilisk should lock down a naked human. But a human with full gear, pack, and maybe nade is easily double the cost of the basilisk. And its just as weak (with the exception of radar) as a naked human.
Grab is just too long and saying it supposed to not break at all once connected makes it look worst.
edit: I watch Risk play a lot and he dies a lot. Really, its TK damage from trying to pry the basilisk off the human that feeds him a fair amount of credits. The tk damage and subsequent kills from trying to fight off will fuck up the cost balance of them.
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So you mean it wasn't intended.. ah.
As for the many changes 1.2 will make.. I can't say I'm happy about them =/ I'll have to actually play it to be sure but it's not sounding good.
I like playing basilisk and I don't think they should be upgraded. You might just make it too easy and take the fun out of it =(.
I liked the granger spit =( it was quaint, adorable and really helps when you go battle-granger >.>.
The new deconning system I have the biggest complaint with. I get the impression it's a measure to stop deconners gone too far. As I understand it, you can mark as many structures for decon as you like (otherwise it would be extremely awkward to build that one structure that requires the bp of two existing structures). So this would mean that when it comes to moving base, the humans need only mark their entire base for decon and the aliens are left to watch the human base magically disappear in front of them..
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the humans need only mark their entire base for decon and the aliens are left to watch the human base magically disappear in front of them..
Is that a problem? Shit, that's the best part.
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Much better than having buildings magically pop up where you build it right?
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Nope. When they pop up in front of you, you're there when it happens. You're no where near the buildings you're suddenly making vanish. It makes moving too easy. I'm not in favour of removing depth to the game. Making sure you've cleaned up all your old buildings is a responsibility that I don't think should be lifted.
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Nope. When they pop up in front of you, you're there when it happens. You're no where near the buildings you're suddenly making vanish. It makes moving too easy. I'm not in favour of removing depth to the game. Making sure you've cleaned up all your old buildings is a responsibility that I don't think should be lifted.
Aliens do it for you. It'd be nice if they could grow some brain and keep 32bps of unpowered turrets and a medistation from the humans, but no, they've got to eat it. And for what? A few explosions? Idiots, they're all idiots.
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I suggest you don't play with idiots.. it helps.
If the aliens are stupid enough to give you back your bp then so be it. In that case they deserve everything they get. If they're not stupid however, why should they have the structures disappear from under their noses?
Do aliens even have noses? x(
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Say what you want about the tyrant changes, the basilisk changes, or any human changes.
But I'll kill a bitch that speaks out against Marked Deconstruct.
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+1
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It's all very fun to say you disagree. As with alot of my questions it seems, no one has yet answered me. >.<
I'll repeat.
why should they have the structures disappear from under their noses?
How about- What was so bad about the old system? If this is just a measure against deconners, I'll say again that I think it's a step-too-far.
Finally can someone point me in the right direction of a detailed summary for what happens with multiple marked structures by multiple people, and what order they would be deconned in.
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Why shouldn't they?
And order of building decon:
Marked buildings of the same type.
BP reserve.
Other marked buildings.
If your blueprint overlaps a marked building it gets removed first.
As to what order within the 2 groups above, I would assume the order the ents are in, so probably the order they were first built in.
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Reasons why they shouldn't:
Having the structures just disappear with no one around looks stupid. I'm not in favour of magic in this context.
Having the structures disappear rather than deconning them yourself adds an element of LAZINESS to the game. This is an element I wouldn't call interesting.
Having the structures disappear from under the noses of the aliens means they might as well destroy them now (for the few evos the nodes and reac give and for the delay for which bp returns). This makes the game less interesting as before it was a tactic to hold those building ransom that the humans failed to decon.
I'm not in favour of making the game less interesting.
As for the questions about the system. Are the marked buildings individually or collectively based? (can one person mark while the other builds the new? or does the same person have to have marked who builds the new one?).
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anyone can mark, and anyone can build.
Maybe the buildings should have some sort of decon animation? Its power thats limited, no materials, so them blowing up would be cool.
The aliens always destroyed them before, and the alien buildings work the same way, so both sides have the same advantage / disadvantage.
How is it less interesting?
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"anyone can mark and anyone can build"... that doesn't answer my question at all =/
I'll illustrate my point. Which of the following is that actual system?
-I mark 3 buildings for decon, some other guy builds 2 buildings and 2 of the buildings I marked disappear.
-I mark 3 buildings for decon, some other guy marks 2 different buildings for decon. He builds 2 buildings and the buildings he marks disappear. I build 3 buildings and my 3 marked buildings disappear.
Exploding buildings? That would be annoying when I just want to move the armoury a little to the left and suddenly half the base is caught in the explosion.
The aliens always destroy them in PUBLIC games with STUPID people. In a clan war for example, they are alot less likely to be that stupid. I don't want the game to be biased toward stupid people.
It's less interesting because the 'clean-up' you would have to do while moving is part of the gameplay. Like leaving a node undefended should be punished by the aliens getting lots of spawn kills. That's not a flaw in the game, it's the humans fault for leaving the node undefended. The fact that the game punishes neglect and encourages you to think about such thinks makes the game more interesting. If you can just mark the node for decon at the start of every game and LIFT it out from across the map at any given moment makes the game shallow. It's not punishing neglect so people don't have to think as much.
I'll give you an example. Currently a good builder understands that before he decons 1 of his two nodes to move it, he should decon something else (say a turret if he already had more than 2 bp) then build the new node with those bp. Then he decons the old one. This way the humans never have less than 2 nodes and the flow of spawning humans is never impeded.
In general, a game is more interesting when there are rules and tricks that you learn about the game as you play it. This is what I mean by depth. Pong (old fashioned computer game) for example has very little depth. It's a matter of moving the paddle to hit the ball and nothing more. Tetris (also an old fashioned computer game) is an example of a game that has alot of depth. As you play it, you realise what to do and what not to do (like avoiding covering gaps with more blocks wherever possible).
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It has no memory as to who marked a building.
And have you played with mark decon?
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Yup. Though it was briefly. I didn't try moving base though. It's only just occured to me how stupid that would look.
