TomUjain

I know this was touched upon earlier, but for reference -- the ion / nuke beacons appear to be disabled, the server seems to think we have below 16 players regardless of how many are online.

Thank you both for the feedback; I have noticed this as well -- and am sure Serah will look into when she can. In regards to the beacon limitation; it is open to debait on if we should lower/raise the number -- but we feel overall that the beacon becomes pretty biased when the number of players falls very low, and this (from what I can see) is reflected in how the community feels about beacons in low player matches. I have an update of my own to share with you all. I have decided to streamline the points table and focus on digital only prizes, with a 'weekly' item that will change every week/or two. I have done this to avoid any complications as non-digal goods need to ne shipped and this opens up a lot of potential problems. Furthermore, the move to focus on digial only goods and cut the prize table to 2.2 mil points -- has cut the monthly budget allicated to 'exchanges' in half, which means money is left over for promotion -- which will now have its own monthly budget. So to sumarize: Digial only products in the prize table, expensive reedemed products removed -- money saved on those products will be used for game promotion instead and/or server upgrades.

By logging into official FPI channels (inside and outside of the server) you agree to follow the rules below, and understand that by failing to do so will result in actions taken against you in accordance with the disciplinary procedure detailed below. As a community server, it is our job to fairly uphold the safety, well being and fairness of the server. I have drafted out the disciplinary procedure for anyone caught breaking the rules and / or breaching the peace. As of today, the following Procedure will be taking effect. The server rules We are not completely heartless. If an honest mistake is made, the FPI team can be quite forgiving, a bit of commonsense goes a long way and 9 times out of 10 a simple warning is all it takes. These rules are not designed to make your life difficult, they are designed to keep the server clean, healthy and fun. Harassment - Direct insults / threats (aka harassment) aimed at another player will be treated as an offense (we define this as: Knowingly sending the user(s) intimidating and/or provoking material i.e. "Fuck you Dan" -- we only enforce action if the other user aka "the victim" asks us to do so, 'jokes' in such a manner are allowed, but not encouraged and will be investigated by us if the 'victim' fails to see the remark as a joke. We allow swearing, but try to tone it down if every word coming out is a cuss then we may ask you to take it down a notch. Team Hampering - Doing anything to damage your teams effects. e.g. giving away tanks, overmining, giving away vital info to other team and blocking beacons -- to name a few. We are a bit more forgiving to new players or for honest mistakes, but more serious or repeat offenses will be delt with accordingly. Re-shuffling - Mods reserve the right to 're-balance' teams after 3 or more sessions have passed of 'bad games' defined under one or more of these conditions; Session ends in 20 mins or less, No back and forth from both teams, Big surge in player loss. Re-balancing can be requested via a !modrequest. Speak English - Although we won't bring down the iron hammer; we have had several players try to mask insults in German, French and Spanish. As we have mods that speak all three this attempt to hide fell flat. For that reason we encourage players to speak English and keep non-english to PMs whenever possible. Ban evading - Those caught using spoofing software or VPN to evade bans will have their punishment upgraded to pema ban, this info may also be passed onto the dev team and may even lead to a global ban (all servers) -- so don't risk it, if you wish to appeal a ban come through us. No VPN / IP 'spoofing - It can cause lag and isn't necessary; we can instantly see people doing it, and instantly assume they have something to hide. Don't draw attention to yourself, and save us the paper work. Do not pretend to be staff, and/or another player - In the event two common (player) names join e.g. 'snow' the one who has held the name the longest will own rights to said name and the other maybe asked to change it. All admin / mod names are forbidden. Pretending to be someone else will be treated as an offence. Spam - We define spam as knowingly and unnecessarily plugging the screen with junk be that; radio commands, written in manually, copied in or with the aid of macros. We are pretty relaxed on radio spam if it is appreciate, if it is not -- aka constant "Repair the Power Plant" spam, when no Power plany is on the map (as example) can be treated as spam, likewise excessively clogging up the screen may also be treated as spam. Exploits and/or Glitches - Defined by doing something not intended by map/game design, i.e. using third party software for unlawful advantages (e.g. speedhacks), getting to unobtainable map locations (e.g. top of buildings) -- rule of thumb, if there is something blocking you from getting to said area or it requires timing and tricks to do then it is classified as unlawful. Trolling -- This can bleed into other rules i.e. team hampering, impersonation etc... so this rule is very broadly defined. This rule also covers deliberate attempts to cause a stir / unrest in chat e.g. bringing up provoking arguments in chat. Fake modrequests will also be treated as trolling, as will any instance designed to waste our time i.e. falsely reporting people. We are pretty forgiving with a bit of banter and will only dish out warnings if you begin to upset the peace aka if enough people begin to complain about it. What I expect from the staff / mods Staff powers may only be used to address a glitch / bug or to enforce the disciplinary procedure. Harassment, threats, bribery or disclosing private server information - big no, no please do not do it. When kicking said player; staff members are encouraged to make it clear why said player is getting removed from the server - do not insta kick without concept, it is tacky and looks bad on us. Disciplinary Procedure "Ignorance of the rules is no excuse"

