1HKOs

[Meisseli]

tremulant, you missed this a few posts back -

I don't think he missed the post where you said every Q3 engine game has the same weapons as Q3

RAK, for the nth time, as much as you seem to hate dying to massdrivers as a dretch, just evolve. I assure you what seems to be your idea of a max. 24 damage massdriver would make the massdriver unbalanced, unfair and unfun, those three words that you seem to like to (over)use so much. It's the weapon's function: to kill the lower classes - it's bad against the bigger ones, and truly useless against buildings. I find that to be a pretty accurate description of a balanced weapon.

EDIT: and, just about any weapon kills dretches as efficiently as a massdriver. Lasgun for example, doesn't really matter if it's 1hit or not.

[Nux]

What Tremulant is saying is that the games play differently because the developers didn't bother to deviate from the engine that much.

I'm not sure what you're saying about them playing differently because they're too similar.

I thought he was saying that those games were completely different, despite their shared engine. The developers deviated alright.

[Tremulant]

this is a team game.
i'd rather get a thousand more basi kills anyway.

But as a basi you're of very limited use to your team, especially in small games, basis are crap base breakers. Remember that 2on1 you joined on niveus the other day? Your use of nothing but basi held us back considerably, with a rant camping in base on a booster there's no need for friend basi, i'm afraid, and something larger and more capable of eating the enemy base(mara+) would be more beneficial.

[Nux]

Don't knock friend basi! Friend basi is a valued portable booster and trapper! The only wasted basi is a bad basi and bad basi is not my friend. 

[/dev/humancontroller]

(much tl;dr-ing went on during the composition of this reply.)

devhc, I still don't understand what you are saying, because you are not saying anything with sufficient verbosity. As long as the "disperson" is similar for humans and aliens, or as long as the dispersons works out to be mostly even, balance should be maintained. Its possible I've misjudged your definition of effort, but you need to make.

effort is the amount of commitment one puts into the game: a combination of concentration, precision, quick response, learning, and strategic thinking (but not patience). consider a game between 2 players: there is a (uniformly) random number in [1..1000000]. both players first have to guess that number. if both players fail to guess the number, then the game is a draw. if one player guesses the number correctly while the other player fails to do so, then the latter player loses the game. if both players guess the number correctly, then both players take 1 shot at the other, resulting in a win/loss/draw depending on who succeeded in hitting the other. this game is completely balanced due to symmetry. however, the probability of you winning will not increase above 1/1000000, even if you shit blood trying (to guess the number, and to shoot your opponent). this means that the outcome of the game has more to do with luck than with skill, or, as i would say, the game is statistically dispersed. another example of adding dispersion while keeping the win ratio is to randomize the final outcome of the game (stop the game with one team winning) in 50% of the cases at every 5 minute mark in the game.

for the more experienced players who feel the skill of the game, who feel what it takes to beat an opponent in a particular way, can be frustrated when an opponent beats them in a cheap way (that is of little interest to many viewers).

third paragraph.  i have fun while losing.  so long as the battle is a hard fought one.  when both teams reach s3 and there is no one single player on either side carrying the rest of the team, that's a good game to me.  win or loss does not matter.

the dretch did something wrong?  by spawning?  i dont follow your logic there.  i also dont get "outclassed" as even a bsuit can dodge faster than a dretch can move.

If you join an in-progress game, you're at a disadvantage. That's what i said. If you join an in-progress game, you can't expect balance to be had. You're outgunned. Also, if you suck, you can't expect balance to be had. You're outskilled.

To end: you're aware that certain tactical decisions (pushing up a hall as opposed to an open space) lend themselves to certain teams, right? And that certain tactical decisions are better than others? That an MD will have a hay day in arachnid halls but not in the tighter areas? That not every situation is good for every weapon or alien? If you play your alien or weapon right, you'll learn that just because the human has the potential to one-shot doesn't mean he will. The MD can oneshot only one alien, and the luci can oneshot only when given time. You're bitching about two weapons being OP because A) you confront them in situations that aren't favorable to you, or B) your opponent is lucky and kills you in a situation that should be favorable to you. Both of those things happen in every game (and real life). They are facts that you need to get used to. Learn the game, and play to the strengths of your class - oneshots won't matter.

