1.2 first impressions

[A Spork]

Ok, after playing yesterday, with a pretty good sized group, I gotta say, humans are now totally overpowered, especially with a good base rush, aliens dont have a chance.

[Norfenstein]

(split this from the 1.2 Gameplay Changes thread)

Not to single you out Spork, or even to discourage people from posting their early thoughts about 1.2 gameplay, but no, you can't say that humans are overpowered. None of us will be able to legitimately say if the game is balanced or in what way it's unbalanced until enough games have been played to produce reliable statistics, which is what the beta is for. We've found it takes about 100 to 200 games for trendlines to emerge, and over 200 for them to stabilize.

[mooseberry]

While I respect the need to test on hundreds of games, I get the impression that humans feeling overpowered was something of a common fealing. (Random players feel free to disagree or agree.)

[danmal]

Out of curiosity what methods do you use to produce your statistics?

[your face]

I also feel as though humans are overpowered (still).

[K-otic]

aliens can't win cause they don't have a hovel

[your face]

EZACKLY

[A Spork]

(split this from the 1.2 Gameplay Changes thread)

Not to single you out Spork, or even to discourage people from posting their early thoughts about 1.2 gameplay, but no, you can't say that humans are overpowered. None of us will be able to legitimately say if the game is balanced or in what way it's unbalanced until enough games have been played to produce reliable statistics, which is what the beta is for. We've found it takes about 100 to 200 games for trendlines to emerge, and over 200 for them to stabilize.

actually, my reasoning to saying this, is the fact that in what I've played, as soon as there is even a
moderately well planned rush by the humans, the aliens are totally screwed, with the slow Alien regen, the incredibly slow regen for all of the aliens except basi, and the fact that bases can go down with like 1 chainsuit and 2 luci's...
In that game I mentioned, a granger even escaped, but he had no defenders due to lack of hp, and he couldn't even build at first...


P.S. Is it just me, or is the regen rate exactly the same for everything? Cuz if ao, that's totally biased against like rants and goons, cuz they rush once, then have to take like 2 minutes to heal...




EDIT: also, 2 hit MD kill on basi is lame. Seriously, if there are 2 MDs in front of the aliens base, basis can't even get out....

[kevlarman]

alien regen is (almost) continuous now, not once per second, and defined in terms of max hp. dretch/granger(+) get 4% of their max hp per second, everything else except tyrants gets 3%, and tyrants get 2.5%, that gets multiplied by 2 when a basi is nearby, or 3 for booster/adv basi, or divided by 3 if it wasn't multiplied and the alien isn't near creep. for most classes it's roughly the same as it was in 1.1 over time, with the obvious exceptions of tyrant (it lost its 2x multiplier, and got a slight boost in the base regen rate) and basi (it stoled tyrant's multiplier).

[danmal]

That was quite likely the most complicated sentence I have ever read in regards to 1.2. I hope the devs have put  a lot of thought into making it intuitive/obvious for new players how regen works.

Also how does dodge work? I can sprint but I can't work out how to dodge. Someone said that +mouse something which would imply to me that I have to bind that to a free key. Am I really expected to have dodge/sprint bound to different keys?

[mooseberry]

Also how does dodge work? I can sprint but I can't work out how to dodge. Someone said that +mouse something which would imply to me that I have to bind that to a free key. Am I really expected to have dodge/sprint bound to different keys?

They do different things. One is +button6, the other is 8, I forget which is which now. Sprint is sprint, and dodge now allows you to go flying in one of three directions.

[danmal]

yeah, I think dodge is +button8. So I'm expected to have dodge bound as well? I have no idea where I'm going to put that on my keyboard as it's already pretty full with all the other functions in Tremulous.

[A Spork]

you could always bind them o the same key....I personally have them both on x, but sprint as a toggle, so if I hold it, i dodge, but i only have to tap it for sprint.