It is a shame you had to close down AGN Alien, it was a quirky, different server -- and unique in how it approched things. I loved the buildable turrents in exchange for credits; and the use of the tiberium sun tanks. it was refreshing, though you could question the balance issues with how it was set up -- it was still fun to play on regardless I will miss it greatly.

Updated list.

Hey guys, just a few things I want to clear up Fair Play was set up to be a community server, one of the reasons I put down a monthly budget to afford the prizes we offer in exchange for score points. We still are a community server. The vision is to have a clean, fun and above all - fair server. We take harassment very seriously and our mods work around the clock to ensure the server remains healthy; naturally we will not catch everything which is why you should always screenshot any form of bullying or harassment and send it to us directly. We are looking into third-party systems to combat 'toxic players' but not a lot will happen until Fair Play settles, we can't jump the gun too quickly, this is our first week. I also want to stress out that we treat everyone equally; we will investigate claims of cheaters, but do so fairly -- do not expect us to kick someone because they have a high score or high K/D ratio. In future I would rather you take your concern to a mod / admin privately. Naming and shaming in game is not something we encourage. Fair Play will not respond to threads like this in the future; nor will we take kindly to public 'call outs' (witch hunts) like this thread, I - and the admin team will make a point in reporting said threads in the future. If you have a problem, bring it to the relvent partys, do not name and shame it makes you look bad, and achives nothing. Regarding Fair Play and EKT - As Serah pointed out, EKT uses our server, and several of our admins are EKT but the server itself is netural, it is financed by me but I am not part of the EKT clan offically; Goku also does a lot of admin work behind the scenes as well. Fair play is not picky; our main concern is, and always will be the welbeing and health of the community, and introducing EKT back into ren-x was a good way to boost (dwinderling) numbers. If I was 100% honest with you all, I do not think it is healthy for one server, or another to 'domiate' be that CT or FairPlay; and I firmly believe in diversity. If a another server comes along with similar ideas and motives to mine then I welcome and support them with open arms. This 'rivery' between servers has to stop, because, ultimatly it will all end in tears if it does not.

You raise some good points DarkSn4ke, the mutator can be turned off if needed; although I would like to know what the rest of the community thinks about it first -- weather it should be lowered or turned off completly.

Thanks Ryz! we tried to keep the server as Vanilla as possible; the ref tick mod will probably be the only mod we use unless we get a huge demand for something else. There might be another mod in place regarding the point score system to make it easier to exchange points (see first page) you earn on this server via playing, but everything else should stay the same.

