Planned Development Games

[Norfenstein]

Game in 5 minutes on the Euro Server

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/connect edev.tremulous.net

[Norfenstein]

15 minutes, US server

[Norfenstein]

Game in 20 minutes from now (20:00 UTC, 15:00 EST) on Euro Dev (edev.tremulous.net).

It looks like I never mentioned it, but for the past few weeks we've had a change that makes it so that build points from destroyed structures (not ones intentionally moved by a builder) return gradually over time instead of immediately. This gives an offensive team a bigger window of opportunity to keep up a multi-wave attack. So far it seems to be a really positive improvement, making stalemates rarer and offense more effective, without any serious downsides. It's a subtle change, and we're still toying with it a bit, but come try it out today.

[Norfenstein]

Game in 20 minutes on the US Server (dev.tremulous.net). Please fill up the correct one each week so we can get as big playercounts as possible.

The only change from last week is that structures no longer give funds/stage points. The original intention of this was to give attackers (successful ones at least) the resources to keep attacking bases in waves. It really hasn't achieved that effect, and build point queuing solves the problem much better (the problem of attacks being futile because the enemy can rebuild too quickly). So I felt that having this bonus (as nice as it was for people being successful on offense) was just too punishing for non-conservative builders.

[KamikOzzy]

Edit: post removed, I criticized the changes pretty hard, and though I believe what i said, Im really just more irritated with WireDDD's thick skull than I am with MGDev, so I'll keep my thoughts about the game to myself.

[your face]

Dretch headbites do less damage, eliminated the bite-poison kill, and also have less health. Dretches lose to rifles in 1.1, so if anything, they should be made more powerful in 1.2, not less.

+1

not to mention the boost, I rebound it once, and then it was borked on normal servers.

[Roanoke]

I agree with kamikozzy, even if he removed his post. I encourage him to repost. Anyway, I also believe that dretches are underpowered, particularly since 4 bullets pwntz it. As for the luci, the new change of slow fire eliminates any effectiveness for ranged combat.

[KamikOzzy]

I played, it's worse than 1.1, and here's why:  Slanted edges now have wild-ass vertical force. It feels like you're playing on a trickjump server, and it makes it difficult to roam about with a goon. 

People think they need to build barricades now because of their new functionality. Note to grangers: They still suck, they still block.  Dretch headbites do less damage, eliminated the bite-poison kill, and also have less health.

Dretches lose to rifles in 1.1, so if anything, they should be made more powerful in 1.2, not less. Increased speed is supposed to help but it just makes it more difficult to stay locked on to a headshot, similar to during a mara jump in 1.1. this problem is magnified by the slant-edge thing I spoke of before. Supposedly they're harder to hit, but I didn't see anyone good missing any shots. 

For whatever reason, boost has changed to a +button. This eliminates the ability to bind the back key and only the back key to boost. I use alwayssprint and it's fine for me, but I heard others complain. 

The lucifer cannon is now retarded. It fires much faster but takes longer to charge, which kills what it does best: take out a base quickly, and makes it a better spam tool for killing aliens. It also makes it more difficult to perform the lucy hop, which is used in a million situations before, and almost none now.

Reposted, I've already been quoted, anyway

[kevlarman]

Dretch headbites do less damage, eliminated the bite-poison kill, and also have less health. Dretches lose to rifles in 1.1, so if anything, they should be made more powerful in 1.2, not less.

+1

not to mention the boost, I rebound it once, and then it was borked on normal servers.

normal clients have per mod configs for a reason, go bitch at amanieu for removing them.

[your face]

Well I won't, okay.

[Amanieu]

Binds in Tremfusion are per-mod...

[FreaK]

Reposted, I've already been quoted, anyway

+1 agree with all of that

[amz181]

I played, it's worse than 1.1, and here's why:  Slanted edges now have wild-ass vertical force. It feels like you're playing on a trickjump server, and it makes it difficult to roam about with a goon. 

People think they need to build barricades now because of their new functionality. Note to grangers: They still suck, they still block.  Dretch headbites do less damage, eliminated the bite-poison kill, and also have less health.