For those of you who are clay-dretches (and I have been this myself, and recently), you have to think more tactically. If there is a massdriver sitting at the end of a hall, you have three choices: do some l33t dodging (potentially in a group with other dretches), wait for a non-dretch to go first, or don't go down that hall. If you choose the latter, you have two choices, you can sit at your end of the hall, and wait until a human comes your way, giving you the advantage (you probably won't have to wait long), or you can go fight in another part of the map.Remember, humans tend to have the advantage in hallways, you have the advantage of surprise (in s1), and prefer to begin an engagement at shorter range. If you're being a clay dretch, its because you think you are better than your MD opponent, or because you're not thinking tactically. Try to engage enemies when you have the upper hand, and not when your position is weak. The advantage of terrain means a lot in tremulous (and GPP more so). Taking out s1 MDs as a dretch is easier than taking out shotguns, if you engage them at short range, as has already been pointed out.

Stop trying to blame shitty playing/tactics on balanced game mechanics.

patience is not awesome skill, and it is up to the design of the game logic not to reward patience. MD-camping is a form of camping, which is an act of patience, and should be dealt with. i've even heard someone saying that camping is a social issue, and not a gameplay one; that's fucking retarded, it's an excuse for proper game design. generally, it is the job of the game logic to avoid scenarios where people complain by saying "d00d, stop <insert_advantageous_act_here>ing", for example "d00d, stop camping", or

just kill the damn egg and get it over with.

who said that variance (in weapons, etc.) is required for balance? not at all. with 2 teams with equal abilities and rotationally symmetrical maps (i'm thinking about Team Fortress), there is just no question about the win ratio part of the balance. however, there is a question about the skill-to-outcome ratio part of the balance of such a gameplay logic. in fact, the balance doesn't change at all if we add a copy of a shotgun, "shotgun 2", which differs from the current shotgun in its name.


the following demonstrates how the humans are mathematically more powerful than aliens, on an at-least-minimally-open map, such as the stock maps of 1.1.0. as the game begins, the humans have ranged rifles, but the aliens have no ranged weapons. with that armament and those classes, humans have a potential to be better than aliens: as (aiming and positioning) skills tend to infinity, the humans can kill the showing aliens more quickly and swiftly, while the aliens' attacking ability is limited by the time it takes to run up to a human. practically this isn't the case due to the incompetence of the players playing Tremulous nowadays, and the instability of the game engine, and its inability to compensate for latency. so while the game is mathematically a piece of shit, it is somewhat playable by the current community. in other words, Tremulous is made for n00bs and moderately-skilled players, but it does not have the skill-demonstrative value to become an accepted game in e-sports.


generally, when it comes to people announcing or discussing improvements to the game logic, while you may say "i'm just warning you, that you will fail (to find a solution, etc.)", you may not stop the people from trying to solve things. that is, opinions are welcome, but nothing beyond that is. this means that if XYZ might have some proposed game logic improvements, you can tell him to fuck off by saying "good point, do something about it youself", or "good idea, code it yourself (TM)", but you may not say "you are stupid, gtfo".

also, 1v1 is pointless.  this is a team game.

that should not prevent us from tailoring a game logic with 1v1 games in mind (with perhaps with the unfortunate, but affordable downsides to NvN games).


fact: Tremulous and Quake3 are different. any 2 things, that are not the same, are different; it's impossible not to understand this.
fact: Tremulous and Quake3 are significantly different, with an applicable definition of "significantly different".
fact: Tremulous and Quake3 are not significantly different, with an(other) applicable definition of "significantly different".
fact: the difference between Tremulous and Quake3 is completely irrelevant to the fact that we should strive to create a balanced and sensical-for-the-long-run game.

a bunch of extreme tweaks or additions (for example, doubled played speed, tripled firing speed, flying tyrants, explosive dretches, etc.) can make the game very interesting at first, but those changes will become boring relatively soon. the semi-well-composedness of the current state of the game allows for a fun experience for a median time, and only the more experienced players notice that there's room for shitloads of improvements.