Thats awesome DarkSn4ke We are all about providing a healthy, fair -- and fun playground for the community; and something we are working so hard to push to the front of the table. As with any new server, there are several glitches and errors that need to be ironed out; the mines were incorrectly set, which will be addressed next patch (very soon) the Ref tick mod will also be reduced, but not turned off. Is a bit of controversy regarding the ref mod; the reason behind it is to allow a team to still play (somewhat) with some funds, rather than non. New players joining with no ref shouldn't not be waiting 5 - 10 mins for a basic unit. It is also about gameplay; which should not come to a grinding stop because a building is lost, gameplay should be free flowing and fun. Naturally we can't get everything right first time and things will have to be tweaked and fine tuned over time to get the perfect community server. I'm not 100% sure regarding the crate spawns, Serah would know more about that and is something i'll ask about tomorrow (unless she beats me to it and posts here tomorrow ) I did notice a few people request for mods to reset the map; just want to point out that the only time are mods / admins (inc myself) allowed to use powers is for maintaince or to address a glitch -- under no other reason can our powers be used. This includes force changing a map, we are also here to set an example -- if you do spot any staff overstepping their mark then bring it to me...if you think I am overstepping my bounds then take it to the other admin Goku.

Thanks to everyone who played tonight. In regards to some of the comments made here; as Serah pointed out -- you must screenshot and send the comment to us, if you don't do that -- or fail to bring it to our attention how are we supposed to help? The community is small, and we do not have eyes and ears online 24/7 thus it is so important that you guys help us out if/when something happens. I humbly request that you not 'name and shame' in public i.e. the forums, please email us the screenshot in private via discord or here. Weather the 'banter' is a joke or not does not matter to me; screaming out aggressive comments like 'go kill yourself' will get you into trouble, so please refrain from doing it. Such comments achive nothing, and is not healthy for you or the community. During my spare time, I will read through the server log and monitor anything said, but I can't catch everything. Fair Play is still a new concept, and thus a few kinks will have to be ironed out over time. You will get people who try to troll, thinking they are safe behind IP masks and fake names, for now, perhaps but there are ways to catch you (let this be a firm warning to anyone considering it) systems can be put in place to lock out anyone IP spoofing, and a system can be put in place to only allow steam users to join just to list two examples. I won't bring down the iron hammer on people who are willing to accept a warning and move on; but if I see this becoming a bigger issue overall then I will have to start looking into DRM systems to stop it. Bottom line is this: For a first day, I think everything went pretty well, a few issues were to be expected but I do want to emphasis how important it is to screenshot any account you come across and send it to us - I did notice a bit of swearing and cussing, but was willing to turn a blind eye as long as it is not directed at a player, exceptionally if that player is new. swearing over and over with no concept though is something I ask everyone to refrain from, short outbursts are understandable but not when every other word is in poor taste

Hey guys Just a quick reminder that we are going live tomorrow (1st May) the server will be open pretty early, and the tournament will start around 7pm GMT (London) -- the details are above; but to summarize it is basically an open pug match with small prizes. To keep things fresh and exciting I have also been playing around with other ideas - the main one being 'Mini events' to keep things fair, should an admin wish to host a 'mini event' (will go into details below) they are not allowed to be playing phyiscally but may join the team as a temp. Mini events are all about creativity and will net you a small reward; here are some examples; Answering a riddle / question correctly Finding a hidden tank on the map Destroying X building / capturing X Planting a beacon at X Humvee / Buggy racing Hide and seek games Just a reminder, the 'mini events' are here to add spark and be fun; they are designed to not take away from the match and are optional. Any mod login and host their own version and offer rewards such as tanks, credits, items or even points. Over the next few months we'll be testing this in game. This will be all from prospective; we won't be awarding mammy tanks like candy, and this is not an excuse to abuse power. Most rewards will be small aka 250 - 500 credits; a free 'tier 2 tank' etc... etc...