Dretches lose to rifles in 1.1, so if anything, they should be made more powerful in 1.2, not less. Increased speed is supposed to help but it just makes it more difficult to stay locked on to a headshot, similar to during a mara jump in 1.1. this problem is magnified by the slant-edge thing I spoke of before. Supposedly they're harder to hit, but I didn't see anyone good missing any shots. 

For whatever reason, boost has changed to a +button. This eliminates the ability to bind the back key and only the back key to boost. I use alwayssprint and it's fine for me, but I heard others complain. 

The lucifer cannon is now retarded. It fires much faster but takes longer to charge, which kills what it does best: take out a base quickly, and makes it a better spam tool for killing aliens. It also makes it more difficult to perform the lucy hop, which is used in a million situations before, and almost none now.

Reposted, I've already been quoted, anyway

i agree with nearly all of that. Seriously, i may stop playing trem if anything with similar balance changes ever sees the light of day.

what, i ask you, was wrong with the current balance. Yes, maybe aliens win more, but is that a problem? I mean when i play as aliens or humans, i always have intense fun, and i find the game to be competitive until the last moment, and the fact that you may be beaten a few times more than often, did not distract from the fun of the game.

The new balance changes are terrible, sorry but its true. It is inaccesable to new users (as trem is a hard game to learn to play, and now it is even harder thanks to the balance changes) and really takes all the fun out of it.

I would be much happier if tremulous 1.2 just kept the same balance as 1.1

[your face]

Indeed, humans would win more anyways with teamwork.

[Norfenstein]

Game in 5 minutes on the Euro server (edev.tremulous.net).

I have a half-written reply to KamikOzzy I'll finish and post after we play.

[Norfenstein]

Slanted edges now have wild-ass vertical force. It feels like you're playing on a trickjump server, and it makes it difficult to roam about with a goon.

I have no idea what you're talking about here; could you maybe describe a situation I could reproduce this in 1.1 and 1.2 to compare and understand?

Dretch headbites do less damage, eliminated the bite-poison kill, and also have less health.

Dretches lose to rifles in 1.1, so if anything, they should be made more powerful in 1.2, not less. Increased speed is supposed to help but it just makes it more difficult to stay locked on to a headshot, similar to during a mara jump in 1.1.

Dretches "losing to rifles" is a subjective (and unsubstantiated) claim, so it's not usable feedback without further explanation. The problems you're having might be solved by using a different strategy with the dretch.

To summarize the dretch changes:
Improvements

• Dretch hitbox is smaller -- the model is bigger, so they look bigger, but they're actually harder to hit now, which makes a much bigger difference then you might think.
  
• Dretches are worth fewer credits, so "feeding" with them is less of a drain on your team. Stage points are also no longer based on kills but on credits (for both teams -- there's a conversion for alien frags) so you're also not helping humans stage up faster.
• Dretch has faster movement speed. If this can somehow be considered a downside, then would making them slower in 1.1 have been an improvement? I can't follow that logic.

Downgrades

• Dretches do less damage per bite, with a 200ms longer delay between bites. It still takes two headshots to kill an unhelemeted human without a bsuit, just like in 1.1, but the strategy of killing humans has moved away from closing distance and circle strafing while doing headshots to slightly more of a hit and run deal. In 1.1 if a human had 96 or less health (one bullet from a teammate, or 4 points of falling damage, etc.) then they could be killed in one hit by a dretch. It seemed unreasonable to me for humans to need their medkits after taking just 4 points of damage in order to survive a future encounter with the aliens' ostensibly weakest class.
• Dretch health has been reduced from 25 to 20. That's one less rifle bullet they can survive, but with the their smaller hitbox and faster movement speed I can't agree that this was a bad change. Remember that dretches are a free class that aren't worth enough to humans for them to buy more than a shotgun, or a painsaw with light armour.

Apologies if I forgot anything. I think to some degree people are upset about the dretch changes because they preferred using dretches over some of the higher alien classes 1.1. This alone was anecdotal evidence to me that dretches were overpowered, but the higher classes will be more worthwhile in 1.2 so you shouldn't be so disinclined to evolve to something better anymore.