It's actually pretty easy to remove the possibility of one-hit kills from the lucifer cannon without doing much to it's effectiveness: Divide the charge time and the damage amount by X, where X is whatever the hell you like (greater than 1).

that's highly plausible. unfortunately as X grows, the lucifer cannon becomes a lasgun-equivalent weapon. perhaps the lucifer cannon should be completely revamped or completely removed.

One further question, would giving the mass driver a 3 round burst over 0.1 or 0.2 seconds (the full three rounds would have the same stats as the current mass driver) change anything in your opinion?

i'd say: like hell.

[RAKninja-Decepticon]

f50. if it is possible to avoid the killing shot, and still have at least 1hp, yes.  it can be hard as fuck to actually pull off, but if it is possible, then yes.  for example, the lasgun.  the lasgun is ~= the rifle, and the rifle can kill a dretch very quickly.  but the dretch can avoid some of the damage and possibly deal some himself.  this allows the dretch to build some evos, and avoid getting stuck as dretch as the game stages up, meaning, when dretching becomes progressively less and less fun.  by removing oneshots for the goon, this gives naked humans the same opportunity, i think.

meissili, no where did i claim absolutism.  i DID use the qualifying word "most" in reference to weapons being reskinned and tweaked q3 default.  i did not say "every weapon in every q3 mod is a q3 default weapon.  i said "most q3 mods include reskinned q3 weapons, usually with slight tweaks"  it is just plain easier and faster to modify existing code, than it is to write new code.  this is why so many "games" use third party engines.  it is easier and faster (and therefore more cost effective) to use code that someone else wrote and tweak it.  

i have suggested an alternative to a straight 24 damage MD.  have the MD deal a damage type that does reduced damage to "soft" targets, and just as much as it does now for "armored" targets, if not more.  do the same with other human weapons, that way weapon selection becomes a more strategic element of the game than it currently is.  not that i am saying weapon selection is NOT a strategic element mind you, only that by adding such "specialisations" it becomes more so.  do you stick with rifle or shotgun to deal with dretches and basi, or use MD or lasgun to deal with maras and goons?

tremulant, yes, basi at hs2+ is often more a liability than an asset.  i could use more practice as mara (all day yesterday i was working on my goon and mara, getting the hang of goon, not so much mara)  trust me, i am of far more use to the team as a basi than as a mara.  at hs2+ but before as3, i tend to use my evos for the extra HP.  when we get close to as3, i start saving evos for rant.

yes, i'm not the best, especially against a good human, like nux for example.  i tend to do much better when there are humans closer to my skill level for me to fight.


nux, your goon, my basi... lets make a granger.


edit: forgot to add this:

also, 1v1 is pointless.  this is a team game.

that should not prevent us from tailoring a game logic with 1v1 games in mind (with perhaps with the unfortunate, but affordable downsides to NvN games).

the minimum that should be considered for a team based game is 2v2, in my opinion.  variables that make sense in 1v1 play can, and often do, make progressively less sense the more players that are added in. for example, in tremulous 1v1, you have no teammate to build/repair a base, giving a huge advantage to the player who can damage his enemy's base.  eventually, player a is going to have to build, and player b can attack with far less reprisal. this changes greatly with the addition of one player per side.  then you can have a builder, and someone else running attack and defence. if we balanced buildings for 1v1 play, i doubt they would make much sense in a 3v3, or a 8v8 or a 16v16.

