shazam!

[killjoy]

ok here are some of my suggestions that i have  thought up recently and others that i have seen on the boards and liked:

1) adv basilisk:   move this to s1, since in s2 humans will have better         weapons and helmets, advancements which make sneaking up on people really hard. also increase their attack power.. i remember grabbing someone with light armor from the back and hitting them for literally 20 swings and had to run because another human came. Another solution to increasing their attack power would be to give them a bonus to damage when attacking the back of a human instead. (hey, in halo the back is a 1 hit kill =).


2) adv dragoons: dont mess with them.


3) trappers: make the trapper spit travel faster.. it's really easy to dodge this by simply running through a door fast.


4) flamethrowers: decrease their attack power or increase the damage it does to the human (it does 100 at close range
   to aliens, but 1 or 2 to humans). also make the gas run out faster.


5) painsaw: little more range plx.


6) luci cannon: i liked the charge up sounds idea. make it a little smaller range than the tyrant sounds.


7) make the human bullets travel faster. they are bullets. they should move 250 m/s or however fast a bullet should travel.
   its too hard to not only target a fast moving alien, but also to lead them so that they will get hit.


9) human turrets: human base camping has got to stop. the only thing i can think of that would keep their defences
   defenses, and not hugely nerf them would be to make the turrets have a lock-on time. this would be a 1-2 second
   time where turrets didn't attack anything and after they can instantly attack the nearest target. it would have a 1
   second cool down between each target. this would help because if a human is camping on top of the turrets, an
   alien could kill the human and get out before dying (if they are good). either that or make it so turrets further
   away from reactors have less attack power than those closer to one.


10) jetpacks: make them have gas/energy like weapons do. OR: increase ammount they fall by when struck in air
   by 20% and see #11.



11) gliders: a new alien class reachable in s2. would have low health like a adv basilisk and could jump high (after charging
   it up for about 3 sec) then glide (would be like flying with the wing hat in mario 64)  until gravity took them down.
   they could attack but in the air their attacks are weakened (would do about 20 damage to a human with helmet and light
   armor). their main purpose is just to knock humans out of air.


12) helmets: prolly best piece of equipment for humans. it decreases headshot damage too much though. a marauder headshot
   will do 80 damage to unprotected human and 24 to one with a helmet. that means 5 headshots to kill a human as
   marauder. i think the helmet should crack or break after 1-2 headshots and then need to be replaced, because
   headshots are headshots.


13) damage: add headshots for aliens. and allow them to be hit in the same manor humans can. as far as i know a dragoon
   takes the same damage from a leg shot as a body shot. alien headshots would not do as much damage as a human headshot since most alien heads are built into the alien and they are already armored all over.


these are just some ideas that i and others have thought of they obviously need to be tweeked or scrapped.
suggestions welcome.



edit: took out stage 4 idea because it sucked. added more to #13

[kozak6]

Hmm, interesting ideas.

About number 7....

There are air rifles that shoot faster than 250 m/s.  I own one myself, actually.

But I digress.  Bullets hit instantly, as they are a hitscan weapon.

The problem you are probably experiencing is lag.

EDIT: Removed a section, as I didn't read the whole post.

[Rekov]

Some of these idea are pretty good. I dont much like the S4 idea tho.

I really like the idea of a glider alien. I am kindof new at this, but when a human is on a jetpack i normally just run, cause when i wallwalk and try to land on them i always miss.

[Neo]

1) Would be interesting to see what moving it to s1 would do, but it might just be worth dropping it and making a new, more useful class.


4) imho human self-damage should be increased, maybe making it have a seperate damage counter than everything else.

5) unlikely as its been toned down several times.

7) As said above, bullets are isntant hit, so theoretically travel near the speed of light, kinda ironic seeing how slow the pulse rifle fires

8 ) S4 is unlikely for the time being, an idea would be to have a larger scale conflict, like Warhammer epic compared to 40k.
 
9) turrets have a turn speed so they take a short time to acquire a target, though I agree on limitting them somehow so they aren't the wall of death that humans typically rely on them for.

10) i'd say make it a limitted fuel item, but faster moving. So its more for evasion and travel than a 'hah hah you can't get me' kind of thing.

11) wouldn't be much point if they're only for attacking jetpackers, as in every level apart from atcs you can get at them with regular aliens.

12) for the benefits they bring helmets should be tweaked, either in price/damage reduction.

13) not sure how this would work fairly, as it is suprisingly easy to kill aliens as it is.

[Vector_Matt]

Some of these idea are pretty good. I dont much like the S4 idea tho.

I really like the idea of a glider alien. I am kindof new at this, but when a human is on a jetpack i normally just run, cause when i wallwalk and try to land on them i always miss.

The devs have decided (and many people agree) no flying aliens (or gliding ones), and the s4 thing, humans usualy stage up faster than aliens, so that would increase the number of human wins. Lock on time, if you make the turrets like that it will encorage camping because the turrets will be much weaker, and thus less able do defend the base that humans rely on.