The lucifer cannon is now retarded. It fires much faster but takes longer to charge, which kills what it does best: take out a base quickly, and makes it a better spam tool for killing aliens. It also makes it more difficult to perform the lucy hop, which is used in a million situations before, and almost none now.

It takes the same amount of time to charge if you charge it fully, which has made it less spammy and not any more difficult to luci jump with, so I really don't understand where you're coming from with this. And I only regularly use luci-jumping in one situation (on ATCS), not "in a million situations". Maybe you're playing on different maps than I am, and I'd be interested to know which ones I haven't been exposed to yet that are fun and balanced (and preferably not symmetric).

what, i ask you, was wrong with the current balance. Yes, maybe aliens win more, but is that a problem? I mean when i play as aliens or humans, i always have intense fun, and i find the game to be competitive until the last moment, and the fact that you may be beaten a few times more than often, did not distract from the fun of the game.

The new balance changes are terrible, sorry but its true. It is inaccesable to new users (as trem is a hard game to learn to play, and now it is even harder thanks to the balance changes) and really takes all the fun out of it.

I could list dozens of things wrong with 1.1 balance, both objective and subjective, but they wouldn't change your opinion. Calling the new changes terrible is an opinion, so it can't be either true or false; it's just how you feel. I disagree that we've made the game less accessible to new users because I think we've simplified more things than we've complicated (and what you see on the MGDev server doesn't include UI additions that will make some of the new complexities more intuitive). What I'm thinking of when I say we've simplified things include some very esoteric facets of the game that give advantages to people that have an extremely deep knowledge of the game -- I've tried to remove things like that wherever possible. I'm interested to know what people specifically think will make 1.2 less accessible than 1.1.

Seriously, i may stop playing trem if anything with similar balance changes ever sees the light of day.

I would be much happier if tremulous 1.2 just kept the same balance as 1.1

I fully expect to see a "Classic Trem" mod come out post-1.2. I just hope whoever gets together to create it doesn't do so out of a feeling of betrayal by the core developers, but out of an understanding that 1.1 wasn't the complete form of Tremulous that we wanted, and in the time between releases all of you have had to guess at what that more complete form would be. Some of you may disagree that anything needed changing, probably quite a lot will have expected or wanted different things, but the project is open source for this very reason. We started developing Tremulous (and hopefully sooner rather than later we will finish it to our satisfaction) and are taking it in our direction, but there's nothing stopping any of you from using it according to the terms of the license it's been released with. In my personal opinion, however, I wouldn't think too highly of such a project until 1.2 has actually been released and everyone has had a month or two to actually get acclimated to the changes.

[mooseberry]

I have to disagree with amz, and say the opposite. I think this is too dumbed down, to the point where it's kinda stupid. Alright, a luci charge bar is nice and all, but a rant charge bar is basically pointless, and come on... a pounce bar....? Does even the noobies noob need this?

Fast luci spam seems horrible to me. Maybe if you made charged luci shots move *slightly* faster, that could be good, but these new luci shots can out speed a dretch (I think) maybe not, but definitely a granger, which just seems wrong.

Adv mara, while extremely fun, is just.... well dumb. This will get noobs excited. Oh boy, a weapon you don't even have to aim! As proved several times on the dev server, if you can get 3 other teammates to adv mara rush with you, not even the best bases even come close to standing a chance, what with this shock lighting and slow turrets.

I'm still trying to decide how I feel about alien regen too. The regen away from creep just seems unbearably slow. I get that it's supposed to be more hit and run, but how is hit, run, wait 5 min for health to get back to full, than hit again fun?

Also, I'm not liking the slowly give back bp after destruction idea. I know this is supposed to reward attackers, but being the last builder to escape and having points slowly trickle back ruins being able to rebuild just about.

I had some other points too, but I forgot them, I'll let you know if I remember them. I would appreciate if you tell some of your thoughts on some of the changes, I'd like to know what you think.