[F50]

patience is not awesome skill, and it is up to the design of the game logic not to reward patience. MD-camping is a form of camping, which is an act of patience, and should be dealt with. i've even heard someone saying that camping is a social issue, and not a gameplay one; that's fucking retarded, it's an excuse for proper game design. generally, it is the job of the game logic to avoid scenarios where people complain by saying "d00d, stop <insert_advantageous_act_here>ing", for example "d00d, stop camping", or

It *is* predominantly a social issue in 1.2. If you watch a scrim, you will notice that in the event of camping early on, the humans win by default due to the new repeaters (although imperfect camping can result in rc-hoppage and a near-instant loss). In alien stage 2, given a well-formed map without base locations at the end of obnoxiously long hallways, the advanced goon (usually two goons) can usually whittle away at the human base or reactor enough to make camping likely a sub-optimal strategy. In stage 1, it is possible for the game to be seriously flawed, as that stage can last for 20 minutes or more in games involving seeds and pk. The game logic is not perfect in this respect (and the effectiveness is map-dependant), but generally camping is not the best strategy

humans have a potential to be better than aliens: as (aiming and positioning) skills tend to infinity, the humans can kill the showing aliens more quickly and swiftly, while the aliens' attacking ability is limited by the time it takes to run up to a human. practically this isn't the case due to the incompetence of the players playing Tremulous nowadays, and the instability of the game engine, and its inability to compensate for latency. so while the game is mathematically a piece of shit, it is somewhat playable by the current community. in other words, Tremulous is made for n00bs and moderately-skilled players, but it does not have the skill-demonstrative value to become an accepted game in e-sports.

+1 for devhc. I would not say that the game engine is instable, but the rest is pretty much true. I should note that with more players, the aliens are slightly less disadvantaged (in a game with perfect humans, such as one played against bots), since if you feed a human enough dretches, he *will* have to reload, or run out of bullets. At this point, a significant advantage has been gained, however. One further qualification is that this only strictly applies to dretches, basilisks, and (to a slightly lesser extent) marauders. It may also apply to larger classes, but the effect is considerably less.

that's highly plausible. unfortunately as X grows, the lucifer cannon becomes a lasgun-equivalent weapon. perhaps the lucifer cannon should be completely revamped or completely removed.

Yes, I'd prefer the lucifer cannon to not be replaced with the lasgun . I don't see how the lucifer cannon is a big issue. The DPS is not significantly greater than the chaingun, and is significantly harder to use. The main benefit is against buildings, as well as a surprise factor against the less skilled. One can say that as skill increases, the lucifer cannon becomes much less valuable.


Do not worry, the suggestion of making the mass driver into a tripleshot is not a serious one, just a probe into RAK's mind.

[Tremulant]

e-sports, I see, so trem isn't serious business enough for dhc, and presumably he doesn't play anyway because he's too bloody awesome and it's unfair. If you lot spent less time talking about trem and more time playing it'd be a lot more fun for everyone.

[RAKninja-Decepticon]

+1 for devhc. I would not say that the game engine is instable, but the rest is pretty much true. I should note that with more players, the aliens are slightly less disadvantaged (in a game with perfect humans, such as one played against bots), since if you feed a human enough dretches, he *will* have to reload, or run out of bullets. At this point, a significant advantage has been gained, however. One further qualification is that this only strictly applies to dretches, basilisks, and (to a slightly lesser extent) marauders. It may also apply to larger classes, but the effect is considerably less.

Do not worry, the suggestion of making the mass driver into a tripleshot is not a serious one, just a probe into RAK's mind.

what forces the human to hang around waiting to run out of ammo?  why does he not just run back to base for more?  kind of how a human will quite often run back to base, no matter the distance, if he pops his medkit.  much like how  aliens go back to the booster, or back off for natural regen.  and even if the human does run out of ammo and gets swarmed under, he's got the credits now to come back more devastating than before.  why leave the base at all?  just hang out and have structures assist your kills till you stage up and have a significant advantage over the other team?  why is it humans wll often set up shop in the hall outside the alien base, and make no move to come inside and wreck it, despite having superior firepower?

oh, i agree wholeheartedly about the "highly dependant on  level design" bit.  even many of the levels that are "good" to aliens have fucked up geometry all over the walls and ceilings that all make wallwalk very disorienting at the least.  "unwalkable" would be the next descriptive term i use for them.  take the walls and ceilings of bluedragon.  or those arches in nano (that also are great for fucking up goon pounces i'm finding out).  that's not even considering blatantly fucked up shit, like the big "touch me while i'm moving and you die" unwalkable door/wall on drift, or the plants overhanging the ledge by the default alien egg cluster on orion.  i wonder if most mapmakers are mostly humans.  i am not opposed to detail on the level, just said detail basically removing one of the greatest advantages of the "low" alien classes.

did you find what you were looking for with that probe?  i can elaborate further if you desire.  if there is one thing i rarely lack, it is words.