Hello guys, Firstly I want to thank everyone who has shown support and faith in FPI and its ideals - FPI will always do what we feel is best for the community at RenX which leads me to the main purpose of this topic. Players. I feel that many of the issues we face stems from the small community, and, ideally -- I would like to see several full servers as I feel having one dominating server, be that mine or any other is unhealthy in the long term. Over the last few months FPI have had a system in place where players have been incentivised to play via the points system, which allows players to 'exchange' points for 'prizes' -- my hope was that this would give people more motivation to play. However, I've had only 6 people come forward to claim a reward, and I feel that this money could be better put elsewhere. Thus I will be removing the reward points system as of today and instead putting all of the monthly prize budget into full RenX marketing with the overall goal to atleast double player count by the end of this year. I would also like to have specific ads to bring in new coders and developers with the end goal to help bulk out the dev team. This budget will be roughly £40 a month for adwords and £40 a month for YouTube, If anyone would be willing to donate to help with the advertising I would be extreamly greatful. I will publish the full data for everyone to see here. Just note that this 'project' won't go live until the following month (Aug) but this is something in the pipe line. Until we go live, I will not be excepting any donations. What I need in the meantime Several 30s trailer videos to be posted on YT Ideas for a 'landing page' where the ad link will take the person to I welcome your input and ideas and will be checking in every now and then to listen to what you guys have to say Outdated Info

Thank you guys for your feedback. Just to keep you all in the loop; we will be going live fully in May. However, I realize I may have been a little too ambitious with the mods I wanted -- with very limited coding myself it has been a struggle to find the people willing to lend us a hand in that regard; anyone who does want to step in then I am totally happy to throw in a few steam games (of your choice). This means that we will most likely be launching as a totally Vanilla server, but the mods may / maynot be added on later; which is something I wanted to avoid as people 'settle' only to switch things up drastically. I will prioritize the 2 tick ref mod first (without harv dump, when building is destroyed) to allow players to -- well, play. Having to wait X amount of mins to buy X unit seems counterproductive to gameplay, and is highly aggressive to new users joining with 0 credits. Everything else is still on the table, but I am doubting any serious progression, if any until the following year. I want this server to be a community server, not a power ground for admins or mods. Furthermore competitions and weekly 'team games' (unannounced and unplanned) will be taking place where steam credit, gog / Orgin games will be arwarded to top players aka best sniper, def, etc... etc... Winning teams (everyone in it) will get smaller rewards aka steam card collection or other tradable items which will be credited at the end of each month. £15 a week will be going into the prizes / rewards section where £5 will be going into promotion and utlities; the rest of the budget will be going to fund the server -- all, out of my pocket, so yes it is all free. I will go into a lot more detail on this when we go live in May.

@DarkSn4ke The mods I intend to use are subject to change, and may or may not stay depending on feedback and community responce. I do understand your concern, which is why the mods I intend to use will be going through a trial to determine if they should stay or not. Remember the purpose of these changes is not to be unique or different, it is to enchance gameplay and promote community -- not to be fancy and have new features for the sake of new features. The core gameplay, will heavily remain vanilla. The server is up, as promised and is titled 'No Stacking - No Stress - Auto Balance' Currently the server is running vanilla; with a team shuffle to help remove team stacking between sessions. The ETA for us going offically live is in May (though it could be before then) this ETA will give us time to apply the required features as I spoke about in my first post above. As I stated before, this will be a full community server - with the focus being on making the game as fun and fair as possible, my ultimate goal is to; Make each Ren X session as fun as possible - taking out the stress and hassel Reduce stacking as much as possible via tweaks and settings Promote the community of Ren-X (see below) In addition; I will be dishing out monthly prizes to players / teams in the form of: Steam Games / Credit Unique C&C skin unlocks (locked to player) Gift Cards Trophies; aka server shouts during login (unique, tied to player) This will be expanded upon when the server offically goes live; but to sum it up briefly - the prize 'session' will run during set games / times during the week where prizes will be earned for Teamwork Points Overall wins Prizes will also be earned with the admin (me) offline by achiving specfic goals in game; which will be sent to me via server data -- for this reason I highly recommend you have a forum pressence for me to be able to contact you, again more details of this will be written up closer to the server deadline. I am debating if a time limit of 3.5 hours should put on to reward good defending teams holding off one building; 3.5 hours I believe is a good session though I would like your view on this idea, or if time limit should remain turned off. What I need from you, the community Reliable mods to monitor server health and to address player feedback / problems / bugs People to help write up the code for the mods (listed above) -- willing to give out a few steam games as a thank you, a few Amazon giftcards are also on the table for people who want to write any mods for us as well. Server Admins; to regulate and do regular maintaince on the server as required. If anyone can help in the areas I highlighted above, shoot a PM myway. Looking forward to hearing from you! - Yumi / tomujain

