Balance Thoughts

[Norfenstein]

Now that Tremulous is out and being played regularly some of the issues with the balance are becoming apparent. I actually think it all comes down to a single problem that I hope others will agree with: the human team, being less mobile and more dependent on their bases than the alien team decrease in effectiveness the further they travel from their bases. Logically then we can approach this problem from several angles: increasing human mobility, decreasing human base dependence, increasing the mobility of human bases, or doing the opposite of any of those to the alien team. I'll list the most straightforward ideas I've had pertaining to these areas.

Mobility - I don't think anything should be changed or added in this area for either team right now.

Base Dependence - Humans need to visit their bases to restore health, replenish supplies, and repair structures. Medkits have been discussed before as a replacement for anti-toxins and are a good idea. Ammo capacities for all weapons could be increased (I'd say at least 50%) as an easy change. I'd really like to see holdable items be refillable for free so as to be consistent with all other abilities and equipment in the game and to remove the unfairness of requiring humans to have a steady stream of income to use them. It also wouldn't hurt to let humans carry more than one of each at time. Since aliens don't need to repair their structures requiring them to defend them more would be a fair tradeoff: disabling all structures besides eggs when no overmind is present would do that and be more in line with what humans have to deal with. It would also help humans (and be more consistent) if alien structures delayed their regeneration for a time after last being damaged, like alien classes do.

Base Mobility - Requiring an overmind in order to build eggs would help reduce end-game egghunts (and if this change is made telenodes might as well not be buildable without reactors; being able to never makes a difference anyway). Forward bases could be made drastically more useful by prioritizing spawns closer to a player's point of death (and even though it wouldn't help the balance for aliens to have this too I definitely feel it should be implemented for both teams). Human structures could also be made actually mobile: structures could be "tagged" for moving and then placed elsewhere as if being constructed and teleported into place, possibly after a delay equal to the time it takes to normally build one. With this ability humans could actually move their reactor (and their entire base) without seriously jeopardizing the entire game.

And here's one less straightforward idea that I'd like to see happen eventually.

Human defense is most effective when it is clumped together and generally any attempt at making a forward base is simply taking away defense from the reactor, which if destroyed shuts down the entire human team. To change this turrets need to become more potent individually and less potent when grouped together. I think the best way to do this is to simply make them better (slightly longer range, faster angular speed, and possibly an increase in damage and spread to make them more effective against higher classes) and give aliens area-effect attacks to take out clumps of defense. I've come up with two ideas for alien area attacks: 1) Change the upgraded marauder zap into a "chain lightning" attack that requires a player to aim and hit a target, resulting in a chain of electricity jumping from the first target to the next nearest target and so on, doing less damage with each. This would require some semblance of skill to use and would naturally be better against groups (the base damage should come down a little of course). 2) Give aliens grenades. A booster-like structure that gave aliens grenades (maybe different kinds for different classes) would fit in nicely with the alien class structure and as an added bonus give aliens a reason to return to their bases.

My miscellaneous wishlist that doesn't really belong here:

• Faster movement speed for the free-moving spectator mode
• Display build outlines even if you select a structure while outside of creep/power range
• Increase mass driver damage to at least 38 so upgraded builders don't require three shots (more than half a clip :\ )

[Supa]

Ammo capacities for all weapons could be increased (I'd say at least 50%) as an easy change.

I'm not so sure about changing clip sizes, but I would agree to an increase in the ammount of clips for weapons. This would mean humans would gain more ammo but wouldn't gain the ability to spam too long before changing clips. Of course, this is kind of irrelevant for the chain gun and the other weapons that don't use clips..

I'd really like to see holdable items be refillable for free

Agreed.

It also wouldn't hurt to let humans carry more than one of each at time.

I'm not sure I understand, do you mean being able to hold, say, anti-toxins and a grenade at the same time? Or multiple grenades?

Forward bases could be made drastically more useful by prioritizing spawns closer to a player's point of death

Also agreed.