Anyways, @Kevlarman: Sounds good on paper, but I have to say, ingame, it feels really slow.....

[danmal]

That sounds cool. So if I understand it then when you tap the key you dodge and when you hold it down you sprint? If that's the case then can you post the bind of how to do that?

[nubcake]

Played it on an aussie server. Humans overpowered both in defence and offence. In defence stronger turrets and lower ammo/stronger lucis make them even more campable. Once a repeater is up with a couple of turrets = GG aliens. A large proportion of aussie players want to keep the original trem running until it balances out better

[kevlarman]

yeah, I think dodge is +button8. So I'm expected to have dodge bound as well? I have no idea where I'm going to put that on my keyboard as it's already pretty full with all the other functions in Tremulous.

dodge is +button6, you can bind a key to +button6;+button8 for behavior almost identical to the old mgdev code, or use cg_sprinttoggle and a less reachable key for sprint.

[bob0]

alien regen is (almost) continuous now, not once per second, and defined in terms of max hp. dretch/granger(+) get 4% of their max hp per second, everything else except tyrants gets 3%, and tyrants get 2.5%, that gets multiplied by 2 when a basi is nearby, or 3 for booster/adv basi, or divided by 3 if it wasn't multiplied and the alien isn't near creep. for most classes it's roughly the same as it was in 1.1 over time, with the obvious exceptions of tyrant (it lost its 2x multiplier, and got a slight boost in the base regen rate) and basi (it stoled tyrant's multiplier).

Might be getting a little too detailed there

I think that aliens were overpowered in 1.1.  The tyrant was probably the most horrible.  Now that aliens were norfed a bit, some people might tend to think they're useless.  After I played aliens a while, the game seems overall more balanced than 1.1 was.  However it is, more stats will reveal how balanced Tremulous is now.

A dretch can take out a few humans: (even though aliens lost horribly in this one game <_<) http://bobis.boldlygoingnowhere.org/demo.dm_70 <- first < 2 minute game I've played on US1 (you'll need a protocol 70 client to view this; not 69)

[A Spork]

That sounds cool. So if I understand it then when you tap the key you dodge and when you hold it down you sprint? If that's the case then can you post the bind of how to do that?

No, I hold X and tap a,s,or d, to dodge, but i just tap x to toggle sprint on and off.
Basically:
/bind x "+button6; +button8"
/cg_sprinttoggle 1

[Winnie the Pooh]

After playing the 1.2b I vote that we add a forward dodge, since people might as well just turn sideways and dodge in the direction they were going. I find myself doing that into alien creep to get a few more seconds of time and skip some creep.

[{7}wrath]

But if we have forward dodge, we can't have sprint bound to the same key!

[Conzul]

Played some games the other night.

The Good:

  New alien features! <---great
  Dretch speed! <---great

The Bad:

  Annoying spinnup noise.
  Dretches worth 2 much.

The Very Bad:

  Lucifer Cannon. Really guys, it's now an uber-god-gun. It is more functional, and now a working counterpart to the tyrant, but still. It has fallout. It's point and shoot. The worst thing? It's still 600 creds! WTH any joe sixpack who saves up can get one, and then just kill 4-5 dretches and get it again. It doesn't do equal damage to hummies and aliens.

Sooooo:
 
  Ya'll had it really locked in with 1.1
  I can see 1.2 being the new Trem, but pleaaase, make luci 1000+ creds. Oooor, make dretch worth 50-100 creds.
  Seriously.
  Can I get a Yae/Nae?

[your face]

New spinup sound is about to be implemented.

[Norfenstein]

Out of curiosity what methods do you use to produce your statistics?

Servers send the master server information and Timbo's scripts process them into something usable. He could explain it in more detail than I can.

P.S. Is it just me, or is the regen rate exactly the same for everything? Cuz if ao, that's totally biased against like rants and goons, cuz they rush once, then have to take like 2 minutes to heal...

I explained regen rates here.