although I like the idea of a ranking system to try and tackle the issue; it has a lot of room for abuse aka - name changing / ip masking / not using steam. It is well documented players (such as Poi or Jeff) use several names to mask who they are. It also requires a bit of dev time, for something that may not be as effective as it sounds on paper. I stand by my simple randomizer idea; it isn't the grand solution, but is a huge step in the right direction and does not require a huge amount of dev time or modifying code. Yes, the mind can run wild with ways to tackle this issue in a creative manner; but that requires time, bug tests and code. Ultimatly all we need is a simple fix. to quote a friend of mine: Too often it results in "people having fun at other people's expense I have been on a stacked team, on the winning side -- and I understand the argument behind why people find this set up attractive, it is fun (atleast for a time) to feel powerful, and with this thread challenging those foundations, players who are on that side of the coin will become defensive. Bottom line is this: The future of Ren-X is not sustainable. We are getting traffic, but the traffic is not staying -- regardless of how much advertising, promotion or recommendations you do -- nothing will change this. The current setup is not healthy. People do not play a game to be stressed out or get frustrated, and server admins (dev team) need to understand this because we are losing the community slowly over time. Honestly? (and this is not a knock on anyone on the staff) I do not think server admins, or the dev team will pay much attention to this issue; or attempt to address it aside from a few posts in this thread, I do not think much else will happen. In truth; I posted this knowing that fact in my gut -- but wanted to see how the community generally felt about the issue, despite not everyone checks the forums I have yet to see someone agree that stacking is healthy.

I am inclined to agree, if we were holding a gun to their head and forcing them onto different teams, I agree that approch is brutal and uncalled for. It is not fair to forcefully break away players who wish to play together, I agree that is not healthy. However... Your argument about this being unhealthy is not totally true; team stacking occures when several skilled players all stack to one team - this is NOT healthy for the community or the server, as evidence supports and is well documented. You know where it leads: to one side steamrolls (not always but often) where players are caught in a losing loop, over and over. A very simple, and easy fix is a proper team scramble each session and this problem will mostly go away. Wanting to go on a killing spree with your friend, may saint your vainty -- but it does no matter of good for the players in the game and the damage is very clear -- seeing servers empty a lot faster when it occures. The data shows that we are getting traffic (players) but are struggling to retain them and the main core for this is always the same: Fustration. I have been stuck on a 'noob team' (as called in game) but in reailty is just a stacked team; getting steamrolled once is fine, twice maybe -- but over and over, and over, and over, and over where the server constantly reasigns the same players to the same team --just for the sake of buddies playing together only serves to empty a healthy server, and sends the wrong message to new players. Gameplay should come above vainty and kill streaks. I am not calling for an allout ban on 'friends' playing together, nor am I asking for 'good' players to stop playing -- I am asking for a chance for sessions to be fair.