Give aliens grenades. A booster-like structure that gave aliens grenades (maybe different kinds for different classes) would fit in nicely with the alien class structure and as an added bonus give aliens a reason to return to their bases.

Actually, this would be an excellent way to work in a kami dretch.  

[zoo]

If holdables turn free-refill, there should be a timer between refills. This way, the humans can't resort to horrendous nade spam every time they get pinned down. At the same time, humans who run around, do stuff, and come back to re-equip aren't penalized.

Also, I'd like to see aliens' dependency on the overmind increased, but I think its health could use a minor buff as well. Granted, it has that little auto-zap attack for humans that get too close, but when does that ever happen? They have guns for a reason.

Any way, great stuff Norf.

[Norfenstein]

I'm not so sure about changing clip sizes, but I would agree to an increase in the ammount of clips for weapons.

Good point, hadn't occurred to me.

It also wouldn't hurt to let humans carry more than one of each at time.

Yes, multiple grenades, and more importantly multiple health packs if they're implemented.

Give aliens grenades. A booster-like structure that gave aliens grenades (maybe different kinds for different classes) would fit in nicely with the alien class structure and as an added bonus give aliens a reason to return to their bases.

Actually, this would be an excellent way to work in a kami dretch.  

I actually had that exact same idea . Not exactly like the gloom kami, and certainly far less useful though since they'd essentially be free, but instead of throwing a grenade the dretch could trigger one, flash or smoke or something for a short countdown then explode with a tiny radius. The other classes could have appropriate grenades too: the basilisk could have a blinding gas (that could shorten the range of turrets), marauders could have some sort of lightning bomb, dragoons a spike spore...

If holdables turn free-refill, there should be a timer between refills.

Definitely.

Also, I'd like to see aliens' dependency on the overmind increased, but I think its health could use a minor buff as well.

That'd probably be fair. Maybe overminds could get a big health increase but regenerate much slower, like the how the reactor takes longer to repair than other human structures.

[juice]

How come everytime an ammo pack is suggested everyone thinks its a good idea, but it never happens, and the idea always gets "lost"?

The simple logic behind it is there's a battery pack, why not an ammo pack?

Chaingun is primarily a defense weapon now.  You often don't get to their hive with full chaingun ammo having to keep going back to base for a quick ammo refresh, etc.  I would suggest a 50% ammo increase for this weapon.  Flamethrower could use just a little more ammo, like 10 or so more.  But really, I think that's good enough for ammo if no ammo pack is done.


Does no one else see the brilliance in making marauder's zap into an aimable chain lightning?  It sounds fun and it adds balance.

I really would NOT want to see "Kami's" in Tremulous though.  However I'm not sure I like the alien grenade idea either.  I was thinking about maybe some sort of spore that would "explode" or secrete a goo that would go everywhere and would "clog" sentries for awhile so that they don't work.  The only problem with this is that that logic wouldn't really be useful on Tesla obviously and the spore would become useless after stage 2.  I guess it could be similar to the granger's web thingy and slow down humans (albeit not as drastically) so that it would be useful at any time.

[OverFlow]

Neat ideas.  I agree mostly with them.

Base Dependence - I agree with medkits, but not with being able to refill all holdables for free.  Perhaps it would be ok paying first for the medkit, but then it being free until you die.  However, for grenades I think it should stay the same way it is now.  Perhaps carrying more holdables would be alright.  The rest of it I agree with.

Base Mobility - Right now tha humans can build telenodes without power as well.  Although it is still quite apparent that aliens have a much easier time making the humans finally hunt them down than vice versa.  So I'm not really sure the best way to fix that.  For moving the human base, I think that would be alright, as long as the structure is not useable for the amount of time it is being transported.

That alien grenade thing is an interesting idea.  As of now I think a 'grenade' structure should end up replacing the booster with slightly more sentience cost.



