Nielsen

Everybody calm down please. Let me be as clear as I can about this issue: Yes the path is intentional, the water is intentional (swimming slows you down, makes you vulnerable), the invincibility that comes with the water however is not. So essentially it's functioning only partially as intended because the damage dealing is all screwed up. If I had my way you could kill someone in the water easily depending on the angle you shot them. Were the bullet passing through more water then it'd do less to damage. This may be too much to ask however so yeah this is how it is currently. Willing to compromise / change the map depending on what the best solution is. I don't know if we can do something about the water volume because that's a coding issue which is outside my abilities unfortunately. Alternatively I can always lower the water or get rid of it and think of some other barrier.

Ripped straight out of Warthunder but they themselves took a mechanic from Battlefield and improved upon it as far as I'm concerned. Playing some Warthunder recently and I like how efficient this system is. I think it would be a good idea to replace the awkward ctrl / alt scheme with the yellow text on screen to your left etc. -all bad UI stuff in it's own right- with this. (This would work in tandem with the current Q-spotting system, so Q on something would yield the same messages it does now since that's pretty efficient already.) Essentially it's a quick 2 step menu, you first choose the general section you want to be in: Attack, Defend, Answer, Report, Rush Attack you can find in the pictures below Defend would be roughly the same options. Answer would be stuff like "Affirmative" "Negative" and possible other responses. Report would house "Follow me, cover me, hold position etc." Rush would house "Rush Flame, Stealth, SBH, Character" Which means it's easier to organise your team and respond properly. Key combination: T (activate menu) 1, Attack, 1 = "Attack the harvester!" and so forth. T, 1, 5 (Attack the refinery!) The quick Photoshop hackjob: Your thoughts?

Since this is by my design let me explain where I'm coming from on this. The river is intended as a possible sneak route for GDI. There are a few containers placed around it to shield the swimmers from obelisk fire -for a time- however if Nod spots any swimmers they're usually easily dealt with since they can simply wait until they emerge and be killed. That said, Being completely invincible in the water is a bit of an annoyance, even in instances where the player should take damage (head above water etc.) they sometimes don't. I wish we had some sort of fix for this where the water would do a set % of damage reduction based on distance etc. but we don't. Currently I don't know if it's fixable at all short from removing the water. I'd like to keep it since I think it's a lot of fun and (imo) easily countered provided people are there to spot you. Same with the GDI bridge. (which can be well OP for GDI when properly defended) Goldrush is purposefully built to be the odd one out vs the Ren maps as a way of experimenting with design. And since not everything works please continue debating this issue if you have anything left to say, if the majority wants it changed I can look into that provided I have time.

What's your system specs epsilon?

Blame C&C 3 not TS. It's like the new Star Wars vs the old, there should be a regression in tech but because the prequels were made with CG and had more of a commercial looking design I guess for lack of a better term where everything was more shiny and well... designed. TS still has visuals of '80/90 SF-action films, maybe because they got to re-use some sets I don't know. But most of the sets were physical in nature, a big contrast with all of the C&C 3 sets which are mostly bluescreen. TS was a very interesting extrapolation of what would happen if Tiberium ruined the world and technology lept forward. Honestly, C&C 3 with the look it has should've been set between TD and TS instead of after imo. In any case C&C 3 was made afterwards and it was EA or that production team's choice not to adhere to the TS aesthetic and / or continue with the series in the same way. It's more of a harkening back to TD style but with modern graphics and some slicker design.

Topic moved to "Level Design Discussion"

Something I've learned personally is that maps with defenses are an absolute terror. The Obelisk is really tall and you'll have to place rocks everywhere to curb line of sight but also take care to give the obelisk enough time to fire otherwise it's ineffective. The AGT has a bunch of spikes and things which are part of the hitbox and you'll also have to take care not to have these exposed too much or at all. The AGT and Obelisk also operate differently with regards to killing inf / veh at different times. AGT was able to chew through infantry before, less so now but it's still a balancing nightmare between the buildings stats vs map design. Any future maps I'd be making -if any- would therefore be without defenses. I think having a silo accessible only by Infantry is valid although it's more exciting to have it accessible to vehicles to some degree as well. Under is the latest experiment with regards to that, you can attack infantry close to the silo but not directly on it and thus give support but you cannot hinder the capture directly with your vehicles. Things to keep in mind when designing: -Timings : do the teams get equal opportunity to reach areas of the map like silos, chokepoints, strategic locations at the same time. -Chokepoint width : We have standards like 'two mammoth tanks side by side' for routes to give people plenty of space. -Cover : Is there plenty of cover for infantry to be shielded from vehicle fire. -Flanking routes : Don't turn the map into a tug of war seemingly without end (Field) always enable people to get the drop on others by installing longer or high risk flanking routes. U, S, W and M shapes seem to work best for maps where the bases are at the outer ends of the shapes with the main shape being vehicle routes and the gaps can be filled with easy-access infantry routes. Getting a good mix of infantry only areas and inf-vehicle overlap is the best imo. infantry should be able to strike at vehicles and vice versa at some point along the main route of the map.

It's a mix of things I believe, do you have the moving clouds texture integrated in the DDL ? There's that, + a brightness setting for it (in the material instance) There might also be something going on with Post Processing, check the LUT or the general settings there, and lastly I may have changed the HDR curve in PP as well. It's been a while since I touched those settings but that should be it.