Server going live on May 1st 2018 Hey guys, Over the last year or so I have been posting very controversial threads -- most recently the 'teamstacking' thread, which has netted me a few private PMs (yet no offical replies). As i've stated before I want this community to thrive and do well and that is the motivation behind a lot of my ideas I put forward. Although I have my theories (which I will not get into here); the data suggests that we are losing players, not gaining them -- the plain fact is we are not keeping fresh blood, and this has prompted me to look deeper into the core of this issue. The future for Ren-X is not sustainable and I would like to try and tackle this myself, by having a server catered more towards the community (not knocking server admins in any way) I am open to feedback on the below features. I will be paying for this server, and I'll be ensuring it is A class quailty (no lag) DDOS protection is also something I want at the heart of the server as well. It'll be setup very similar to AGN (though less modded) the core of the changes will be gameplay related My server features will include; Vanilla gameplay Total team randomize each session - All players will be evenly scrambled at the start of each session to avoid team stacking. (done) Team switching will be disabled for first 20m -- unless a spot opens due to uneven teams. This is another safe-lock to try and prevent stacking (VOID) Buildings will stay unkillable for first 5 mins - All buildings can only sustain damage (upto 50% perma) and not be destoryed for first 5 mins -- this will ensure early rushes can still take place and have results but not take out the building fully. (in progress) Ref will maintain a 2 credit tick when destroyed however the Harv will be gone. This ensures that players can still contribute to the session without being forced to use free units, or punish joining players with 0 credits (DONE, THANKS TO SERAH FOR CODE) Players will be able to buy (lights) and (meds) with the addition of ABCs and basic buggies as an option in the cooldown menu (VOID) Players will be able to buy Hotwires / techies in the menu with a price increase. Basic snipers will also be able to be brought with a price increase (VOID) AGT / Obbi will still work without the power plant, with a 50% damage reduction this will give 'some' use to the building when the PP is down; instead of it acting as a monument. (in progress) Automatic recordings sent to admin for review (me) when player reaches a specific score; 9 times out of 10 this will lead to nothing, but its purpose is to try and keep up-to-date with any recent cheats if they arise. (in progress) My duty to you (the player) Not to abuse my powers - i.e. reset server / change map because I am "fed up" democracy (voting) will determine that right, not me Not to favor players Maintain netural to all parties playing in and out of game Ban / kick players who break the sever rules or cheat; warnings will be issued beforehand Be open to talk to outside game to address concerns or worries put forward Ensure the server is fine tuned to ensure player fun, fairness and smoothness are at the heart of each session When will the server be out? I'm aiming to get this server up and running, on the Ren-X menu within the next 2 - 3 months; having already got the basic foundations down. This server will focus heavily on the community and its needs thus options may be added / removed / tweaked if needed. The core gameplay, however will remain Vanilla. Reliabilty, speed and DDOS protection will be at the core to ensure players can enjoy the game as smoothly as possible.

I touched upon this briefly in my 'abilty to buy back buildings' thread; but rage quitting remains a huge headache for any team (typically the losing one). Normally, a healthy server will quickly replace the lost players; or reasign new teams on a new session. However, this is not always the case and teams can be down a large chunk of players for a big portion of the session. Although I would like to address the root cause of why players rage quit, by looking at more user friendly tactics like: using CP to buy units lost from buildings (see abilty to buy back building thread) that won't stop the issue as players will still rage quit. My issue is that this further punishes the losing team and only contributes to prematurly diluting the server. I've listed below some ideas I think which would help bridge the gap; Ideas A credit boost of 5% for each missing player A damage / defence boost of 5% for each missing player Randomly assign player from other team when X time passes Reduction in buying cost for each missing player Not sure how difficult it would be to code something like this in, but I feel it would go a long way. Granted 80% of the time, players who do rage quit are replaced by fresh players (more so on full servers) thus rendering the above system pointless; but those rare times that does not happen, or later times in the evening where players are not as common makes it worth it.