I've been writing own a few things I'd like to see done... many not really having to do with balancing, but here goes:  

Add kick to the chaingun when person with buit is moving.
New rifle sound.  Make it more... punchy or something.
Add an icon to the scoreboard that shows the player dead.
Adjust the bsuit and tyrant view height
Limit jetpack time but make it faster
Make builders more useful:  ckit ->give health and/or ammo  Grabger->Acts like a mobile booster.
Add 'celebration' music at the end?

[Norfenstein]

The simple logic behind it is there's a battery pack, why not an ammo pack?

I suggested long ago a bandolier item that would extend ammo capacity for non-energy weapons and changing the battery pack to make it regenerate ammo slowly instead of just increasing capacities. These could still be done but the thing is you wouldn't be able to use either of them with jetpacks or battlesuits so there'd still be that unfortunate tradeoff and humans' best equipment still wouldn't match aliens' best class.

However I'm not sure I like the alien grenade idea either.

The whole alien grenade idea is a little out there and would definitely change Tremulous a lot if it were implemented. I think it'd add something interesting to the alien team but the real reason I came up with it was to justify making turrets better except when clumped together. So long as aliens can approach and dance around a lone turret with little or no risk, human forward bases will be a huge risk. But maybe aliens wouldn't need anything extra in order to change turrets, or maybe making the lightning a true area attack would be enough (in addition to the big explosion radius turrets already have).

However, for grenades I think it should stay the same way it is now.

The main reason I want human holdables to be freely refillable is that there's no gaurantee you'll get your money's worth from them, being one-use-only items (and this would be compounded if players could carry more than one of each at a time). Maybe everyone else feels differently or just doesn't think it's important, but I just don't enjoy having to make that particular tactical decision that's not necessary for anything else in the game.

For moving the human base, I think that would be alright, as long as the structure is not useable for the amount of time it is being transported.

That kind of defeats the whole point though, that the structure is still useable while it's being moved. Otherwise you're nearly as well off destroying it first and rebuilding it. I'm not real attached to this idea though, it could get confusing. It'd help in any case to get rid of the annoying deconstruct build timer; it's not like a few seconds delay is going to stop a TKer.

Limit jetpack time but make it faster

If this was done then the jetpack-reactor dependency should be removed.

Make builders more useful: ckit ->give health and/or ammo Grabger->Acts like a mobile booster.

The construction kit restoring ammo is a good idea and would make the most sense (if it was health then shouldn't the person using it be able to use it on himself too?). I don't think alien builders need to be anymore useful but then again aliens could use more opportunities for teamwork. Maybe if aliens only regenerated when near creep or a granger...

[Echon]

Whoa, big read, and I'm too lazy to read it so I'll just chime in with my two cents:

Currently the humans are godlike until the Aliens hit Stage 3 and get godlike Tyrants. The humans could be a bit weaker without armor, but a bit stronger with it and that'd help almost enough. Tyrants just need a little less health (350 instead of 400?).

That is all.

p.s. wakka wakka

[-Saig-]

Tyrants need some looking at. Juice suggested reducing the health regen rate, which I think is worthwhile to consider. As it stands a Tyrant can practically regenerate faster than most Humans can do damage.

A nerf to their health would be something to take into mind as well.

Oh yea beef up the Mass Driver!

[zoo]

- Medkits should replenish health gradually -- over 1.5 or 2 seconds.

- Making builders viable in the field seems like a cop-out on structure balance. Normally, a ckit/granger could just build the appropriate structure and have it do the work. If the current power/creep model constrains this into uselessness, I think that should be fixed first.

[Stannum]

Disable the tyrant charge when it has less than 200 health. Tyrants can escape way to easy with charge.

Imo tyrant health is fine.

The jet pack could be a booster. When used if gives you a strong boost of speed the in direction you are looking

[Norfenstein]

Disable the tyrant charge when it has less than 200 health. Tyrants can escape way to easy with charge.

I think it'd be better just to increase the time it takes to charge up the trample so it becomes less useful once you've entered a fight. And/Or make it 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.

Imo tyrant health is fine.

Agreed. Making the Tyrant weaker defensively will just make people play more defensively which could easily end up being more frustrating than it is now. The only problem I see with the Tyrant is that it's too easy to maintain a stockpile of 9 frags once you get one and the unavoidable trample is mostly to blame.

