TomUjain

I really really want 64 players, but... The reality is it just does not work. As more and more patches are rolled out the harder and harder it is for this fossil of an engine to keep up. Lag, crashes and maps clearly not designed for that cap begin to become more and more apparent. Unless we shift to a new engine that can handle that cap then all that will happen is you will be forced to take a bigger and bigger performance hit gameplay wise.

Ryz and Poi's cards made me laugh I must admit, but I like the idea behind it for sure. The idea of picking a 'class' and getting minor benefits for said class massively increases the odds of players returning due to goals a similar effect the leaderboard has i've noticed. something simple like achivements or 'leveling up' a class for a few passive abilities might help with retaining new blood.

Oh goody, team balance - my fav topic I don't think giving the commander that sort of power is going to solve the problem, if anything it would compound it. Agent has the right line of thinking, and i've suggested somthing similar before. A solid refined shuffle system should be enough to remove a good 80% chunk of bad games but to address the 'rage quit' problem enticing people to join the losing team via offering rewards for doing is a good counterbalance. The team swap feature can't really be used to 'stack' as it only really works when a slot is open, which becomes difficult as everyone will try to flock to that winning team. Granted you can get 2 - 3 people together that way with timing and this is where a lot of this hostiliy comes from I think; it was a common tacktic for some people to go 'AFK' until a slot was open to switch to their friends team. The rage quits; where upwards of 5+ slots can open up has potential as people who want to 'play with friends' can do so, while also plugging the imbalance gap and balancing out both teams instead of what normally happens -- power getting horded to one side.

The problem is two fold; the current system massively rewards players with credits and VP for 'winning' and massively handicaps the losers with less VP and less credits for 'losing' thus making it x2 harder for the losing team to come back and x2 times easier for the winning team to win. Result? Base locking for 4+ hours or a swift 2 min quicky. Maps like snow, under, field are classic examples of this bottlenecking issue ontop of the massively over-rewarding of the winning team and the huge shunning of the losing team. On classic field bottlenecking is a bigger problem due to the lose of the extended tunnel; this highlights that the more diluted the map is the less likely a problem this is. I do think there is an intresting debait to be had about map design. How is it that, Volcano (for example) heavily favors nod while Islands seems to be more well rounded? One glaring issue here is - the harvester, I would argue if you were to place the harvester in the center of islands then we would have another field/under clone.

The VP system isn't perfect, I agree - but it serves (mostly) its purpose which is to help offset 'stalemates' or at the very least help to offset them. Before the VP update stalemates were pretty common and although rare, some games would drag on for 6+ hours in some cases. I suppose you could argue that this was a better alternative (to promote stalemates) as statstically the server tends to stay full for longer - but on the other side of the coin people tend to leave these games unfulfiled which means they are less likely to play again tomorrow. VP does scale though, and it is easy to aquire through repairs or kills -- and it scales with everyone else so it should be fairly easy to 'catch up' my only issue with the system is it further punishes the losing team and makes it x2 harder for them to pull back from, an effect mostly noted on maps like field or under where one team holds the map and the other is base bound. I don't think much needs to change really in regards to VP, but it does highlight another issue - the steap learning curb for new players.

This highlights a major flaw in our design here. What insentive do map makers have, if all their hard work and effort (typically) results in a map that gets shelved in the downloads section to gather rust? Map makers are forced to beg servers to host their maps for them, and typically that is met with the fustration of being stuck in the awful download screen. We need to change something, because as it stands our setup is extremely hostile to map makers. Would increasing the download speed in game work? I doubt it, not everyone has blazing fast internet rendering the faster speed useless. Honestly I believe the best way forward is to allow 'new maps' a testing phase - and put them into a monthly patch for everyone to play.

I've actually been a big supporter of being able to restore buildings, granted with some form of price / cost -- not sure a vote system is the best way to go about it. In any case its something fresh and new that the other servers are not offering and i'm interested to see how everyone takes to it.