In general, I'm a little apprehensive about changes to the game because I'm just used to the way it is already. I enjoy it and don't have issues with the way it works. Though I can adapt quite easily, I'm worried that the changes might take nuances away that I enjoy about the current version.
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It's an option that can be enabled/disabled. Don't like it, disable it or play on servers that have it disabled.
However, servers having serious problems with deconners will have it as an option in their defensive arsenal. Will it stop deconners/griefer builders, no. Will it stop those who join, decon nodes and RC then quit? You can still get away with most of that (mark nodes and arm, build turrets.) However, it will slow them down considerably. Is it less disruptive than the layout solution some servers have employed to fight deconners? Considerably.
If you don't think deconning is that serious of a problem, you have been fortunate enough to avoid servers where deconning occurs in almost every match (some days.)
Additionally, some people like it, and will enable it for that reason and none other. Just like unlagged.
Arguing over the options that are ultimately up to the server operator is like arguing over the menu. I'm not quite sure what the point is.
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arguing over the menu
I think the menu needs options in it :)[/i]
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If it is optional, then that's good. I didn't know that.
Like unlagged, there seems to be alot of tremulous players who want it to be a 'must-have'. This is what I'm worried might happen if enough inexperienced but numerous players make a demand for it.
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I hope mark decon wont be optional.
It changes the game play quite drastically, and as such should be uniform across all servers.
I thought it was only optional ATM as it needed a client download...
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I hope mark decon wont be optional.
Exactly the kind of sentiment I'm talking about.
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I hope mark decon wont be optional.
Exactly the kind of sentiment I'm talking about.
I feel you are misrepresenting David here. I, too, think optional markdecon would be a bad idea. Not because I hate you and want to eat your individuality and make this experience less fun for you, but merely because it is a significant enough game mechanic that to keep the discrepancy, potentially causing a great deal of confusion especially to new users, would seem to me to cause more harm than good in the long run. For a while now the concept of a "classic" mod to 1.2.0 to reflect 1.1.0 gameplay while maintaining the new bugfixes and various enhancements - g_markDeconstruct 0 is likely in these modes.
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What exactly is wrong with marked decon are people discussing here. I think its the probably the best thing about the changes.
People don't like that 1 person can manage a base?
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I've already said, but to save you from having to read my past posts I'll say it again very briefly. I don't like the idea of the human base disappearing with no humans around when the base is being moved. It looks stupid and makes moving too easy. When building in the same area you're deconning, I have no problem with the new system.
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I've already said, but to save you from having to read my past posts I'll say it again very briefly. I don't like the idea of the human base disappearing with no humans around when the base is being moved. It looks stupid and makes moving too easy. When building in the same area you're deconning, I have no problem with the new system.
Too easy and silly looking.
Too easy is subjective. Its hard to coordinate multiple people and more often than not gets fucked up. I'd rather it be easier and less messy than hard and prone to failure.
Silly looking? Who fucking cares?
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I have to go with Nux. Mark decon makes it to easy. You can bias the game for the idiots that play. I see moves done on public servers all the time. All you need are two builders who don't have there thumbs up there ass and some fighters who can aim. With mark decon what can the aliens do as they watch the base magically disappear?
If the humans are noob enough to have one builder running back and forth to decon and build they deserve to have there base help hostage. The current build system requires common sense. Do we really need to give another check to humans for the retardation?
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I have to go with Nux. Mark decon makes it to easy. You can bias the game for the idiots that play. I see moves done on public servers all the time. All you need are two builders who don't have there thumbs up there ass and some fighters who can aim. With mark decon what can the aliens do as they watch the base magically disappear?
If the humans are noob enough to have one builder running back and forth to decon and build they deserve to have there base help hostage. The current build system requires common sense. Do we really need to give another check to humans for the retardation?
why is making human moves easier a bad thing? if aliens are paying any attention they should be able to stop a move, even with markdecon i can almost stop an entire move by myself (5v5, players like norf on humans) if i catch them in the act.
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With mark decon what can the aliens do as they watch the base magically disappear?
If the humans are noob enough to have one builder running back and forth to decon and build they deserve to have there base help hostage.
What can the aliens do? What has changed? They can attack the old or new base.
Most teams don't decide on building, they just end up with a base. Or you have no building done at all. Even worse, you have 5 builders all fighting over the base while 2 guys have to do all the fighting.
FEW FEW FEW games I have ever seen has had coordinated building. So, why keep out this bullshit notion of forcing skill when in reality, you just ensuring confusion.
This only pisses off spawn campers. Now, the other team doesn't have to suicide to decon the old base (because as some point your team gets split and your defensives are lower when moving, it punishes humans more).
Now I can worry a little less about the base.
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Maybe some in depth tutorials on building and common locations could help? I think this game needs some ingame stuff like in Tribes to teach people the basics. As it is now with 1.1 you need common sense to play. With mark deconstruct all it takes is you marking the base then running to the new base and to start building. No other effort required.
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if aliens are paying any attention they should be able to stop a move
That's a big if. When you have players who haven't only just found the game and will stop playing it a day later, then they might be more clever than your average player. I get the impression those who like this system are too used to public games filled with inexperienced players, and have no idea how much fun a game full of experienced players- with high levels of coordination -can be. In such games with the old system, whether or not you get all your bp for the new base position is based on how well your team coordinated the move and how well the enemy keeps you from deconning those last structures. With the new system, a failing base could start disappearing without any alien realising why until it's too late.
*Mr. Goon looks at the base he's attacking* "Oh good!" he says "my teammates have taken down those turrets!"
*Mr.Builder- who was the one who removed the old base turrets while on the other side of the map -has got 2 nodes and a turret up during the attack*
*Mr. Goon steps onto the last node* "Muhahaha!" he cackles "I've got the last spawn!" He decides to destroy it and win the game. Unfortunately it disappears from under his feet. "What the hell?!" he exclaims.
*Mr.Builder has finished the new base and while the rest of his teams sets off to attack the alien base, he sets off to the next place he'll move the base to in the event of a base attack*
A well coordinated team could take advantage of it so much that it would be a great head-ache to finish off any base without it popping up somewhere else.