[Nux]

This seems appropriate here.

I don't have anything against anyone here for actively taking part in this discussion and giving thier point of view. Just, RAK clearly has bad experiences with one-hit kills and nothing that's said will change that. So what results is a thread full of opinions and, unfortunately, bad arguments.

If everyone were trying to find a consensus on what makes tremulous good and what it should be like so that they could implement the ideas, I'd be a lot more encouraged.

[Plague Bringer]

I refuse to accept community map design as evidence for poor alien maneuverability in a practical and official game environment. It's nearly akin to blaming imbalance on a mod. Things that are not vanilla do not contribute to or detriment balance. I will, however, grant you that Nano is hard to navigate by the larger classes.

RAK, what is the fundamental difference between 1 hp and 25 hp from a bullet dodging perspective?

Here, this is a screenshot from a GPP game I just played with the better-than-me Iabz and Kynes. In this game I managed to get rifled as a rant twice by Iabz, so yes, I'm rusty as hell. I was killed instantly or in two shots probably a dozen times, and the majority of the game was spent facing MDs, shotguns, and lucis. I spent plenty of time dretching, but most of it was as a rant.



As you can see, while I did get quickly, as well as instantly killed plenty of times, it did not tip the overall balance of the match.

(Be aware that most of H left @ endgame.)

I'd also like to address an earlier point of yours that a "counter for a fresh spawn" is a poor gameplay mechanic. You said this in response to F50 (I think) saying that the MD is SUPPOSED to kill dretches. I must ask you, then, why you haven't brought the flamer under such scrutiny? It is obviously (intended or not) a counter to the dretch, granger, and basi, most importantly the dretch. I'd like to know if the "counter for a fresh spawn" (the aliens have the goon) really is so imbalanced.

Please keep in mind that while I understand the references to Q3 because, admittedly, Q3 does have a similar sniper (and that's all I'll give you), you must admit that the method of gaining armor in Tremulous is vastly different than that in Q3. Given the proper situation (which is most of the time), a "fresh spawn" will become something exponentially more powerful within a few seconds. Attempting to balance the game for a specific and rare occurrence (spawn camping happens X seconds for every Y second long game) is foolish to me. All this is said under the assumption that fresh spawns gain HP a few seconds after spawning, and those that don't are the less skilled = less credits = more time spent as a fresh spawn.

Any ideas on specific changes to balance? We're going to have to address every weapon that there is an issue with (flamer and goon included, being fresh spawn counters). I'd like to see an S1 alien with a long range but low damage attack (see NS1 builder/flyer), but that's more for shits than it is to address the issue of aliens lacking range.

[RAKninja-Decepticon]

nux:

i'm sorry i dont have a more positive tone.  again i blame too many years on the internet.  it's the classic problem.  no one remembers the good, and no one forgets the bad.

plague:

i hate to take a petulant tone like this, but level design greatly affects manoeuvrability, especially for wallwalk.  imagine if the entire level had all sorts of blocky irregular geometry on the floor, that stepping on it and being a microsecond late with controlling your PoV will send you fling in a disorienting and unpredictable trajectory.  this is why level design can effectively remove your ability to use wallwalk.  especially against humans who have enough hand-eye coordination to aim.  wallwalk is a very important facet of using a dretch or basi, and not being able to consistently use it, to me at the very least, is crippling.

the difference between 1 and 25 hp?  about 4 rifle bullets.  life, and death.  getting shot one time and having a grand total of 1hp left is much, much more preferable to getting shot and having 0hp left.  at the very least you might be able to do a little bit of damage, so you are not confined to dretch for quite so long as you can currently be.  i particularly hate being oneshoted in the middle of a headbite that i SHOULD be getting, if unlagged was not telling my client that my target is a good four feet behind where he currently is, despite the fact that i am colliding with him.