Didn't know you had modelling skills! Keep up the good work Henk!! Yeah I just barely use them, getting back into some modeling lately. Yeah we thought about adding destructible bridges a bit too late into development, if we can get this to work then maybe that's a good precedent to add those in the game still. It's a C&C staple after all.

If and when you need it, I can build a curved dam or edit the one you have if you want me to. Curved volumes are certainly possible as well. Just so much cooler than a perfectly flat dam. I'm a bit less optimistic about the rising water levels and destructibility etc. UDK is pretty crap when it comes to dynamic stuff.

Where did those rocks come from ? Didn't play the original version but I'm looking forward to seeing this progress, and all the community maps for that matter.

Looking forward to this one!

You can port assets easier than code but all textures would have to be recalibrated to fit the PBR lighting model UE 4 has. That by itself is a lot of work already. Not to mention get the same game running.

The key here is to provide something fair to the losing team without also giving it to the winning team. Anything relying on score, money or possibly a second currency will also favour the winning team. How can the losing team "outplay" the winning team if they're given the same grants? There should be something special unlocked only in the case of building destruction combined with "good play" w/e that might be. Airdrop sounds reasonable so long as it's only granted in case of building destruction. Don't read anything into the dev posts though, just speculating here. Maybe we can come up with something to help the end game because it's something I've personally had issues with since we started, there's inherent snowballing effect with ren at least in "average" matches.

Field, Whiteout, Mesa, Goldrush and Walls all had their layouts tweaked for the next release so "we're working on it." Combined with the revised map voting system, it'll be better for sure.

-Cave artillery was sheltered, choked and very annoying to get by, they'll have to expose themselves on the short route more as well as drive a bit longer to start taking potshots at things. -The silo placed with harvesters as well as defended by tanks is a trade off. The first building you hit from the short route for both teams is the Refinery. When the enemy army is at the silo en-masse you can counter by attacking short and take out the refinery when resistance is light. This works both ways. -Infiltrating the PP will be somewhat hidden to defenses, it's possible you might get hit but it's a small entrance which can be mined but should be watched regardless. -Yes the AGT is weird in that regard, looking into that. Outlined above is of course the theory behind the design changes. We'll have to see what players preferred routes / strategies become. To move towards the silo / harvesters safe from vehicles, to move to enemy powerplant while walking. They can also do something about vehicles traversing from short to long route there.

Yes, as many fixes as possible will be included. The fogballs in use in and around the cave exits have all been reduced in opacity by 50-100% where needed too so it should be a lot easier to see everything. As for keeping Mesa ii, I don't know if we're doing that. We did a check on the 50 last voted maps on a server and Mesa came up the least amount of times. There is probably a very small minority currently enjoying the version as is. Of course this will be somewhat remedied by the map selection / voting system coming but still, we felt that Mesa designwise is somewhat dodgy in places. Again we'll have to see how the new version plays but we're confident these are changes for the best.

Hello everyone, look forward to design changes for Mesa in the upcoming patch(es) A short breakdown and a picture. -Added short vehicle route. The previously inf-only section is now a short veh route for artillery duels. -Short - Long vehicle routes are now connected through the central cave and old silo position to increase mobility. -Silo has been placed near harvesters to make long vehicle route viable as well as centralise economy harassment. -Cave is now infantry only! Let's face it, Mesa was just critical massing of artillery on the shortest possible route and one side losing a building usually resulted in a loss directly or not shortly after... The cave being infantry only means the Powerplant has been switched with GDI barracks to create a more balanced situation, both teams can infiltrate the powerplant equally now to disable defenses for a vehicle push. We won't know what good it'll do until it's all in your hands and everyone's playing but fingers crossed that the map will be a lot better for it come next patch! Dump your concerns and praise in the comments below ; )

Yeah don't fret about it. But the ARs problem is mostly that it feels like you should get hits in when you aren't. That's what I'm talking about really, moreso the feel of the weapon(s).

We might be tweaking projectile physics to help compensate a bit, this is an ongoing process to help improve the game. But yes the AR is supposed to be relatively weak in comparison to other weapons, it's the free class.

You can change your answer on the poll for that reason. Personally I'd like to see more functionality with the EMP. Disabling a building or defenses and mines for a limited time would be great as well as unstealthing SBH. (pretty much a given, but it's not in the game)

Beta 3 has been a lot of fun thus far and in some part due to the EMP grenades which helped diffuse some massive tankspam and possible rushes when timed correctly. We would like to hear your opinions on the EMP Grenades! Post comments and ideas below: what do you think and are changes required?

No this is in the game. Sort of.

Will Ren-X come on Steam? >> We definitely want to get it out on steam but communication with EA on the issue is very slow and tedious. We want to make sure we don't shoot ourselves in the foot by simply releasing on Steam and then finding out EA isn't happy about it maybe pulling it or worse. Beta 3 ? We had a lot of problems assembling the build for beta 3 but we finally managed something like 7 working builds in quick succession. It works, but there's some new content and fixes in there getting tweaked as we speak. SBH / Mcfarland nerf I think is covered somewhat in Beta 3 as well as a host of other balance changes. But I'm not 100% sure on that so someone else can come in here and tell you that. -There's more fixes for SBH coming in Beta 4 as well.

We were very close to releasing Beta 3 but we're now suffering some technical difficulties. Can't be too long now.