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and have no idea how much fun a game full of experienced players- with high levels of coordination -can be.
i do have an idea what that is like, and if anything markdecon makes games more fun and more fair, i don't think anyone who has actually used the system has ever complained about it.
edit: i fail @
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In your examples you say a competent human team shouldn't need it. You also say that mostly the aliens are incompetent. Make your mind up.
And it works both ways, aliens can mark too...
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That's a big if. When you have players who haven't only just found the game and will stop playing it a day later, then they might be more clever than your average player. I get the impression those who like this system are too used to public games filled with inexperienced players, and have no idea how much fun a game full of experienced players- with high levels of coordination -can be. In such games with the old system, whether or not you get all your bp for the new base position is based on how well your team coordinated the move and how well the enemy keeps you from deconning those last structures. With the new system, a failing base could start disappearing without any alien realising why until it's too late.
*Mr. Goon looks at the base he's attacking* "Oh good!" he says "my teammates have taken down those turrets!"
*Mr.Builder- who was the one who removed the old base turrets while on the other side of the map -has got 2 nodes and a turret up during the attack*
*Mr. Goon steps onto the last node* "Muhahaha!" he cackles "I've got the last spawn!" He decides to destroy it and win the game. Unfortunately it disappears from under his feet. "What the hell?!" he exclaims.
*Mr.Builder has finished the new base and while the rest of his teams sets off to attack the alien base, he sets off to the next place he'll move the base to in the event of a base attack*
A well coordinated team could take advantage of it so much that it would be a great head-ache to finish off any base without it popping up somewhere else.
The same idiot aliens that can't respond to a base move are the same idiots humans that can't move a base. This isn't a MMORPG where people only play 1 side. If you got idiots on 1 team, they will be on the other team at some point.
You just proving the point.
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How to have a roaming base:
10 Mark all existing buildings
20 IF base is under heavy attack, THEN move player position away from enemies, ELSE wait
30 Build base
40 IF base complete, THEN GOTO 10, ELSE GOTO 30.
Simple rules, complex game, and annoying as hell to play against.
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The trouble is, in S1 you have to take the reactor first, and it's not going to be long before the entire alien team is searching the map for it. In later stages you can start with a repeater but in the meantime you'll have two half-bases and you run a serious risk of losing both to determined rushes. In order to move base as regularly as you suggest, you have to first get out of base with a ckit, then get to an appropriate base location somewhere and stay hidden long enough for you to get a reactor and at least two turrets up. Even now if you're unlucky a dragoon will pounce straight over and finish you, and you're basically screwed. So you'll need a node, an armoury, and a medistation... only now can your teammates get back up to full attacking efficiency, and your base is still pretty vulnerable.
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i don't think anyone who has actually used the system has ever complained about it.
I've already said that I've used it.
In your examples you say a competent human team shouldn't need it. You also say that mostly the aliens are incompetent.
Where do I say this in those examples? I think you misread something. I'm in favour of the old system because it punishes incompetence and encourages teamwork.
The same idiot aliens that can't respond to a base move are the same idiots humans that can't move a base. This isn't a MMORPG where people only play 1 side. If you got idiots on 1 team, they will be on the other team at some point.
When I speak of playing with experienced players, I mean BOTH sides has experienced players. If any team is full of inexperienced players, you're not playing the kind of game I'm talking about. European clan wars are good examples of high level coordination and tactics.
@benmachine: It's not the same scenario as with the old system, as the builder doesn't have to worry about another teammate deconning for him, or him deconning and then rushing to the spot while the reactor is down. With this system, the second the reactor goes down in the old base, it immediately starts building in the new base. No one even needs to be in the old spot anymore (they can all be at the new spot protecting the builder). If the builders get's caught before he starts building nothing is lost base-wise since the reactor never got deconned. If the Reactor does go down, the aliens aren't going to immediately search for the new one. They'll want to secure/destroy the base because one of their team had taken it out as far as they know.
I hope I'm wrong and this new system helps alot to balance and make more interesting games. I'm fearful this is likely not to be the case.
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If the Reactor does go down, the aliens aren't going to immediately search for the new one. They'll want to secure/destroy the base because one of their team had taken it out as far as they know.
IF the reactor disappears - while all the defenses are still up - and the human team goes AWOL too, they're going to be suspicious. They are going to knock out the unprotected spawns - net themselves a couple of free evos - and confirm their suspicions. With marauders hopping and dragoons pouncing, they'd have to be particularly inefficient or particularly unlucky to miss the nascent base before it got on its feet.
Oh, and what you said was:
Yup. Though it was briefly. I didn't try moving base though. It's only just occured to me how stupid that would look.
Hardly a great deal of experience.
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If I saw a base with no people in it with the old system, I'd know it's because they're on a massive assualt. I'd take this opportunity to see if I can take the base down. If I can go straight for the reactor, I will. If I'm successful, only the reactor will be down at first. I might be chased off by some returning human at that point. This would leave my teammates to find a base with no reactor, yet all the defences are up and there's noone in the base. I personally would notify my team if I knew the reactor was down, but that doesn't mean they'll pressume it's the usual case when they see the reactorless base.
i don't think anyone who has actually used the system has ever complained about it.
I've used it. That's enough to counter that opinion. Now if you ask whether I've used it alot, well as you point out I have admitted to not using it that much. I would have to use it more to be sure of it being a good/bad system. That said, I haven't had the urge to go back to using it at any point since using it, so it can't have made that good an impression on me.
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I might be chased off by some returning human at that point.
You might indeed. Who is going to tell all his human buddies to get the hell back home right now. Who is not going to carry on assaulting, for goodness' sake. If he does not turn up, you are left to take out the telenodes and then go looking for the team. If he does, then the base sure as hell isn't going to be empty when your team arrives.
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I'll just remind you that the point of that last example was to show that when my team finds a base with no reactor, all the defences are up and no human is around, they won't necessarily think "They must be moving the base somewhere". So while they're busy 'finishing them off' the humans in that time could have already got the main parts of their base up, and any attack force against the move will be met by the whole teams worth of defenders and builders.