in your screenshot, note the name "BubbleCrab", and note what my current name is in my sig.  i was there, i remember.  should have screenshotted the results of tremor, a few matches behind that one.  the humans were not quite as campy the round you posted, they actually rushed pretty hard for a while  if i remember right, they eventually lost due to bad building, but then again, many matches end that way.  (on a side note, i did fairly well that round, scoring around my average score, despite not really being a team player and focusing on practising my goon rather than playing a class i feel more comfortable with and making a bigger impact.  also much love to tremulant for the basi heals)

i havent brought the flamer up, as i made this topic to express my feedback on weapons that kill with a single shot.  i've mentioned the flamer a few times, but have generally avoided it, as in the strictest sense, it does not fall under the subject i am addressing.  the flamer has a few feedback threads already, eventually, when this thread has run it's course, i might revive one, or make a new thread about it if that would be more appropriate than a necro.

if the purpose of the massdriver and flamethrower is to kill s1 aliens, they do it beautifully.  this is counter-intuitive to me.  i would expect s2 gear to be "better" than s1 gear, but more focused on dealing with s2 threats.  i would expect s3 to be the best all around gear available, but more "generalised" than s2 stuff..   i dont have too much a problem with s3 stuff.  if we did something to remove all other 1 hit kills, we would almost have to leave s3 about the same, otherwise games would never end.

seriously, i dont mind aliens having to get close, lack of range does not bother me.  i agree that every "instant kill" weapon will need a bit of work done to it, especially the MD, flamer, and yes, goon.  even i know it's about equally as fun as being massdriven by a human you cannot even see, let alone dodge, and turning the corner into a goon headchomp.

one distinction.  yes i have talked about actual spawn camping, but it is camping of any sort that i seek to discourage.  i've been skirting the issue, as i get enough "l2play nub" as it is without me whining about camping.  in my eyes, you should be attacking, defending, or building to attack or defend at all times.  waiting for the enemy to come to you in an area you hold supreme advantage in, and refusing to advance is boring.  not that i am saying there is no use for "strategic waiting", but if you're just hugging rets or tubes all game, that's just boring.  if you just sit in the same hallway all game, that's boring.  currently, such activity is rewarded.  you stage up and gain the crushing advantage over the other team.  you stay full of creds/evos so YOU dont have to be worried about being stuck as a fresh spawn.  1 hit kills on both sides tend to encourage this.  the argument could be turned against me, i know.  without 1hko, they'll just camp harder.  but again, without 1hko there at least exists a chance to do damage, and no longer have to be as vulnerable as a result of it.

as to specific ideas, i'm really hot for that "damage types" thing i keep bringing up.  this allows for changes to be made to the balance of a given human weapon, against a given alien class.  this way, you could have a MD that takes two shots to kill a dretch without changing how many shots it takes to kill things above basi.  this way, the flamer is not quite the cone of instant death it is now.  personally, i'd flip the flamer.  have it more effective against goons and maras.  it should still kill a dretch or basi fairly quickly, just not quite so much "i look at you, you die" as it is currently.  this would give some difference to lasgun and rifle, aside from reload and spread.  have the rifle slightly more effective against dretch and basi, the lasgun more effective against mara and goon.  you could even add structures as a third damage type, and configure some weapons to be more effective on them than any class.

barring that, you could fiddle with the variables some more.  i actually kind of like f50's three round burst idea.  that way, it is not a single instant of aim that deals the full damage.  maintaining that aim for a good quarter second or so sounds like a more fair and more skillful solution.  folks with impeccable aim will likely not be affected too greatly, and it actually gives a sporting chance.

i do know one thing for certain.  someone needs to take the "flamer power knob" and start slowly dialling it back.  here's a flamer specific idea more complicated than anything else i've brought up.  give the flamer a charge meter.  instead of starting empty, and going to full, have it start full and go to empty.  as the charge bar decreases, so does the range of the flamer.

that's enough of a novel from me for now, i'll return later to read responses and such.