The jet pack could be a booster. When used if gives you a strong boost of speed the in direction you are looking

That'd probably be fun, and a little humorous, but flying is one of only two mobility advantages humans have over aliens (the other, ladders, is largely untapped by mappers), and it'd be a shame to have that taken away. I don't know what I'd like to see changed here.

[juice]

as i've said a few times in game, I believe gloom actually had the best idea on this issue.

Lucifer and/or battlesuit should not gain credits from killing dretches, just like tyrants should not gain frags from killing humans without jetpack/battlesuit/lucifer.

Maybe not that closely defined, but you get the point.

Bashing = bad, more closely matched fights = good.

This would also give incentive for tyrants to go after battlesuit guys more often instead of picking off the small fries.  Likewise, it would give incentive for battlesuits to go after tyrants instead of dretches.

There's always been a steep difficulty increase when you join a late game of tremulous.  Joining in at stage 2 or stage 3 is probably the most frustrating thing since most people have good weapons and equipment or good alien classes making the newcomers either camp or feed.

Maybe if you're really good you could make some progress as a late joiner, but I'd say im pretty good and I have a hell of a time getting atleast a marauder or a decent weapon if I happen to join in at stage 2/3.

The problem is I'm not sure what to really suggest to ease the difficulty.  I would suggest a "gracing" frag or some credits to late joiners, atleast when Stage 3 hits but this doesn't come off as a good solution to me.

[Spooky]

A lot of good ideas in this thread. I agree that the tyrant and adv. marauder need to be toned down a bit. I'll throw in a few more ideas as well:

Humans:

• Medkits that allow unlimited healing of teammates but not the person carrying the kit (Q3 mod Urban Terror-style). This might increase the incentive for offense and teamwork.
  
• Ammo packs that can be passed to teammates?
• Grenade "cooking" -- let the player hold the grenade after pulling the pin for precise control over when it explodes (another idea shamelessly stolen from UrT ;)). Definitely cause (fatal?) self-damage if it is held too long.
• Greatly reduce or eliminate self-damage from the flamethrower (as it is now, you can only use it for retreating or holding ground, never advancing).
• When friendly fire is turned off, apply that to deployables as well (if someone wants to remove one, make them get a ckit).

Aliens:

• Rather than nerfing the jetpack, give the aliens an aerial unit. Make it fly somewhat slowly and don't make it too powerful.

Also, I think it'd be nice if there was some kind of enemy health indicator (aside from the aliens' varying sounds). Maybe show "excellent/good/fair/poor/near death" over their head when you're close to and facing them.

[-Saig-]

Joining late in the game, it isnt that tough to gain points thanks to frag sharing. If you find it too hard to get any kills on your own and your team is pretty lacking in terms of gaining points, just go constructor/granger and tend to defenses and whatnot, or begin forwarding to the best of your ability if your team on the offensive.

Usually when a game has gone on long enough mostly everyone is on offense and their bases are pretty well established, so you can still serve a purpose by forwarding while they provide some defense for you.

Not really feedback but just what Ive gathered so far. In terms of real feedback and discussion concerning Tyrants, increasing the time between uses of Trample is something to consider. Though Tyrants might just reserve Trample for escape in general if you think about it. Would require more tactical use of the skill, which is pretty fucking powerful to be honest.  Id say knock their regeneration down notch, and just possibly reduce their overall damage as well, especially against Human structures.

Another idea is to just leave Tyrants the way they are, but taking a note from an old Gloom idea, make it so only a regulated number of Tyrants can be on the battlefield at once. All too often a game ends when everyone on the Alien team farms points till Stage3 and then swarms with like 5 fucking Tyrants, and there is no fucking way to defend against that even with 5 Bsuit/Lucifer troops, though that kind of attack on the Human's part is pretty scary too, but a whole shitload of those fucking Advanced Marauders can deter pretty much any attack currently.