If you don't think they can build the new base that fast with one builder, how about a whole teams worth? They could make all the important parts of their old base suddenly shift to the new spot in an instant and will be up and running in hardily any time at all. This would be different to the usual 'ckit-runners' you get when the base is falling in the standard game, because this could happen at ANY TIME. So long as everyone meets up safely in the new spot, they can then decide to remotely decon the reactor. If they don't meet up safely (e.g. many died along the way) at least they never deconned the reactor. So the base will very likely still be there.
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Can you mark campers and move them to the new base too, making them pop away from the grab of a basilisk?
The initial Idea of marked building was meant as a measurement against deconners. I thought it was a great idea then when the idea of marked buildings was about being able to mark a single building per ckit only. It was sufficient to deal with deconners.
Pleague Bringer had a good point when he said that there are stupid aliens and smart aliens, the ones that kill unpowered structures and the ones that leaves them as a relict of a bad move.
Marked building now reduce smart aliens to stupid alien. At least make it so that an alien can distinguish a marked building from an unmarked building or the game becomes like a David Copperfield show (David Copperfield the magician, not Dickens Copperfield).
I feel that many of the changes removes a lot of the features that required a lot of skill to master in 1.1. This goes from Unlagged to building/moving to lisking.
I didn't mind that skilled people have an advantage over non-skilled players. I think it's what a game makes attractive.
Especially with Unlagged and marked building features are added to the game which makes the game less WISIWYG as temple said in another thread. You have less control over the game and events happen implicitly.
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I feel that many of the changes removes a lot of the features that required a lot of skill to master in 1.1. This goes from Unlagged to building/moving to lisking.
This mirrors my own opinion quite nicely. Dumbing down trem is not the answer and i'm quite annoyed that the skilless majority seem to be dictating what needs to be changed.
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I feel that many of the changes removes a lot of the features that required a lot of skill to master in 1.1. This goes from Unlagged to building/moving to lisking.
This mirrors my own opinion quite nicely. Dumbing down trem is not the answer and i'm quite annoyed that the skilless majority seem to be dictating what needs to be changed.
I make a similar point throughout previous posts. My major concern is that they will not only balance the humans against the aliens, but balance the experienced with the inexperienced players. I would call this making the game more 'shallow' as there would be less to learn about the game as you play.
I'll give you an example. Currently a good builder understands that before he decons 1 of his two nodes to move it, he should decon something else (say a turret if he already had more than 2 bp) then build the new node with those bp. Then he decons the old one. This way the humans never have less than 2 nodes and the flow of spawning humans is never impeded.
In general, a game is more interesting when there are rules and tricks that you learn about the game as you play it. This is what I mean by depth. Pong (old fashioned computer game) for example has very little depth. It's a matter of moving the paddle to hit the ball and nothing more. Tetris (also an old fashioned computer game) is an example of a game that has alot of depth. As you play it, you realise what to do and what not to do (like avoiding covering gaps with more blocks wherever possible).
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balance the experienced with the inexperienced players.
i assure you that any inexperienced players get pissed off from the regen and/or turrets long before they have a chance to make any difference in how balance will be.
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An extreme example of a feature that would help balance the experienced with the inexperienced would be a brain-flash weapon that kills all enemies who see the player who uses it. This would require little skill to use effectively. Though it might help bring the average win to a middle point it would seriously disrupt the game in terms of player disatisfaction.
Games are fun because of the challenge. Making things easier can often mean making things dull. It shouldn't be easy to move a base and it shouldn't be that easy to use a basi (the basi should become effective when you're a trained proffesional).
balance the experienced with the inexperienced players.
i assure you that any inexperienced players get pissed off from the regen and/or turrets long before they have a chance to make any difference in how balance will be.
I haven't yet gotten to complaining about the "regen and/or turrets". These have clear issues that I'm sure you've been complained to about many times before. I'm not sure if I'd be adding anything new by commenting on them.
I may aswell say something now though. Suffice it to say, the turrets are very easy to avoid now. You can be killed easily if you let them stop turning, so you just keep them turning (which isn't too hard) and you're free to frolic in the human base. As for the regen, I'm not sure what you're refering to there. Is it the no heal when om down? Or maybe the turrets regen their hp?
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An extreme example of a feature that would help balance the experienced with the inexperienced would be a brain-flash weapon that kills all enemies who see the player who uses it. This would require little skill to use effectively. Though it might help bring the average win to a middle point it would seriously disrupt the game in terms of player disatisfaction.
Games are fun because of the challenge. Making things easier can often mean making things dull. It shouldn't be easy to move a base and it shouldn't be that easy to use a basi (the basi should become effective when you're a trained proffesional).
what exactly is wrong with balancing out the fact that aliens can move at almost any time during the game with no risk while humans have to risk losing the game before the game even starts to do it? or giving aliens an equivalent to the shotgun (both of them are now an extremely good value for the cost and extremely helpful to the team)
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The reasons why aliens can move the base easily are:
* The aliens themselves can move quickly and easily to occupy any point of the map. This goes mostly so for adv. grangers who don't have to buy a jetpack to get to where they want to go.
* They can build their version of the repeater from the start and it also doubles as a spawn.
This change mainly affects humans as the aliens could always just decon the creep-making structure and the rest of the buildings would pop. The ability to decon remotely doesn't have as much of an affect on them as they could get to new build places quicker than humans could and humans would have a hard time chasing them.
These are also the reasons why egg spam is so much easier than node spam. If you don't like egg spam, why give the humans a super build ability too? Why not just nerf the aliens build ability?
My point about the basi was that it was already effective.. in the right hands. Now you've made it's range longer; it's grab for a longer time and adv basis gas slow people down... that's FAR too much.
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The Dragoon is already the alien version of the shotgun.
But anyone opposing the new build system is just being a prick. You can't tell me that the new system isn't better in all ways. None of you comments have anything to do with actual building. Which is the point of the system, as well as preventing deconning.
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dragoon costs over 3 times more than shotgun
temple why are you always so high when you post things about changes to trem
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I may aswell say something now though. Suffice it to say, the turrets are very easy to avoid now. You can be killed easily if you let them stop turning, so you just keep them turning (which isn't too hard) and you're free to frolic in the human base. As for the regen, I'm not sure what you're refering to there. Is it the no heal when om down? Or maybe the turrets regen their hp?