Having been with the community since Black Dawn no body cares more about the wellbeing of the community than me. Ren-X has made amazing strides in recent patches -- but one thing I have noticed that crops up, again and again is this: Team stacking. A problem that has plagued Ren-X since its inception; and continues to do so to this day. Although servers auto-balance teams at start, typically the team you are assigned to is the team you stick with throughout each game session (unless a large chunk of players leave) this can work well -- but if seasoned players all happen to end up on one team, then we have a problem and this is not uncommon. To summarize, 'team stacking' tends to fall into the below catogries After Pugs - where several players will use discord and all stack to one team, resulting in very structured and planned rushes often resulting in games ending very quickly. Seasoned / exerienced players stacking to one team; often by chance With a recent flux in new players recently, i've noticed a big gap between 'exerienced' and 'new' players with teams consisting of 75% new players, vs a team of 75% exerienced players, with several months / years of playing exerience. It does not take a rocket scentist to see how having a team of mostly new players will pan out vs a team with more veteran players. My issue, however is not with the stacking; it is the lack of scramping between matches; instead when a team is steamrolled the 'server' will simply reasign the same players to the same teams -- only for that team to be steam rolled again and again. That is my issue, and that is the dilema I and several others have found themselfs in. This chain is only broken when a large chunk of players leave, or are replaced. I have been told that servers do indeed randomize players, if that is the case it is not done correctly as I have been on both sides of the 'win' / 'loose' loop, and I can confirm that many of the players end up on my team again the next session. It is incredibly fustrating and feels cheap, to be stuck in a 'losing loop' over and over and only serves to dilute a healthy server faster. No body wants to be in a game that ends within 5 mins; regardless if you win or lose. It sends the wrong message to new players, and leads to stress, not fun. The result? People spam requesting to switch teams every session; or simply 'rage quitting' leaving the losing team with less players. A common argument I hear regarding this is to 'play as a team' -- which (as I am sure you know) does not always pan well, more so if you are stuck with a team who struggles to compile rushes or tactics. How to fix this? A simple feature to "randomize" teams every session to ensure teams are mixed at the start of every session, that is all it takes. When I say 'randomize' I mean a proper randomize of both teams, yes this has a chance of creating another stacked team (by chance) but the alternative, leaving things as they are, I feel will only do more damage. The common argument I hear is that allowing teams to stay the same allows friends to be together during matches , which I totally understand. However I feel that for the overall health and wellbeing of the community it is a poor argument, considering what this system leads to, as detailed above. This isn't me talking rubbish, this issue is well documented within the community and a common complaint in game and out of game. Would like to hear what you guys think about this.

The map design is a wonderful idea J0g32, and I totally agree it would smooth out gameplay 10 fold, my fear though is the sheer amount of work involved with such a task. In general though I find most maps (e.g. walls) to be fairly balanced, but for sure we have several older maps that could do with a few 'tweaks' I don't think the roster should be expanded on that much, if anything only a hotwire / tech should be added to remedy the problem. As with the addition of tier 1 tanks, sniper spam becomes less of an issue. I agree that the lose of a building should come with a cost, and that cost should remain very heavy but equally it should be possible to get atleast some form of offence back, touching all fields of view. with the addition of ABCs, it would also be nice to add a Tier 1 tank with a huge price increase. Heck, I could be totally wrong about this, and as you said it is very difficult to find that balance but I am glad it is something you are willing to look into, at the very least. I do not see any harm in having the ability to buy back lights / meds from the wf with a 5m cooldown and huge price hike. My argument here is that this already happens: In the form of crate farming anyway, but I agree minimal changes should take place -- but there is a good chance that these small chances to a the roaster will help root out a lot of these problems seen in games. In Summary Add Hotwire / Tech (1,000 credits) (5 minute cooldown) Add Light / Med (40% increase) (5 minute cooldown) And that is it, with the addition of ABCs and tier 1 tanks the 'rock-paper-scissors' aspect remains pretty well rounded and fair, crippling the team enough to worry, but not enough that they can't cover all fields of combat. But....I could be wrong, then again so could you - but all I ask is you consider and atleast try / test, because you never know what good (or bad) could come from this, if you do put these ideas through testing and conclude it was all a waste of time, then I can be happy with that result - knowing you atleast looked into it. My suggestion would be to have a server run this form of C&C with a small mod to expand on the roster (like above) and see how the community / gameplay is effected.