[juice]

Timbo, Norf, and I discussed a possible fix for something that may have been contributing to the long drawn out alien assaults which never seem to die down and instant rushes.

Basically, when you evolve as alien you only evolve with 20% of the maximum health your class has.  What this does is prevent aliens from getting that free heal if they are about to die (not to mention of course instantly getting more powerful and initiating a more deadly attack) and it also cuts the time before an alien who just evolved may attack again, as they will most likely try to find a booster to heal up their health again or go back to their base and regen.

This might solve some problems, so once this is carried out let's see how aliens handle.  If aliens still prove to be too flexible, we can then suggest something else.

To be honest, I think Tyrants should be able to take much more damage, but regen more slowly.  This would help tyrants play more offensively rather than turtle offensive, meaning they hit and run to regen.

If you cut regen but make them take more damage, it will give tyrants a new playing style.  It wouldn't be as efficient to simply take out a turret or two and then trample back around the corner to regen that health again.  Tyrants would be more efficient to do one large attack rather than a bunch of small ones, and then would go back to base to regen with the booster.  What this would do is it would make the times between tyrant attacks alot longer thus destroying those quickie hit and run tactics.

[stahlsau]

Hi,
i like the idea of giving the aliens 1st evolutionary stage some ranged weapons (they don't have to bee very strong, just something that hurts). Until on stage 2, i always play dretch (or granger, of course), because the others are too big and too slow to get near enough to the enemy to kill them. For me, they're worthless.
Ofcourse, this changes when evolving to stage 2
On stage two, it would help balancing to change the adv. Marauder's lightning to "an aimable chain lightning" [(c) juice], because now all the noobs (like me) keep on jumping around and zapping the hums without any need to aim.
Second, the adv. basilisk's poison-gas doesn't seem to do much on humans - at least everytime i use it i get shot nevertheless.

Lucifer and/or battlesuit should not gain credits from killing dretches, just like tyrants should not gain frags from killing humans without jetpack/battlesuit/lucifer.

Really a good idea, i think this would help the gameplay a lot. It would help late joiners too to improve.
 

If you cut regen but make them take more damage, it will give tyrants a new playing style. It wouldn't be as efficient to simply take out a turret or two and then trample back around the corner to regen that health again. Tyrants would be more efficient to do one large attack rather than a bunch of small ones, and then would go back to base to regen with the booster. What this would do is it would make the times between tyrant attacks alot longer thus destroying those quickie hit and run tactics.

This is a nice idea, too. Very better than cutting down their health or damage. Imho even a tyrant doesn't have much chances against a hum in battlesuit with flamer/lucifer/chaingun.


Last point: we definitly need more players

[-Saig-]

Stage 1 Aliens vs Stage 1 Humans is fine as it is. It might seem like Humans have the upper hand during that time of the game, since theres a pretty common tendency of good Human players to rushdown Aliens and kill their eggs as fast as possible, but the reality is that most people just dont bother to evolve, whereas Humans immediately pick up better weaponry and armor as soon as the credits are available for it.

A Basilisk is particularly annoying early in the game, and all it takes is one point to be able to evolve into one. Marauders are also available, and can headswipe so easily its not even funny (well ok it is kinda heh), as well as Dragoons, who simply own in the right hands.

As for Tyrants not having a chance against a well-armed Bsuit, I dont know what game your playing. A Tyrant vs a lone Bsuit, that Human is fucking dogfood. Now if you give that Bsuit some backup even in the form of a teamate in Light Armor and a wielding a Lasgun, the odds are much more even, though it depends if the players are any good as well heh. :p

[-Saig-]

Stage 1 Aliens vs Stage 1 Humans is fine as it is. It might seem like Humans have the upper hand during that time of the game, since theres a pretty common tendency of good Human players to rushdown Aliens and kill their eggs as fast as possible, but the reality is that most people just dont bother to evolve, whereas Humans immediately pick up better weaponry and armor as soon as the credits are available for it.