Firstly, you need to build the turrets differently now. 1.1 style turret building is easy to avoid. 1.2 style building the turrets are way better. Overpowered even.
And the regen changes? Thanks for proving what we already all knew. Your bitching about changes you haven't played and don't know fuck about.
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dragoon costs over 3 times more than shotgun
temple why are you always so high when you post things about changes to trem
2 killed dretches = shotgun and full armor
3 killed humans = dragoon
The game is asymmetrical. The shotgun balances the goon. I would say nerf the goon's hit points if the shottie wasn't as strong.
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The Dragoon is already the alien version of the shotgun.
But anyone opposing the new build system is just being a prick. You can't tell me that the new system isn't better in all ways. None of you comments have anything to do with actual building. Which is the point of the system, as well as preventing deconning.
With Unlagged, you only have the shooter/attacker in mind, with new build system you only make it easier to build. In both cases thoughts about the opponent are omitted. If easier was the only criteria, I could name you tons of changes which would make things easier. It's the challenge who is on the loosing side when you make everything easier.
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The Dragoon is already the alien version of the shotgun.
But anyone opposing the new build system is just being a prick. You can't tell me that the new system isn't better in all ways. None of you comments have anything to do with actual building. Which is the point of the system, as well as preventing deconning.
With Unlagged, you only have the shooter/attacker in mind, with new build system you only make it easier to build. In both cases thoughts about the opponent are omitted. If easier was the only criteria, I could name you tons of changes which would make things easier. It's the challenge who is on the loosing side when you make everything easier.
You are debating just to debate.
The whole 'disappearing' building issue sounds like fear of change. 1 little change. Is it really that big of an issue?
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Can I ask that people start giving reasons and answers in their responses rather than merely being contrary and attacking the people rather than their arguments. In my posts you might find I give plenty of explanation which might simply be ignored by most who respond as I'm not hearing justification for the issues I raise in the majority of cases.
I get the impression that anything that doesn't support your conclusion is ignored. If I am truly wrong in what I say, surely you can give reasons why this is the case.
The Dragoon is already the alien version of the shotgun.
No justification. You've merely stated your conclusion.
But anyone opposing the new build system is just being a prick.
This is called an ad hominem argument. You're attacking the person, not confronting the argument.
You can't tell me that the new system isn't better in all ways.
Give REASONS. I can tell you this if I feel it is so. You're being contrary and nothing more.
None of you comments have anything to do with actual building.
I would argue that my reasons for disliking the new build system have everything to do with building. Moving the base is the major concern for me. Though it makes building within the current base position easier, this is not so much of a problem in my view.
Notice how whenever I am contrary, I will try to make my justifaction clear. In many cases I have already given justification, but I'll give it again so that you don't have to read previous posts.
Which is the point of the system, as well as preventing deconning.
I can't be sure you know exactly how their decisions were made. You could very well be assuming. I'm not even sure what reasons you would have for saying that actual building is the point of the system. This seems like a truism to me.
As for the deconning issue, I don't think a measure against deconning (which doesn't actually stop deconners, as they can move the reactor to a bad spot) should affect games in which there would have been no deconning anyway.
The Dragoon is already the alien version of the shotgun.
But anyone opposing the new build system is just being a prick. You can't tell me that the new system isn't better in all ways. None of you comments have anything to do with actual building. Which is the point of the system, as well as preventing deconning.
This post of temple's is just one of many examples of how not to argue your point.
Firstly, you need to build the turrets differently now.
I'm not sure if it makes one bit of difference where you place turrets like these (http://uploaded.to/?id=p07kf3) (Please note: If you play this demo in the Base game rather than the TJW version, you'll probably hear nade drops instead of turret wirring). This doesn't just go for small aliens. Tyrants only have to keep strafing while slashing the turrets to avoid their fire. It's insanely easy.
Thanks for proving what we already all knew. Your bitching about changes you haven't played and don't know fuck about.
I haven't played 1.2. None of you have. I have played on servers that implement many of the changes 1.2 will make, however. Also, I might question hypothetical changes, not on any experience with them but with logical deduction in the hypothetical setting.
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I'm not even entertaining your serious ass posts about a video game.
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I agree with temple here, Nux completely fails to understand the main spirit of this forums and some of their posters.
@Nux: here they talk with their heart, not their minds. Everybody that went once "Uhm, I know this is healthy, but it sure doesn't taste right" knows what I mean. Its like that last war, where the heart says "We have to attack someone!" and the mind says "Well yeah, but it wasn't them".
The mind can be wrong, the heart never is. And you cannot ground what your heart says on arguments, cause that is basing it on that unreliable mind.
And as a note, basing it on the gut is even better than the heart.
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I'm not even entertaining your serious ass posts about a video game.
The trouble is, temple, you will say what you believe and are unlikely to take notice of the criticism you recieve. You're perfectly happy following the discussion so long as the posts stay small and your argument remains valid. Now that one or both of those limits have been reached, you've decided to conclude that the whole discussion exercise isn't serious enough to be as thorough as I am. It sounds to me like you prefer the type of discussion where you can make your point in the comfortable knowledge that you must be right. Where nothing is actually learned.
@Eeeew Spiders: I've no problem with people merely expressing their opinions and feelings. temple, here, is an example of one who would speak from his heart and say it was from his brain. They make no such distinction between heart and brain.
I'm a member of this community who happens to be a compulsive thinker. My heart is in my brain. It's all just belief to me. The difference between my belief systems and theirs, is that I try to understand things before I decide to believe them. More than that- I share my understanding to help those who don't understand how I could believe such nonsense.
I will most likely be quite informal in my posts initially. Only when others prod me, do I find it necessary to be thorough. They might not understand me first off, so it's best to spell it out as clearly as I can. This can often mean more text. Too much text can scare people off (unfortunately), even when this is only because I'm making my points more explanative.
Don't feel bullied by my occasionally long posts. I'm sure there's alot of useful information in there if you care to find it.
If you want to make useful comments, please respond to my demo (http://uploaded.to/?id=p07kf3).
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when i watched that demo i didnt have mgturretspinup.wav
:O D:
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(Please note: If you play this demo in the Base game rather than the TJW version, you'll probably hear nade drops instead of turret wirring).