[kevlarman]

Slanted edges now have wild-ass vertical force. It feels like you're playing on a trickjump server, and it makes it difficult to roam about with a goon.

I have no idea what you're talking about here; could you maybe describe a situation I could reproduce this in 1.1 and 1.2 to compare and understand?

in 1.1 jumping was simply setting velocity[2] to a constant (inherited from quake3), in svn (note that this wasn't an mgdev change, if lakitu7 had updated his game.qvm to recent svn instead of keeping it at 966, this would be on most servers) a jump is done by adding the normal vector times a constant to the velocity (note that wallwalkers always had these physics, and people have noticed and (ab)used it in 1.1)

[Bissig]

--- snip ---

Also, I'm not liking the slowly give back bp after destruction idea. I know this is supposed to reward attackers, but being the last builder to escape and having points slowly trickle back ruins being able to rebuild just about.

--- snip ---

I disagree. This will prevent the dreaded egg spam upon base destruction on maps like Karith and Arachnid2. Trying to find the last and final egg on Arachnid2 and the freaking Granger that is running around spamming OMs and eggs is a boring nuisance.

[Lakitu7]

RE: Things I didn't quote:

Like Norf I'm still waiting to hear what's been made more complicated that outdoes the list of things that have been made less complicated.

I've yet to see evidence for new barricades still sucking. I've also yet to be blocked by then, even with a tyrant. Yes you shouldn't do something stupid like build them in front of the window room door in niveus, but overall they are a good idea in many/most bases and don't block anything, even tyrants. If you think otherwise your builder was not very used to how to use them yet.

I have to disagree with amz, and say the opposite. I think this is too dumbed down, to the point where it's kinda stupid. Alright, a luci charge bar is nice and all, but a rant charge bar is basically pointless, and come on... a pounce bar....? Does even the noobies noob need this?

Fast luci spam seems horrible to me. Maybe if you made charged luci shots move *slightly* faster, that could be good, but these new luci shots can out speed a dretch (I think) maybe not, but definitely a granger, which just seems wrong.

Adv mara, while extremely fun, is just.... well dumb. This will get noobs excited. Oh boy, a weapon you don't even have to aim! As proved several times on the dev server, if you can get 3 other teammates to adv mara rush with you, not even the best bases even come close to standing a chance, what with this shock lighting and slow turrets.

I'm still trying to decide how I feel about alien regen too. The regen away from creep just seems unbearably slow. I get that it's supposed to be more hit and run, but how is hit, run, wait 5 min for health to get back to full, than hit again fun?

Also, I'm not liking the slowly give back bp after destruction idea. I know this is supposed to reward attackers, but being the last builder to escape and having points slowly trickle back ruins being able to rebuild just about.

I had some other points too, but I forgot them, I'll let you know if I remember them. I would appreciate if you tell some of your thoughts on some of the changes, I'd like to know what you think.

Rant charge bar is actually fairly necessary as you would know by the number of people screwing it up before that went in, were you around for it. Hell, even in 1.1 where it's more simple in the first place I can count on one hand the number of players I've seen actually use trample to its full potential and most of them got it from my tutoring. A pounce bar is fairly useless yes but eh, why not? Custom HUDs exist for picky complaints like that.

If Adv. Mara is to good, then demonstrate it by coming and owning everyone with it. Then you'll see it get changed quickly. This already happened once with St. Anger and maras vs. humans. If you can't do this then your claim is invalid.

I don't know if you've noticed, but aliens can move very quickly! In fact, unless you're playing the largest of maps, you can get back to the base within 10 seconds from anywhere on the map. Personally I enjoy moving around more than sitting still anyway, so it works out to be a more active and exciting gameplay experience this way.

BP-regen is the newest tentative change so it's still being worked on heavily. That said, preventing egghunts, which are generally cited as a horrible and unfun part of 1.1, is a solution, not a problem. However, I do think that perhaps once BP-regen is solidified we could consider returning Granger speed to not be so slow, since regen should prevent egghunts sufficiently to no longer warrant such a lack of mobility too. Norf?