[Nux]

nux:

i'm sorry i dont have a more positive tone.  again i blame too many years on the internet.  it's the classic problem.  no one remembers the good, and no one forgets the bad.

Well that certainly isn't very positive! Damn you for having an opinion!

[Plague Bringer]

To get away without dying in any situation, you need only dodge one bullet.

[RAKninja-Decepticon]

To get away without dying in any situation, you need only dodge one bullet.

granted. however, when it is one singular bullet you are talking about, and you are at full health...  that makes a world of difference.

anyway, have you noticed that most often when i talk about surviving, i mention getting a hit in?  less about run away, more about actually getting a lick in.

[UniqPhoeniX]

1HKOs make the outcome of fights depend too much on *luck* and aiming, that is hitting or missing the first shot makes a huge difference since:
1) a 2nd hit requires you to WAIT before you can hit again, thus more than doubling the time it takes to kill your opponent in 1vs1
2) if they can get close to you and start circling you after you miss, it can become more difficult to hit them
3) in addition you are more likely to take more than zero damage and thus far less likely to last until you are out of ammo.
If 2 hits were required to kill then missing once would make a *much* smaller difference.
I know that good aiming should be rewarded, but NOT THIS MUCH. It literally makes all other skills completely irrelevant in some scenarios.
The problem with 1HKOs is not messing up win ratio, it's making the game *frustrating* instead of *challenging* for small aliens and all newbies.
There is a similar problem with anything that can end a fight (between a human & alien that should be about equal) in less than 2 sec. The losing player may not get the chance to use their skills at all.

Player count dependent balance: it is VERY difficult to balance a game with as different sides as Tremulous for a range from 1vs1 to 16vs16, however it is much easier to balance for a range from 2vs2 to 17vs17, thus adding a simple bot to either team could help a lot, even if it can only follow basic build commands (player places blueprint, bot builds it) so the actual player doesn't get stuck with granger/ckit.
Alien (SLOW and perhaps limited/costly) devolution would also help balance 1vs1, but it's also a huge change.
Anyone saying that Tremulous is not meant to be balanced for low player counts: how about you instead invite 1000+ players to regularly play Tremulous so more than a handful of servers can get populated?

Map dependent balance: unlimited jetpacks make large areas unbalanced, alien slow-mo swimming makes water unbalanced... both of those are easy to solve and could add A LOT of variety to the list of maps that are *balanced*. Yet Tremulous devs have not solved (or possibly even noticed) those simple issues. Simply making aliens swim faster wouldn't affect any popular & well made map negatively since NONE OF THEM EVEN HAVE WATER for exactly that reason.
Repeaters also make certain locations unbalanced (19 reps and RC @ karith outside, yay). A little better than 1.1 for outposts but it doesn't solve camping. I'd highly prefer domination with 1.1 reps.

Camping is a gameplay issue IMO, it still gives a huge advantage to the camping team without any significant disadvantages. ANY sort of advantage that comes from map control would help. ANYTHING.

There are MANY more issues with Tremulous gameplay, but I'm not planning to write a book series about it since none of those issues would ever get fixed anyway.

[Nux]

1HKOs make the outcome of fights depend too much on *luck* and aiming, that is hitting or missing the first shot makes a huge difference since:
1) a 2nd hit requires you to WAIT before you can hit again, thus more than doubling the time it takes to kill your opponent in 1vs1

Yes. Remember that the massdriver (which I'm sure you're mostly thinking of) costs 2 kills worth of credits. Marauder also costs 2 kills and DOES require more than one hit to kill. Furthermore, the aliens get the dragoon which can one-hit kill ANY s1 human no matter how much gear they've bought, whereas the aliens need only to be anything other than dretch to avoid a one-hit kill at s1.

This isn't the full picture, but I'm hinting at the equivalent aspects of the other side which people seem to keep neglecting to mention.

[Plague Bringer]

I think I'm compiling a QVM in which the MD has twice the ammo in a clip, half the damage, and double the fire rate. Really, though, I have no idea. Any volunteers to pop on RAK's server when (if ) it gets up?

EDIT: Lol, compiled everything but with the old tremulous.h. Recompiling and then I'll test it out.