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YEAH THAT WHY I HEAR DA NADES BUT NOONE IN DEMO HAVE NADES
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Oh, I thought it was the dretch wearing clogs.
saw the demo, maybe the turrets need to be plugged in first?
More serious though, it doesn't quite show how the turrets will do when there is more confusion with more people shooting at you. Atleast it seems the turrets act less as a KS since it takes a while until they spin up. More interesting I think is however what the effect is on reactor jumps by Marauder and Basilisks in a more or less unprotected base. Maybe it will help those 3vs3 and 4vs4 where humans need to leave one behind with 1.1 turrets.
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Oh, I thought it was the dretch wearing clogs.
saw the demo, maybe the turrets need to be plugged in first?
More serious though, it doesn't quite show how the turrets will do when there is more confusion with more people shooting at you. Atleast it seems the turrets act less as a KS since it takes a while until they spin up. More interesting I think is however what the effect is on reactor jumps by Marauder and Basilisks in a more or less unprotected base. Maybe it will help those 3vs3 and 4vs4 where humans need to leave one behind with 1.1 turrets.
when properly placed, they help a lot with marauders because of the buffed range, they won't help against basis, but i have yet to see one make it through the turrets to the top of the reactor, and jumping on the reac with a goon is basically suicide.
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The demo is merely an illustration of the difference between the old and the new. With the old turrets, I wouldn't have been able to do that even though it has no humans in there. If it requires humans to be there to be effective, surely that would encourage camping. I thought you told me they had been changed to make camping less of an option. In the demo, I made a point about being able to go straight toward a group of turrets that are already facing my way, and survive. It's just a matter of making the slightest degree of an angle with their view-line to keep them moving and that's apparently enough. It took alot more thought to avoid the old turrets.
I would gladly test this mod in a proper game, if some server in europe would run it. From what I've seen on the TJW server, it's quite easy to avoid turrets by strafing, circling and jumping on top of them. It doesn't seem to matter how big the alien is, so long as you keep the center of you out of the turrets sight.
A dretch can avoid most turret-setups by doing the usual bouncing around. Even if I get hit, I seem to easily get away without dying. This might be something to do with the kickback.
As for reactor jumps, unless they've changed the hitboxes to fix this, sitting on the middle of the reactor is usually quite safe from turret fire. I'd like to know if they have changed the hitbox of the reactor to be smaller or the boxes of any alien to be bigger.
Could you demonstrate how to set the turrets up effectiely? I tried to make the turret setup in my demo as varied as I could (a straight line + a lone turret not far off + a zig zag).
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about reactor jump...
the range of the turrets has been upped, so you can make turrets farther away from the reactor, and still able to hit whats ontop
therefore they will be able to hit when they couldnt before because of the new angle...
not that hard to figure out
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Ok, that's a good point. I wonder if it's enough..
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So I am guessing that the new turrets do a better job in protecting structures, and less to protect players? (this since to kill a person you only need to enter base fast and leave it fast, where as to destroy structures you'd be required to stay a bit longer in their base, thus giving the turrets a better chance to take a shot at you). This sounds nice.
Does TremX uses the new turrets? It doesn't seem that way, maybe it should (hint hint)
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the new turrets do a lot better against any alien they can stay locked onto, i.e. something sitting on top the reac.
they suck against anything that can break their line of sight, i.e. ninjadretch/lisk/mara
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New turrets do not stop dretches. I've played several times . The part that is missing the placement of far turrets. Those are brutal because they will fire before you can move. Those turrets aren't as effective on ACTS but they rock on more open maps.
Further more, those rets protect from REAL threats like goons and maras.
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I've yet to see them be as effective as they're made out to be. Can someone give me any help in the 'closer server that runs tjw mod' department?
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I've yet to see them be as effective as they're made out to be. Can someone give me any help in the 'closer server that runs tjw mod' department?
Have you played past Stage 1?
The new turrets on ACTS would have killed you if they were by the ledge.
Try the new turrets on Karith or Niveus. They will bang a dretch before they get close.
The new turrets are effective in the fact that they may not lock at first, but after 2-3 seconds, they will be almost impossible to avoid and pretty much kill anything before it can escape. You can get in the H base, but that increased range/damage will mean you aren't escaping it.
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unless you just outspin it, go behind another turret to break its sight, have a different alien run infront of you to break its sight, go past a human to break its sight, etc
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I've yet to see them be as effective as they're made out to be. Can someone give me any help in the 'closer server that runs tjw mod' department?
Have you played past Stage 1?
The new turrets on ACTS would have killed you if they were by the ledge.
Try the new turrets on Karith or Niveus. They will bang a dretch before they get close.
The new turrets are effective in the fact that they may not lock at first, but after 2-3 seconds, they will be almost impossible to avoid and pretty much kill anything before it can escape. You can get in the H base, but that increased range/damage will mean you aren't escaping it.
Numbah 1: I was asking whether I could have a close server to test it further.
Numbah 2: I have actually tested it on many maps and they were even more poor in the open-spaces of karith station. I was able to avoid and take them down even with a tyrant. In long rows or dotted around, they were always turning and never shooting.
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unless you just outspin it, go behind another turret to break its sight, have a different alien run infront of you to break its sight, go past a human to break its sight, etc
If you can do that then its a shit base and deserves to die.
That or its an incredible bit of teamwork and deserves to win.
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i havent really seen a base you cant do that to...
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Numbah 1: I was asking whether I could have a close server to test it further.
Thanks to everyone's favourite feature unlagged you can generally play on trem.tjw.org even with a european ping.
Generally.
Certainly, without unlagged I would have a hard time playing on any tjw servers at all.
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Numbah 1: I was asking whether I could have a close server to test it further.
Thanks to everyone's favourite feature unlagged you can generally play on trem.tjw.org even with a european ping.
Generally.
Certainly, without unlagged I would have a hard time playing on any tjw servers at all.
Even if trem.tjw.org didn't have Unlagged you could play there with a european ping :D. The question was if a more local server could feature these changes, so we could test it with a lower ping. if nobody is willing to host it, no problem :) I was thinking maybe of [T]Base, since they have a large variety of settings running already ([T]TremX, [T]NexT) or Dasprid's
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unless you just outspin it, go behind another turret to break its sight, have a different alien run infront of you to break its sight, go past a human to break its sight, etc
That works for 1 turret, but you can't trick them all.