Norf I'd like for you to come play with me some time and I can explain what I mean.

As for the vertical force: play the map Niveus and watch as you slide around on the edges.

As for the dretch dying: I'm not talking about me dying as a dretch, Im talking about no dretch ever getting close to me. My strategy is not the error.

I agree with your point on the dretch speed. We've become so used to the speed we have than a change in either direction is like setting your mouse sens to something you arent used to. However, in the long run it will be beneficial to have the extra speed.

I still disagree with the lessening of the dretch headshot, since it just gave a sense of panic when I first started playing the game that made the game not boring. Also, I like the bite+poison kill, its one of the few things that can snag some evos off hardcore campers. And you must realize for anyone that can dodge, it makes it take three headshots, not two.

I also still disagree with the lessening of the dretch's HP, since shotgun tears it apart even if you have shitty aim.

My views on the dretch may be biased to "pro" players, because I'm envisioning a scrim situation. Even 4 dretches together can't take down a couple rifles.

Lucy jump = all the time. To get up into a base "lucy hop" or to get to the top of the middle and catch a running goon, or jump over a rant in hall, or cover a large distance quickly to get on the other side of a fleeing enemy. I'd love to personally show you this.

Another lucifer tactic is to fire a shot and walk with it as sort of a shield against goons. This can no longer be done.

What I mean by it being a better spam weapon, is when you come around the corner to h base, and see a full blast lucy in your face, you can get your ass out of there in 1.1. In 1.2 it's prolly gonna hit ya.

I think that if trem was really improving from the changes made(so far as what we've seen, that is), we wouldn't need this topic.

Kev explained the only thing I'm aware of regarding "vertical force." I'll have to look for what you're talking about as it doesn't sound like that's what you mean anymore.

Dretches are supposed to be worse, yes. They were overpowered and now they're not. Dieing more often as a dretch has been made less detrimental to your team so OMG FEEDING DRETCHES is actually less of an issue. I'm still uncertain about the changes to headshots myself, but so far I haven't been unhappy with the dretch. I think you're underestimating the effects of the hitbox sizes. You also haven't played dretch v shotty very much if you haven't noticed that shotty is significantly worse at one-shotting dretches due to the changes to it.

Luci isn't as good because it was a bit too good in certain situations. Did anyone *really* like watching newbs spam down the hall? That can't really happen anymore, which is certainly a good thing. However, none of our regular player set is a particularly devoted luci jumper in more than the "that one place on that one map" sense. I know what you mean, but it's not in my style so I can't demonstrate it very well. Show Norf what you're talking about and make a point. This is a reason why we have such a topic: we need players of different styles and skillsets to try things out and comment.

By your logic of "1.2 balance sucks because we need a topic to ask people to play it," 1.1 balance also sucks because we have far more people playing on X etc. than anything resembling it. As such, there are changes, and this topic.

[Norfenstein]

and come on... a pounce bar....? Does even the noobies noob need this?

I completely disagree with the standpoint that we should hide useful information that doesn't otherwise hurt the gameplay. Both the tyrant and charge bar show useful information that make the game less esoteric (more accessible).

As proved several times on the dev server, if you can get 3 other teammates to adv mara rush with you, not even the best bases even come close to standing a chance, what with this shock lighting and slow turrets.

Actually, if you've been playing recently you may have noticed a group of four higher-class aliens of any type can wreck most any human base. This is just teamwork you're talking about (also, try the teslas, they're improved over 1.1 and rather unfriendly to marauders). And to be honest, I haven't been completely satisfied with any of the iterations of the zap we've gone through. I have one more idea in mind, but changing it again at this point is an extremely low priority. And the current zap is only better than the slash when you have several targets (such as in a base) -- against actual humans it's almost always better to headslash.

I get that it's supposed to be more hit and run, but how is hit, run, wait 5 min for health to get back to full, than hit again fun?

