I am relatively new. Only been playing for about a day, only put about 6 hours into the game. I am posting to share my experiences from those 6 hours (mostly positive, I have to say) and, perhaps, to have other people critique my strategies and the way I work.
I welcome and encourage flaming, trolling, snide remarks, belittling, insulting, jackassery and anything else you may be capable of spewing. Where I draw the line is Korean. I don't need nightmares, and yelling at me through the medium of random, funny looking letters ON THE INTERNET is the scariest thing I can imagine. We now return to your regularly scheduled me.
I'll use this point in this very long-winded post to partially introduce myself so you all have a bit of background on me, and may or may not be able to sympathize better with me.
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I'm an anonymous 19 year old girl from the Eastern US. I do graphic design (environmental textures being my personal favorite to mess with), music and some writing. I am (and have been) looking into architecture or possibly computer programming as career options. I am originally from Battle.net, where I was a player of Starcraft. I was never very good at it, mainly because of... you guessed it, those crazy Koreans. Most of my games went along the lines of: "ZERG RUSH KEKEKE" "Jesus Christ, what the hell happened to all my buildings?!"
I was never very good at FPSs either, the fact being that I am simply not good at tracking with the mouse (Although I will say that I can dodge with the best of them and have a funny knack for "ninjaing" people) and usually have a terrible time aiming. The older, seasoned FPS players were the barrier to entry here; in the biggest maps on Quake 3 Arena, the players had this amusing tendency to jump-pad high into the air from the whole way across the map and rail me through the head. Needless to say, this turned me off of FPSs rather quickly.
Despite my failure to do anything but get my ass kicked flat in Starcraft, it remains to this day one of the few games that captured my attention DESPITE the learning curve. When one of the few people who shares my tastes recommended Tremulous, calling it "Better than SC for people like you," (I like to build up my bases, not my units) there was absolutely no way I could avoid trying it.
In the 6 hours I have played, I have been insulted surprisingly little for my inability to get hits on enemies. In fact, I have acquired a valuable position in multiple games as distraction, alarm, and -- I shit thee not, O elitist jackass -- builder. I have even begun to improve on my aim, because when I believe the base is secure I will either defend, continue to (re)build if the enemy is putting the pressure on, or help the offensive. The better players have been supportive, and because I have so far only joined servers with Share enabled (Doesn't seem like there's any of the other sort near my area...) they have been kind enough to share their evos so I can build up my skills with ALL of the units.
I've killed helmeted riflemen with a dretch on multiple occasions when I had no evos, something far beyond me previously. I've leapt into a (admittedly poorly built) base in Transit as the advanced marauder, killing two humans at a time between 3 tries. After the third, the humans were destroyed; and I helped there, I damaged the armory and destroyed a turret and killed a couple lasgunners.
I've learned how the dragoon snipe and pounce work, and I know now how to best use the tyrant's charge. The only class thus far I haven't worked on is the basilisk. I intend to change that, of course.
"This is all well and good and perhaps even expected, but you said that you were a valuable BUILDER?"
Yes, yes I did. In almost every game, I have been relegated to the duty of building and maintaining the base: the good players complimented on more than one occasion my ability to build. This isn't to say that I didn't learn: one person showed me how to keep lucifer snipers from being such a defensive issue in Nexus, as well as showing me a neat hiding place for an egg in the same level. But learning is provably not where the disbelief comes in. Yes, from the very beginning I was an effective builder because I read all the strategies and map hints on the wiki. It's garnered me a good deal of respect in most of the games I have been in, and in those it hasn't the response has been very much neutral; not once have I been insulted for my inability to build.
The astute will notice that I haven't mentioned humans. This is because humans are exactly what made me fail at FPSs to begin with. I intend to try them after I master aliens, but not before.
Regarding gameplay, I have picked up rather quickly on the tactics for each side and how they work. The best human players are those who play the game like it's just a normal team-oriented FPS. The best alien players are those most able to confuse, disorient or hinder their opponents.
The goal for the good human team is to kill from a distance, avoid conflict with large enemies, avoid narrow corridors with lots of turns and keep an eye on the vertical. The goal for the good alien team is to be ruthless, avoid being in the opponent's line of sight, to hinder, to confuse and irritate the opposing player.
The goal for an individual alien is not necessarily to kill the target, simply to make them wish they were dead. The goal for the individual human is to make certain that everything that you see (in terms of aliens) is dead before it gets past you, or at the least is heavily injured.
As a human you should ALWAYS stay in groups, as an alien you should split up from your teammates.
I am aware that my above observations do not apply to tyrants, and they don't even really apply to dragoons that well. I believe, personally, that tyrants are unnecessary and give aliens too much flexibility. Dragoons are wonderful, because there is no way to win without that last powerful push into the human base: advanced dragoons can snipe and just do beautifully as rushers. But tyrants are, in my opinion, given too much power, too much mobility via charge, too much health, and the extra regen for all nearby teammates on top. They seem almost purposely lame. After learning how to use them, I never touched them again. Give me a dretch or a marauder any day.
The balance of the game is set up quite well in most aspects, and I am certainly a fan of how often the game hinges on your team's ability to multitask, to defend as well as attack and do WELL at these things. Most of the games I have played so far have been saturated with relatively skilled players and I have been thrilled whether I win or lose at the intensity of the game. Even when I'm not in the thick of things I always play a part, and that is a mark of a good game if you ask me.
Balance suggestions would be to severely nerf the tyrant and possibly tweak the lucifer cannon to make it harder to spam. The power of both of these things are ridiculous at their respective stages and severely unbalance games at times.
Further suggestions: music, even ambient music in maps. If you'd like, I can even compose some pieces for you. I specialize in dark ambient, though I also do light-hearted things and some dubstep in the vein of Ekaros. I just think that the dark corridors in say, Tremor need some kind of ominous background noise to fill the silence.
Textures: I think too many of the textures resemble too closely the work in Quake 3 Arena itself, in particular the textures in ATCS look an awful lot like art from a Team Arena level. I would gladly make custom map textures for you if you can supply vector art of any logos or font pieces you want on them.
Water: Water would add a new element to gameplay in the form of mobility, opening up the door to a whole new alien class and -- at the very least -- two new human items. This new flexibility could even extend to buildings. Underwater defenses for aliens might be poison liquid traps, nematocyst-like barbs that do initial damage to and hold in place humans or long slashing tentacles that double as underwater barricades. Human underwater defenses could range from harpoons to mines to simple underwater guns, and I'm sure people more imaginative than I will be able to supply more examples.
To conclude: Tremulous has thus far been a fun experience for me, with a nice community. The game itself is flawed (although most of its flaws can be safely ignored) but fun, and the gameplay is frantic and varied: it's never the same game twice. It appeals to minimalists with its presentation, while still remaining accessible to newbies by providing the right information in the right places. I say again: I have had fun thus far, and I hope and expect that this game will remain enjoyable for some time.