A Basilisk is particularly annoying early in the game, and all it takes is one point to be able to evolve into one. Marauders are also available, and can headswipe so easily its not even funny (well ok kinda heh). As for Dragoons, well, what do I need to say? They are a nightmare in the right hands.

As for Tyrants not having a chance against a well-armed Bsuit, I dont know what game your playing. A Tyrant vs a lone Bsuit, that Human is fucking dogfood. Now if you give that Bsuit some backup even in the form of a teamate in Light Armor and a wielding a Lasgun, the odds are much more even, though it depends if the players are any good as well heh. :p

[juice]

talking about my dragooning hit and run tactics?

boy do I love my dragoon.

[Norfenstein]

...Tyrants would be more efficient to do one large attack rather than a bunch of small ones, and then would go back to base to regen with the booster.

Boosters actually have no effect on Tyrants' regeneration. Apparently no one realizes this but the reason Tyrants have such a high regeneration rate is because they double the healing rate of all aliens in their proximity, including themselves. This is noncumulative with boosters and other Tyrants. The actual regeneration rate of Tyrants is the same as Advanced Dragoons', even though every class up to Tyrants (excluding builders) has a regeneration rate of one point higher than the class before it.

Lucifer and/or battlesuit should not gain credits from killing dretches, just like tyrants should not gain frags from killing humans without jetpack/battlesuit/lucifer.

Really a good idea, i think this would help the gameplay a lot. It would help late joiners too to improve.

I think it's important to realize why this isn't going to be implemented: balancing anything at the expense of fun is counterproductive. Maintaining a steady supply of credits/frags is fun. Besides, there's already incentive to attack equally-powered enemies: they're worth more points and the equipment or class you're using also happens to cost more. And even if it's too late in the game for you to be equal with anyone on the enemy team you can still help your teammates fight and earn partial credit for kills you contributed to. There's really no reason why the best of either team can't be balanced properly to fit in with existing systems.

[stahlsau]

A Basilisk is particularly annoying early in the game, and all it takes is one point to be able to evolve into one. Marauders are also available, and can headswipe so easily its not even funny (well ok kinda heh). As for Dragoons, well, what do I need to say? They are a nightmare in the right hands.

Hum well, maybe i'm a too bad player to make use of their abilities. I'll look if i find a strategy-guide for those. The most problems i've got have to do with aiming and the speed of the other players: if i jump towards a human to bite his nose, he strafes to the side, i fall down to the ground and he kills me. It's a question of skill i'm afraid, but i'll keep on training

As for Tyrants not having a chance against a well-armed Bsuit, I dont know what game your playing. A Tyrant vs a lone Bsuit, that Human is fucking dogfood.

Well, as i said, maybe i'm still too nooby for that

I think it's important to realize why this isn't going to be implemented: balancing anything at the expense of fun is counterproductive. Maintaining a steady supply of credits/frags is fun.

ok, point taken

[Supa]

Hum well, maybe i'm a too bad player to make use of their abilities. I'll look if i find a strategy-guide for those. The most problems i've got have to do with aiming and the speed of the other players: if i jump towards a human to bite his nose, he strafes to the side, i fall down to the ground and he kills me. It's a question of skill i'm afraid, but i'll keep on training

Played properly, a basilisk will mulch just about anything short of a battle suit. The key thing is to to be as sneaky as you can - when I play as a basilisk I:

1: Find a nice spot near the human base to hide where I can't be seen
2: Watch my radar for any humans to come by
3: Once they've passed my ambush spot I wait for them to get a bit of distance
4: Leave my ambush spot and start running to catch up with them, but I don't jump so as to avoid making any more noise to track me by
5: Once I've cought up with the human(s) I'll touch the closest one's back, jump up on their head and then slash away

Of course, this gets harder with multiple humans. The key thing is to attack from the rear and try to get a grip on them first before you attack.

Going off topic for a bit, would anybody care for another Tremulous guide? I've been thinking about writing my own, particularly dealing with map tactics, making sneak attacks against the alien base as a human and a general guide to aliens. I can start on it tonight if anyone cares.