The point of it was to even out the disparity in base-dependence between the teams. In 1.1 "hit-and-run" meant killing a turret then camping outside the human base until you had more health to do it again. Now (unless the aliens are using teamwork in the form of a basi or forward booster) aliens can actually be repelled by human defenders (which incidentally gives them a chance to leave their base and stop "camping!"). If you're choosing to sit around where your regen is 1/9 of what it could be (if a booster or advanced basilisk is available) then you're doing something wrong; as Lakitu said, aliens move quickly.

Lucy jump = all the time.

So did you not do this with fully charged blasts? Or did you have to do them in quick succession with smaller charges? Because that's all that's changed: you can't shoot half-charged shots more quickly than fully charged shots anymore. And in my experience this HAS signfiicantly cut down on luci spam (by which I mean effectively sealing off a hallway by continually shooting luci balls), so I wouldn't agree that it's a net loss.

BP-regen is the newest tentative change so it's still being worked on heavily. That said, preventing egghunts, which are generally cited as a horrible and unfun part of 1.1, is a solution, not a problem. However, I do think that perhaps once BP-regen is solidified we could consider returning Granger speed to not be so slow, since regen should prevent egghunts sufficiently to no longer warrant such a lack of mobility too. Norf?

The point of slowly-returning-build-points isn't to prevent egghunts (I thought we were successful enough doing that by making grangers slow); it's to enable waves of attacks to be successful against the enemy base. If a map is too large, then, without this, an entire base can be completely rebuilt/repaired by the time a second wave of attackers arrive. But it does also make egg spamming harder, so maybe we could up the granger speed a little. Thanks for the idea Lakitu.

You also haven't played dretch v shotty very much if you haven't noticed that shotty is significantly worse at one-shotting dretches due to the changes to it.

I initially (long, long ago) changed the number of pellets and damage per each to make the shotgun better at killing dretches (while retaining the same damage per second overall). Do you really think that change had the opposite effective?

Norf I'd like for you to come play with me some time and I can explain what I mean.

Next Saturday, ping me in #tremulous or #mercenariesguild and we can hop on the dev server an hour early (19:00 UTC, 14:00 EST), and/or find a (minimally modified) 1.1 server to compare with.


The best way to influence changes in 1.2 is to play the game with me and show me why things should be different. And make polite, reasoned arguments for your viewpoints (sort of like we're doing here, but with more playing on the test server).

[kevlarman]

However, none of our regular player set is a particularly devoted luci jumper in more than the "that one place on that one map" sense.

*ahem*
luci has always been one of my favorite weapons, and i have no problems with the current version (ok, maybe the secondary repeat could come down a little, or just bring back the first revision of luci on trem.tjw.org (1.1 + 700ups + 60 ammo) ). luci jumping is no more difficult with the current version than the 1.1 version (other than a slight difference in timing)

[Lakitu7]

Lucy jump = all the time.

So did you not do this with fully charged blasts? Or did you have to do them in quick succession with smaller charges? Because that's all that's changed: you can't shoot half-charged shots more quickly than fully charged shots anymore. And in my experience this HAS signfiicantly cut down on luci spam (by which I mean effectively sealing off a hallway by continually shooting luci balls), so I wouldn't agree that it's a net loss.

BP-regen is the newest tentative change so it's still being worked on heavily. That said, preventing egghunts, which are generally cited as a horrible and unfun part of 1.1, is a solution, not a problem. However, I do think that perhaps once BP-regen is solidified we could consider returning Granger speed to not be so slow, since regen should prevent egghunts sufficiently to no longer warrant such a lack of mobility too. Norf?

The point of slowly-returning-build-points isn't to prevent egghunts (I thought we were successful enough doing that by making grangers slow); it's to enable waves of attacks to be successful against the enemy base. If a map is too large, then, without this, an entire base can be completely rebuilt/repaired by the time a second wave of attackers arrive. But it does also make egg spamming harder, so maybe we could up the granger speed a little. Thanks for the idea Lakitu.

You also haven't played dretch v shotty very much if you haven't noticed that shotty is significantly worse at one-shotting dretches due to the changes to it.

I initially (long, long ago) changed the number of pellets and damage per each to make the shotgun better at killing dretches (while retaining the same damage per second overall). Do you really think that change had the opposite effective?