The best rets with the new system are spread out. So you get past 1, but the rest will be locking on and killing you while you dodge. They have to range to do that well in 1.20.
Numbah 2: I have actually tested it on many maps and they were even more poor in the open-spaces of karith station. I was able to avoid and take them down even with a tyrant. In long rows or dotted around, they were always turning and never shooting.
Stop please. Those rets are perfect in open spaces because they can outrange what you are used to in dodging and hit like hell. Put 4 rets spread out and its hard to get close without tripping off others.
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Thanks to everyone's favourite feature unlagged you can generally play on trem.tjw.org even with a european ping.
I want to test them with low-pings. It wouldn't be fair to make the game balanced only when you have high pings (if indeed they are so balanced even then).
Also, something I forgot to ask a while ago: Does unlagged perform hit-tests on turret shots?
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Thanks to everyone's favourite feature unlagged you can generally play on trem.tjw.org even with a european ping.
I want to test them with low-pings. It wouldn't be fair to make the game balanced only when you have high pings (if indeed they are so balanced even then).
Also, something I forgot to ask a while ago: Does unlagged perform hit-tests on turret shots?
Unlagged doesn't affect turrets because they don't have any lag.
By play I mean play properly - i.e. with unlagged I do not notice the effects of my 100 or so ping at all.
tjw has made changes to the code for his game.qvm and has not yet distributed this code (the patch in the pk3 is now slightly out of date) - this means no other server can have quite the same setup.
The new turrets are undeniably vicious - yes you can dodge them for some time, but let them open fire on you and you are nearly always dead. The point is, you can't just soak up the damage, knock one out and leave anymore, you have to actually move intelligently to evade fire or you will die quickly. This rewards clever and skilful play over the pain sponge style favoured by current tyrants.
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Lag affects low-pingers when everyone else are high-pingers. The low-pinger still sees the world as pseudo-laggy because the players he interacts with are lagging. Unless turrets are purely client-side, they'll suffer the same effect if I'm right.
kevlarman has expressed that anyone is free to host it if the wish. This is at least what he said when I talked to him on the tjw server.
On the contrary, I believe turrets are easily picked off on their own and block each other too much when they're right next to each other. When you have an alien that can damage the turrets THAT quickly, there's not much compromise to find. Tyrants have always had to keep moving if they want to be effective. This is still the case.
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tjw has made changes to the code for his game.qvm and has not yet distributed this code (the patch in the pk3 is now slightly out of date) - this means no other server can have quite the same setup.
the changes were minor and any coder could replicate them easily, but as of thursday i think, tjw.org/tremulous-current is up to date.
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Lag affects low-pingers when everyone else are high-pingers. The low-pinger still sees the world as pseudo-laggy because the players he interacts with are lagging. Unless turrets are purely client-side, they'll suffer the same effect if I'm right.
Unlagged combats lag by rolling back player movements by the firing player's ping to see if the target was in the crosshairs when they fired. Turrets, being inside the server, have no ping, and therefore no rollback. Lag may affect them but unlagged ignores them
Just for proof, src/game/g_weapon.c:230:
// don't use unlagged if this is not a client (e.g. turret)
if( ent->client )
{
G_UnlaggedOn( muzzle, 8192 * 16 );
trap_Trace( &tr, muzzle, NULL, NULL, end, ent->s.number, MASK_SHOT );
G_UnlaggedOff( );
}
else
trap_Trace( &tr, muzzle, NULL, NULL, end, ent->s.number, MASK_SHOT );
On the contrary, I believe turrets are easily picked off on their own and block each other too much when they're right next to each other. When you have an alien that can damage the turrets THAT quickly, there's not much compromise to find. Tyrants have always had to keep moving if they want to be effective. This is still the case.
So, they are not put on their own nor right next to each other. They are placed moderately spaced so each is covered by two others (give or take) yet little of each turret's view is taken up by each other.
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Turrets, being inside the server, have no ping, and therefore no rollback.
What are turrets doing inside the server?!?
Seriously, I'm asking whether the turrets will be attacking the position I was in, on my screen, but not at the time I got shot? (this would mean the turrets can shoot far away from my viewed postion and hit, with a high ping), or do the turrets hit me based on where I see their aim? Whether the turrets have a low-ping or not, that doesn't affect the possible inconsistency with what I see as the laggy player. My major question is more about how lag affects the turrets aim rather than unlagged. My mention of unlagged was in case it played some part in the calculation.
So, they are not put on their own nor right next to each other. They are placed moderately spaced so each is covered by two others (give or take) yet little of each turret's view is taken up by each other.
When you have an alien that can damage the turrets THAT quickly, there's not much compromise to find.
What you have given is a compromise. This I was stressing is a very hard compromise to find against the intended victims.
It seems like the new turrets are better at long range and worse at close range. This would mean that you'd need them to be out in the open to be effective (otherwise they're blocked by some wall until the alien is already too close to be effective). Yet "out in the open" is where the aliens can more easily pick them off. Especially when more than one alien is concerned, I think they might be alot harder to position and weaker to an attack.
All of this, though, is mere speculation till I have a proper game with it.
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Turrets, being inside the server, have no ping, and therefore no rollback.
What are turrets doing inside the server?!?
Protect the server from intruders!
Seriously, I'm asking whether the turrets will be attacking the position I was in, on my screen, but not at the time I got shot? (this would mean the turrets can shoot far away from my viewed postion and hit, with a high ping), or do the turrets hit me based on where I see their aim?
All shots are calculated in relation to what the server sees. This also counts for turrets.
With Unlagged the shots are additionally also calculated with what the *server* saw X/2ms ago when the shooter has Xms ping and is using a hitscan weapon. It's never what the client sees, its always what the server sees or what the server thinks the client sees.
Whether the turrets have a low-ping or not, that doesn't affect the possible inconsistency with what I see as the laggy player.
Very true, but since turrets don't move and turrets are slow in turning, given a good enough ping it does not have a big impact.