EDIT: Fuck it. Here's tremulous.h with a bunch of ridiculous values that nerf goon chomp, MD, and shotgun, but leave their DPS relatively untouched.

[RAKninja-Decepticon]

1HKOs make the outcome of fights depend too much on *luck* and aiming, that is hitting or missing the first shot makes a huge difference since:
1) a 2nd hit requires you to WAIT before you can hit again, thus more than doubling the time it takes to kill your opponent in 1vs1

Yes. Remember that the massdriver (which I'm sure you're mostly thinking of) costs 2 kills worth of credits. Marauder also costs 2 kills and DOES require more than one hit to kill. Furthermore, the aliens get the dragoon which can one-hit kill ANY s1 human no matter how much gear they've bought, whereas the aliens need only to be anything other than dretch to avoid a one-hit kill at s1.

This isn't the full picture, but I'm hinting at the equivalent aspects of the other side which people seem to keep neglecting to mention.

what he said can apply to goon as well as MD.  miss your shot with a goon, and a human can close with you and manoeuvre around that you miss again, all the while shooting you.  goon chomps have a fairly slow repeat, and dont you have to have a significant charge for pounce to one-shot - equating to a significant delay?

plague, i do not have the HDD space for the libraries needed to compile.  i will gladly host the server, however.  if it makes any difference to the compiler, i run 64 bit linux.

[Plague Bringer]

1HKOs make the outcome of fights depend too much on *luck* and aiming, that is hitting or missing the first shot makes a huge difference since:
1) a 2nd hit requires you to WAIT before you can hit again, thus more than doubling the time it takes to kill your opponent in 1vs1

Yes. Remember that the massdriver (which I'm sure you're mostly thinking of) costs 2 kills worth of credits. Marauder also costs 2 kills and DOES require more than one hit to kill. Furthermore, the aliens get the dragoon which can one-hit kill ANY s1 human no matter how much gear they've bought, whereas the aliens need only to be anything other than dretch to avoid a one-hit kill at s1.

This isn't the full picture, but I'm hinting at the equivalent aspects of the other side which people seem to keep neglecting to mention.

what he said can apply to goon as well as MD.  miss your shot with a goon, and a human can close with you and manoeuvre around that you miss again, all the while shooting you.  goon chomps have a fairly slow repeat, and dont you have to have a significant charge for pounce to one-shot - equating to a significant delay?

plague, i do not have the HDD space for the libraries needed to compile.  i will gladly host the server, however.  if it makes any difference to the compiler, i run 64 bit linux.

I don't think the speed/frequency of pounce can be increased in a way that is intuitive, and lowering the damage would make it too ineffectual. I think it would be interesting to see pounce have reduced knockback, as well as contact damage that is based on how long the pounce is held (say, for every 1/8th of a charge, the pounce does +5 damage per second or tick). Or, at the very least, base pounce's damage on how long the charge is held, with the absolute maximum being 99, maybe? Blah blah blah.

I suggest this only because I feel that humans are more susceptible to goons at S1 than aliens are to MDs/shotguns.

[F50]

The required pounce charge time can be reduced to speed up the frequency of pounce (again, everything is in tremulous.h). You can also decrease the amount of movement it gives the dragoon if you wish.

I don't think that is a good idea, but that is how it can be done.

[Plague Bringer]

Reducing the amount of movement would, unfortunately, enact too much (imo) of a hindrance on pounce's secondary function, which is... Err... Movement.

[RAKninja-Decepticon]

is there a way to change the way pounce does damage so that combined with charge time, damage is determined by distance travelled?

basically, the idea is that to do maximum damage, you need full charge, and to have traversed X units of distance.  if that cannot be achieved, how about speed? 

the idea behind it is similar to the luci.  the "projectile" (in this case, the goon) has travel time, which means as distance to the target increases, your chance to actually hit that target decreases, as the target has time to move out of the way.  in the case of pounce, it might still be theoretically possible to oneshot a naked with pounce, but it would be incredibly difficult, providing the distance/speed for maximum damage potential is sufficient.