From what I know of (mostly playing against) it, it's kind of a WHENEVER thing. In a duel of luci v goon or luci v rant, luci will use use luci jump basically like dodge in order to do damage + move in any direction including directly over the goon. Rant swipe time is certainly less than luci charge time, so partial charges are frequently used. If used to move back, then it can be followed by running backwards while spamming back to prevent the chase. One could argue that much of the duel functionality has been replaced by dodge (though without also doing damage) and that the spam-retreats were too good anyway, but admittedly dodge is less fun/leet . I do feel like it was more fun to play *against* luci (aforementioned spamming newbs excepted) in 1.1 because there was a skill in dodging them that's difficult-impossible now, but I have no idea how these things could be brought back without also bringing back spam-down-the-hall newbs, which are detrimental enough that it's probably worth the sacrifice.

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the DIRECT AND ONLY PURPOSE of bp-regen is preventing egghunts. Yes, it's definitely designed to generally reduce stalemates and don't-bother-attacking-until-SD type gameplay. Still, nobody really *enjoys* the granger speed nerfs, so I hope the balance works out such that we can put it back partially.

Logically the shotgun SHOULD be better with the changes you made but it unquantifiably felt like a nerf to me vs dretch at the time. Still it's a "feel" sort of thing so more opinions are welcome. Honestly though shotgun was a little too good for its price in 1.1 and dretches needed the help, so I never complained much. Also I admit that I haven't reevaluated this recently with successive changes to dretches (speed) so it may no longer be the case and I retract my harshness and matter-of-factness in declaring it worse.

[amz181]

all of the things that youve said are well founded, and i can see where you are coming from, though i still dont agree. But i shall follow along for now.

One thing i will say, which definetly needs to be reverted or reviewed, no matter what viewpoint you have. The luci. I, a player who is rather terrible at trem, especially on the MGdev server (pro players ), can get a load of kills when i get my hands on a luci with armour. I can easily get my credz back to 2000 even if i face some of the more skilled players, it too easy, it should be considered a cheat. The 1.1 luci was fine as it was... Insanely powerful, but slow to fire. Massive spread, but slow fire rate. Even in 1.1 you can regain your credz by merely killing drecthes, or taking down goons. It needed no tinkering as it was a very balanced weapon to start off with. If it was so detrimental to the hummies, why is it the most popular weapon then? Its not like the flamer, which could be very useful but is let down by too harsh of a recoil, and so clearly needs revision.

Moose> I was not talking about those things. Im talking about the fact that the learning curve for trem has become extremely steep with the proposed 1.2 changes. Humans, not so, but aliens... Ozzy made a very good point about the dretches, it is extremely hard for a newbish player like me to gain a kill, with the current speed. The devs, are clearly skilled players, and thus, are clearly blinded towards how hard it is for the less skilled players of trem, you may find it easy to kill at the current dretch speed, but i do not. Furthermore, a seemingly idiotic change (sorry if im turning a little rude, or rantish, but i really cant get my head around the supidity of it). No poison kill? Why? It is the only way for a person joining a game at s3 to get a kill. It really helps new people get kills. It helps me to get kills as a dretch. And yet it was removed.

My points arent nessacarily about balance, but the fun factor. No matter what the outcome of a game in trem, i nearly always have fun. With MGdev, i dont. I find myself getting annoyed at the fact i feed so much, that i cant get past dretch, and that when i do, i cant get kills because the hit window has been reduced to much, or at S3 i just have to run when a luci comes, or i die. And then, when playing as hummies, its the opposite. You know when you use a cheat in a game, it doesnt really seem that fun anymore. Thats exactly what i feel when i have luci helmet armour.

I suppose we'll never know till 1.2, though im pretty sure this will be bad for trem.

Can i make a suggestion, If after 1.2 is released, the trem population isnt inclined to the balance changes, can we count on a 1.2.1, as i feel a 1.1 mod would just minimise the amount of players.   

[Cadynum]

@Lakitu: Yeah, the shotgun was way too god for it's price in 1.1, but instead of making it worse, how about an appropriate increase in price?