I doubt very much that an in game download system will work either, considering the size of some of these maps and also considering some people are still on basic broadband speed - let us not forget that votes to change map / game ends quickly etc.... will also 'break' the download and simply kick the user back to title screen. As it was suggested, the best way I can think of is to compile all the 'tested' maps into a zip file and put them into a monthly patch or add them to the roaster but not offically so downloads are not required. The altnerative is to struggle with what we have, and increasing our speed 1000+ times won't solve the problem fully; or we are more forthcoming with putting out community maps.

If this is something the team is struggling with, i'd be happy to take a stab at it - i've got enough code experience to get by, granted i'm no expert but willing to have a wholesole attempt.

RenX is craving game modes bad, so I commend you both for doing this - my only real issue is it would be nice to add the game 'modes' as options in the game over vote menu which players can vote for before it boots to the 'select map' vote menu.

In all honesty, I think the most annoying part is expecting to join to then be greeted with a downloading screen. I do feel players would prefer to download the map(s) via the launcher where they are free to do other things instead of been stuck on a black screen. Granted we might have a similar issue speed wise - but I don't think people will mind if the launcher was a bit more forthcoming with the player; for example when trying to join, if the player does not have that map a pop up error will say ' you do not have this map' instead of making them boot the game and boot straping them into a black screen. It might also be helpful to have an option next to the server name (or even a forum thread) which lists all the custom maps / content the server is using - which they can access via the launcher at leisure without bottlenecking the download server.

A lot of things in crates are over powered / unbalanced, such as epic units -- but that is the whole point of them being in said crate, its random and unprodictable. Adding hotwires / techies to the mix really won't change very much in the grand scheme of things as the primary source aka the bar / hon has been destoryed anyway, lets also not forget the risk factor of getting your newly crate spawned hotwire / techy back to base alive dodging snipers, tanks and SBHs. My point is, if you do manage to get back alive -- its going to be a very dull and boring game for you as you will be pretty much forced into base defence and re-mining duties for the entire session.

It all depends on the angel we want to project. As a 'drop' in a crate, I doubt very much this will change very much gameplay wise - one argument I have made in the past is, when a bar or hon is destoryed the remaining hotties / techies are pigin holed into defence due to that class going away. This is an issue for both teams due to the loss of mines, but a huge hit for GDI due to SBHs. As it was pointed out already the loss of bar / hon pretty much means game over, mainly due to the loss of this class. Hardcore RenX players will argue that the loss of the hon / bar should yeld this harsh punishment, while those more open to my line of thinking shouldn't pigin hole players into one role or void base defence so heavily.

It could be used as 'another game mode' where the mechanics allow you to buy back buildings, adding a bit of spice and varity from the default. I'm not saying we should make this a feature on all maps however. We could also give the ability to buy 'defence structures' similar to how the survival mode works.

Team balance is a tricky thing to get right, and even a manual shuffle fails to perfect it at times. The fault, I believe is how the game is designed. In a nut shell: a bad team is more likely to lose a key building, further and permanently handicaping the already bad team. The shuffler has a high chance of re-applying the same awful team thus mimicing the potential problem for upwards of 3 games in a row. 64 players is also not helping adding to the 'bottle neck' effect we feel on maps such as field / under where one team holds the field / tunnels / everything -- because it can. Add to that the buff AOE and VP ranking system and you can have (potentially) 32 heroic rocket men melting your entire base before you can blink. Having units wail on a building for 2 hours on AFK mode isn't something we should be rewarding. To counter this I believe VP should be awarded to buildings, increaseing armour / health the more damage they take over time to encourage more tactical takedowns. So how do we perfect the team balance system? We need it to shuffle people based on their last game and score up both teams based on that data. This, naturally poses a threat to the whole 'play with friends' commity so we need a system in place that rewards people for moving to the losing team by either making them spawn with a special unit / credits, or allows them to move over with friends. Make no mistake here, 'good players' are one thing, but good commanders are another. Almost all matches are defined by the strength and tactical prowess of the commander, not the skillful players - this naturally becomes a problem when one side focuses on K/D while the other focuses on winning.