[Stof]

Don't nerf helmets ! Humans are useless without them until they get the bs.

[IFinland]

1) adv basilisk: Adv basilisks, don't differ much from normal basilisks than with bigger health and the poison cloud. Those things I do think give the title advanced to basilisk. And who said that basilisks are bad? I've killed sooo many humans with it's grapple that I cannot even image that I've done it. Basilisks are better aliens than many have thought, their grapple is incredibly useful. If a human scouts alone, it's almost a free kill. This excludes people with the battlesuit of course.

2) adv dragoons: Mess with them.

3) trappers: Useful defense, should just be located so that when humans shoot the acid pots down, then the trapper has time to grapple.

4) flamethrowers: Agreed, more damage to self and should shoot more further.

5) painsaw: Only for experienced players.

6) luci cannon: Could be interesting, if it just wouldn't be 'high-pitch' so that it doesn't hurt ears everytime you charge a lucifer cannon.

7) Bullets: I think the big reason is the delay between of your computer/connection and the server. Atleast I have no problem at all with rifle.

8 ) Stage 4: Now this is where you need to play as a team, the end game. Usually if humans just camp, they end up dead because of it. You do know that few tyrants and adv goons do bad things?

9) human turrets: I know the human base camping is annoying, but it is easily crushed if something breaks. More alternative turrets like a "Mass Driver Turret" (with reduced power [otherwise it's too good] ) would be interesting.

10) jetpacks: These things have already plans on. They will have energy.
Suggestion: The thing when human jumps repeatedly 3 times and goes 'exhausted'... should be enabled to jetpacks after shooting with mass driver or lucifer.

11) gliders: Not a good idea, Have you tried to jump with adv goonie?
You'll catch even the jetties in atcs with adv goon. Alternative suggestion for this I'd add would be that adv grangers wouldn't be that fat, but more speed and agile look. - But no flying aliens.

12) helmets: Realism. But to think is as true realistic opinion, those helmets wouldn't break after few head blows. A bike helmet doesn't break after you fall few times does it? It's maybe damaged but not broken. But IMO, these things should have some tweaks. (And yes I'm still whining about invisibility for non-moving stretches)

13) damage: Aliens are pretty easy to kill with the weapons that exist now. If you just load a full charge lucifer into a tyrant, that tyrant will be dead meat. I've experienced it several times with a full health tyrant. As well for other human weapons, aliens are pretty easy kills.


Conclusion: Imho, you need more experience in playing Tremulous with both humans and aliens because the gameplay is quite balanced. But I also want to see new material on both sides... more options. But after all, much depends on the players. As for example, AFK players aren't much useful are they? Hehe, yeah they aren't and that could be sometimes the reason to defeat. This is team-based game, and that's what it is. Tremulous ftw.

[Stof]

Side note : Adv Grangers need a nerf, not an agility boost ! The pending of an annoying unbreakable human base is the endless egg hunts in midsized maps that sometimes happen when humans get the upper hand. Both are as bad as the other in my opinion ( they only delay the end of a map in a boring repetitve way for the attacking camp )

[|Nex|TrEmMa]

1) I think changing the special attack so it affects s2 H with helmets might help (maybe a long range web shot, hold em in place without touching?)

2) K.


3) Eh.


4) Only thing about flamer needing fixing is aliens getting killed behind the flamer :x


5) LOL


6) ?


7) How bout a heat sensor that locks on aliens for you? :p


8 ) It's bad enough when humans camp to s3 (and sometimes keep camping), but camping to s4?

9) If you want humans to leave their base, playing with turrets won't do much


10) Jetpacks don't bother me.  Most of the time they sky camp and are doing no damage to your base .  Uncreation being the obvious exception.


11) See above.


12) So if you got granger swiped in the dead two times you lsoe 90 credits? :p


13) Define aliends' heads.  And should it be fair to be rifled to death as a tyrant because your head is an easy target for a rifle?

[Quaoar]

I think an alien's ability to sprout up again is fundamentally important, but the end-games for the two camps are very distinct. Humans tend to lose in all-or-nothing defensive battles that end very quickly and leave no room for ifs or maybes. The precursors to the defeat (excessive camping and whatnot) may be apparent, but the actual final push might take a minute at most.

Sometimes, aliens can spring up again from a base death and play at full force. Sometimes they prolong the game 15-20 minutes because jetpackers keep getting their eggs and flamers keep killing the dretches, cause no one has evos but there is still a granger somewhere that just won't quit.

[Stof]

And about the cracking helmet, beeing some kind of ruthless mercenary ( who else would be mad enouth to go in infested alien places to clean up ? ), if I got such crap instead of vital equipment, my first priority would be to find all the contractors involved and kill them very painfully

[killjoy]

" How bout a heat sensor that locks on aliens for you? :p"
bullets. not plasma. not energy. bullets. only guns that use bullets are the rifle, shotgun, and chaingun (off the top of my head) and when a bullet takes a fourth a second to reach it's target that still makes it hard enough to aim.