Random idea regarding the mara zap: How about making it do 0 damage, and instead make it slow down / incapacitate turrets and other structures?
Some examples:
¤ Turrets will fire slower, or
¤ Turrets will take even longer to "lock on and fire", or
¤ The first turret in the zap chain will cease to work completely, the next will fire at 1/3 of the normal speed, the 2nd 2/3 etc.
¤ Disrupt the defense computer's warning system, allowing for a sneaky attack.
This would really promote teamwork in attacking.

[kevlarman]

shotgun wasn't significantly nerfed (it lost 8 damage very recently), the dretch's bounding box got buffed, making it impossible to instantly kill any dretch approaching you before it got a chance to bite you (now, the dretch is still dead most likely, but it's guaranteed at least one hit on you)

[temple]

I don't get the dretch changes.  It is harder to hit dretches but yet dretches have a harder time killing people.  It seems like you making it impossible for new players to survive and succeed at stage 1.  Unlagged goes a long way in balancing out dretches in terms of their effectiveness.  But I don't see how the human team says the same but the alien team is where the changes are made.

Dretches can't be played hit and run or as skirmish enemies (like maras). Dretches have to kill or be killed.  Medikits and ranged weapons (later helmets) make hit run nil for dretches.  Sure, I don't like get swarmed by dretches or pecked to death by a persistent dretch but that's the reward for working hard.  I hate to see the stage 1 match ups with the new dretches versus a human with decent aim.

And personally, I think alien regen really tilts the game heavily on the human side.  Any human that chases is pretty much guaranteed a kill.  Couple that with helmets and attacking the human base is suicide.  As stated in the past, if you nerf regen you have to buff health for aliens.

[kevlarman]

I don't get the dretch changes.  It is harder to hit dretches but yet dretches have a harder time killing people.  It seems like you making it impossible for new players to survive and succeed at stage 1.  Unlagged goes a long way in balancing out dretches in terms of their effectiveness.  But I don't see how the human team says the same but the alien team is where the changes are made.

Dretches can't be played hit and run or as skirmish enemies (like maras). Dretches have to kill or be killed.  Medikits and ranged weapons (later helmets) make hit run nil for dretches.  Sure, I don't like get swarmed by dretches or pecked to death by a persistent dretch but that's the reward for working hard.  I hate to see the stage 1 match ups with the new dretches versus a human with decent aim.

And personally, I think alien regen really tilts the game heavily on the human side.  Any human that chases is pretty much guaranteed a kill.  Couple that with helmets and attacking the human base is suicide.  As stated in the past, if you nerf regen you have to buff health for aliens.

there have been plenty of versions where aliens, even with nerfed regen, were overpowered (like the one where two +goons could take out a human base easily even with 6 or more campers defending it)

[Nux]

I just hope you're not changing too many things at once. If you're having trouble finding a balance, you might want to try making smaller changes.

It's quite easy to make a new trem that only the newbies and the oldies that made it care about because that'll be the trem they adjust to. If you can make a trem that a large portion of the oldies care about too then you will have accomplished something. To do this it needs to still be fun after 'mastering' it.

The slow, no-aim-zap marauder tells me the focus isn't on us older players who enjoy the swift mara and who know when to use the zap, but is instead on the newer players who would prefer to spam an auto-aim attack to the extent that the secondary moves is used more than the primary. It's as clever and comfortable as strapping a tesla generator to your back.

In fact all the alien secondary attacks have become very easy to use/spam. Compare how easily the basi slows humans with gas to the granger spit. There's the auto-aiming mara zap and the splash damage barbs or the easy-charge trample.

Personally, I just don't like these things being dumbed down. To end this on a positive note, I like the human dodge change because it gives something to master rather than taking it away. That and it's just FAST (more fast please).

Additional note: Please don't sacrifice what makes the game fun in order to try and balance humans and aliens. I personally don't mind a bit of bias if having the disadvantage can still be fun.

[Norfenstein]

Game in 15 minutes on the US server (dev.tremulous.net).