My major question is more about how lag affects the turrets aim...
Turrets are unfailable!
It seems like the new turrets are better at long range and worse at close range.
This requires a rewriting of the threads "how to setup turrets".
This would mean that you'd need them to be out in the open to be effective (otherwise they're blocked by some wall until the alien is already too close to be effective).
Either that, or it may show to be more efficient to set them up to protect structures since they can cover what in trem1.1 are dead spots (reactor jumps).
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I personally think reactor jumps are a cool part of the game, and should be preserved, even though they are pretty much an exploit. At least they add some variety to the old whittle-'em-down-with-rant-runs strategy. What else are basis and maras really good at? These classes barely get used as it is. Please don't take away my reac jumps. I think they are the Alien equivalent of psaw OM rushing. What's next, an impervious Armoury?
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I don't know if this has been said, since I didn't want to read through 270+ posts. I did read the first page though. Why's everyone complaining about the regen nerf? Booster and adv basi now have 3x regen, which means that an adv goon with 1hp heals in just under 12 seconds near one. If rants get 3x regen they heal to max in about 9.5 seconds. It normally takes a adv goon 36 seconds and 18 seconds near a rant. Rants normally take 28.5 seconds. Wow....Have an adv basi near their base and you can attack 3x as often. I fail to see how regen is underbalanced.
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I want to test them with low-pings. It wouldn't be fair to make the game balanced only when you have high pings (if indeed they are so balanced even then).
Here's something for you to try: cFosSpeed (http://www.cfos.de/download/index_e.htm). You can try it free for 30 days. Install it, add Tremulous as a "High" priority program to (right-click on tray icon) > Options > Settings > Programs - select category: Games. If you don't buy the program I'll eat my hat. XD Eats your ping, try it to find out. Bonus! It's a European program, too!! ;)
I ended up buying the cFosSpeed (9.95 €) + lifetime updates (4.95 €) download package, for about $22 US (14.90 €). This program rocks!! (And, you can be uploading stuff @ max U/L speed, Downloading stuff @ max D/L speed, and still surf the net with only a second or two delay!! O.O Or be uploading at .90 of you max U/L, and play Trem with ~90 ping on most servers.)
Do try it and see if it works for you... let me know.
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liq3
Welcome to the Tremulous forum. People complain a lot on here. More often than not about either stupid stuff or things they know not a damn about.
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liq3
Welcome to the Tremulous forum. People complain a lot on here. More often than not about either stupid stuff or things they know not a damn about.
sadly, true
please leave your brain at the entrance
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i havent tested tjw yet i think
but from what i can read
Aliens wont get owned... NO! not at all
it changes both way of playing to balance it out even more
humans strongest power was mostly to camp (unless you had skills to take on a goon)
and aliens strongest power was cornercamping (yes just waiting for a human to run around a corner is as noob as a human sitting ontop a turret waiting for a alien to come by)
seems like these 2 things will change (wich is why alien players nag that aliens suck more)
aliens dont, this just lures for different tactics... actually using the silent and surprise attacks of aliens (cornercampattack != surprise) and makes it so that aliens wont attack humans within range of there base as fast... giving humans less credits and less kills for s2/s3 therefor FORCING the humans out of base, and since aliens are more base reliant... there is more chance that there wont be a goon or tyrant hugging a corner just outside a base
this will force aliens to use TACTICS (unknown to most killwhore goons/rants) instead of just running at humans and kill as many as possible
i cant see whats wrong with this? it will open allot more ways of playing then with 1.1 and i hope that the DEVs will continue making changes to open up more possibilities (this will also give more possibilities for creating maps, since aliens need there surprise more :P)
and with the unlagged...
it removes the fact that you have to aim a bit befor a fleeing alien and requires aliens to get more skills in fleeing just then just CHARGING or POUNCING in the oposite direction of a human
unlagged will just improve the gameplay (also for aliens) and especially for people without fancy internet connection to archieve <75 pings
i can say im a pretty good player on both sides, but its still impossible to kill goons at s1 ,shotty beeing most powerfull weapon.. but you still have the instant kill hits unlike with the dretch/bassi/mara
although why advanced goons in the same stage as normal goons? i think the sniping is really more suited for s3 otherwise it'll more or less kill the use of a normal goon if there both available in the same stage
a skilled goon owns humans s1 and has a very good change on humans s2
a skilled tyrant couldnt be beaten unless you overpowered him with luci's/chainsuits
the game will change allot... now its mainly revolving around humans base all the time (in 90% of the matches)... it will make the rest of the map just as important to be a battleground :)
good luck on working with the game guys, keep it going
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humans strongest power was mostly to camp (unless you had skills to take on a goon)
and aliens strongest power was cornercamping (yes just waiting for a human to run around a corner is as noob as a human sitting ontop a turret waiting for a alien to come by)
the game will change allot... now its mainly revolving around humans base all the time (in 90% of the matches)... it will make the rest of the map just as important to be a battleground :)
THANK YOU!!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!
Finally... Someone who thinks the squeaking of "CoMe OuT cAmPeRs" is as n00bish as I think it is. They are both camping. Aliens outside, humans inside. If the aliens don't want to camp, then perhaps they'd like throwing themselves at the turrets without turning around and parking outside the base while their health recharges?? +3 !
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humans strongest power was mostly to camp (unless you had skills to take on a goon)
and aliens strongest power was cornercamping (yes just waiting for a human to run around a corner is as noob as a human sitting ontop a turret waiting for a alien to come by)
the game will change allot... now its mainly revolving around humans base all the time (in 90% of the matches)... it will make the rest of the map just as important to be a battleground :)
THANK YOU!!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!
Finally... Someone who thinks the squeaking of "CoMe OuT cAmPeRs" is as n00bish as I think it is. They are both camping. Aliens outside, humans inside. If the aliens don't want to camp, then perhaps they'd like throwing themselves at the turrets without turning around and parking outside the base while their health recharges?? +3 !
haha, its just a fact that humans only camp because aliens make them
its al ways the noobs crying that humans should come out at s1 while there 2+ goons sitting and waiting for humans to run like headless ducks around corners... those whiners annoy me more then campers/noobs ever will ^^