" If you want humans to leave their base, playing with turrets won't do much "

that makes no sense... since humans camp ON the turrets.


"Jetpacks don't bother me.  Most of the time they sky camp and are doing no damage to your base .  Uncreation being the obvious exception."

well. jetpacks were made to counter dragoons. so why not have a counter to jetpaacks.


"So if you got granger swiped in the dead two times you lsoe 90 credits? :p"

HELL YES. if you get hit in the head by a granger ONCE you deserve to lose creds. and who is attacking wiht a granger anyways. i know it's an example but if you get hit in the head twice, and still dont go back to base, then the next headshot should be fatal.. think about it.. that's three headshots you would have taken by then. and 90 creds is not that much money.

"Define aliends' heads.  And should it be fair to be rifled to death as a tyrant because your head is an easy target for a rifle?"

the aliens head is best described as the head part on their body. much like a human. dretchs wouldn't have a head. marauder's head would be their faces. just use common sense man. and yes it's fair to hit a tyrant's head because if you can focus on aiming on the head while dodging a tyrant and whatnot, then you deserve to do a little more damage.

Conclusion: Imho, you need more experience in playing Tremulous with both humans and aliens because the gameplay is quite balanced. But I also want to see new material on both sides... more options. But after all, much depends on the players. As for example, AFK players aren't much useful are they? Hehe, yeah they aren't and that could be sometimes the reason to defeat. This is team-based game, and that's what it is. Tremulous ftw.

i'm plenty experienced... i just think this game is pretty unbalanced if you know how "exploit" the errors.

http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=25ze1.jpg

http://img119.imageshack.us/my.php?image=15cj1.jpg

http://img119.imageshack.us/my.php?image=36rx.jpg

notice they're all human.. it's hard to get a lot of kills as alien ;-)

[kozak6]

Bullets hit INSTANTLY.

They are even faster than bullets in real life.

The problem you are facing is lag.

You need to join a closer server.  Connect to a server that pings no greater than 100, and you will have an easier time.

I really really hate the idea of getting headshots on aliens.  Alien's heads tend to be on the front of their bodies.  Alien's mouths and claws tend to be on the front of their bodies.  So, you will rack up headshot after headshot on many attacking aliens simply because of that, whereas it takes some extra effort for an alien to get a headshot.

Aliens have it hard enough as it is, really, and they don't need that.

[killjoy]

then scratch that idea....



as for gliders.. i dont see them working now after thinking about it.. if you had them move fast in the air it would be too hard to control.. but if you had them move slowly then they would be too easy to target and shoot down. i read that jetpacks will have energy and if so that will rule


edit: ok i tested the bullets by hosting a server (0 ping woo ) and yeah they hit instantly.. even a good ping will make them lag a little though. i also tested accuracy too. crouching vs standing. i fired 2 clips from one side of ATCS or whatever it's called and it seems that they both hit in the center but also stray from the center in equal ammounts... so crouching does not increase your accuracy.

http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/6945/untitled7zh1.jpg
i hope you can see the bullets, i don't know how to increase the brightness on screenshots.. i'll host another one wth enhanced bullets if anyone wants it

[|Nex|TrEmMa]

notice they're all human.. it's hard to get a lot of kills as alien ;-)

And you're proposing to make it easier to kill aliens?
Also, the game isn't based around score.  Our good friend Cataclaw has shown us 150+ kill games in his high score thread which he has lost as a human.  Lot's of kills doesn't mean auto-win.

I said lock on bullets as a joke because they're easy enough to hit with as it is...

Most humans don't camp on the turrets, just around them, but changing defenses is not the correct approach if you want to fix human camping.

I don't see how jetpacks counter goons...  If they can get high enough to avoid dragoons, then the goons need not worry about the jetpacker.

I don't know why a granger would be attacking, but I guess you're assuming humans don't attack.  If a human attacked an alien base (:O), and that human was concerned only about structures, i could see a granger being able to swipe the human's head.  But I don't see much difference between helmets breaking, armor tearing, and guns getting bitten in half.  If one, why not the others...

The hitbox of an alien head would not be as easily defined as the humans...  Dretches are naturally aimed at the humans lowest amount of damage area.  Humans would be aimed directly at the most vulnerable part of an alien.
And they are aliens, who knows what the most sensitive part of their body is.  For all we know they could be able to regrow heads.  So basing it off humans would be a little wrong too.

[killjoy]

And you're proposing to make it easier to kill aliens?

lemme recap most of the points:

1) makes aliens stronger
2) ..
3) makes aliens stronger
4) humans weaker
5) joke
6) humans weaker
7) ..
8 ) ..
9) humans weaker
10) humans weaker
11) ..
12) humans weaker
13) humans stronger


note that almost all upgrades are PRO ALIEN not pro human. and i said in the previous post to scratch that idea anyway. humans are too strong as is (cept in s1 vs a good dragoon).