" as soon as 1 building was lost, the team would give up" -- ^ This is my whole point, why are they giving up? If people are 'abusing' an option to end it -- then alarm bells should be ringing (hence this whole topic) Should 'tradition' come above gameplay? It wasn't healthy that players abused the surrender feature, but by 'locking it out' all you are doing is masking the fustration, instead of 'fine tuning' what could make this game better. More evidence to support this is the amount of people that rage quit when a building is lost (can be as high as 40% on 60+ games)@j0g32 The building doesn't have to 'come back' it can stay dead, the core issue here (as touched upon by SilentKnight above) is player engagement. The solid argument against this seems to be focused on upsetting the winning team, which I agree! If I managed to take out a building on my own, and it suddenly 'popped back up' that would be extremely demoralising. Which is why ideas (like the zombie building idea, or the removal of HP from other buildings idea was put forward) I think we can all meet half-way. ...And that is to expand on the 'options' given after a building is lost e.g. with the addition of a ABC and basic buggy you also get a tier 1 tank. These credit costs are just examples -- (Light at 1200) and Med at (1800?) as an example, in addition to the cooldown currently present for the ABC and buggy. In regards to the Bar / Hand -- Hotties and Techies for 1k each, with a cooldown; and a sniper for 2k (basic one) again, with 5m cooldown. we have ABCs for anti-inventry, why do we not have a basic anti-tank unit as well? Now when a game starts, it can end in many different ways - a steamroll, or a gradual death -- but no one, and I mean no one wants to be pinned to their base for 2+ hours with 12 snipers picking you off, with NO chance to atleast try and counter. It is kind of like giving rusty daggers to one team, while the other team gets chainguns. Now is this fair? Yes! The team lost the buildings, they have to pay the price for the lose of said buildings. I agree, but is fustration and base camping the type of attitude we want to promote? Is this the message we want to send to new players? Is this what you want to join into? No. It isn't healthy for the community, or 'fun' -- true, not all games pan out like that; but it happens -- more often then not. Instead of shrugging and saying 'thats the way it is, they lost the building' -- I instead want to focus on compromise, for both sides. I want a losing team to still have basic options to contribute in all fields, half this work has already been done (with rockets, ABCs etc...) so why not round it off? My reasoning behind having the above options is this: It gives a defending team more tools to push back - but not the 'best' tools aka Stanks, flamers / Mammys -- but tools and goals to work towards when base locking happens with lost buildings. It rewards teamwork, opens up more rushes and plans - but punishes (with cooldown / credits) players who are careless. No longer will remaining hotties / techies be forced into base camping the whole game; the argument here is: but they shouldn't be able to remine, my counter is 95% of the time there is atleast one tech / hottie when the bar / hand is destoryed and 95% of the time that player is then railroaded into base defence -- not what we want to be promoting. Team can get atleast some 'basic' sniper support, for a heavy cost and cooldown. Why this is fair to both sides Very high credit cost and cooldown to buy back only the basic light / med - team can not afford to 'churn them out' Hotties and techies will have a cooldown and credit increase (just like tanks) but both sides will be able to mine and change roles. The sniper will have a cooldown and is only the basic unit (1.5k credits?) meaning the player can not afford to spam the unit. Now, we have had some very good (and fair) options posted here that would all work, including the one I spoke about now -- team VP was also a good idea where you get x amount of buy times for x amount of team VP earned -- this rewards a team for making pushes and strides, not punish them. I understand the argument made against this; but the goal here is gameplay and fun -- these two features should be the focus here; that goes to both the winning and losing side. I will end on this note: No body wants to be in a hopeless game. Not even the people who are opposing this idea, for sure lose features / abitlies when a building is destoryed -- but what we shouldn't lose, is the chance to play. There is a big difference between crippling a team completely (even though it is their fault for losing said buildings) and crippling a team completely - but atleast giving them the chance to get back in on the fight. One of these options leads to those games we all dread, the other may just take that edge off - I still stand by the argument that having some form of 'buy back' option will do great things for everyone. Bottomline: We can't prevent a slugfest 3+ game -- but we can atleast make it more fun for both sides.

This would work. As I touched upon in my last few posts I understand, wholeheartedly the importance of balance and not sticking up the middle finger to a team that manages to take down a building, by having it brought back fully 10 mins later, I don't want that - no body wants that. I care about enriching the gameplay, and making sessions as fun and as enticing as possible - I do not care about convience, that is not why I started this thread. What you have said above is basically all I want - the option for a losing team to 'fight back' which is difficult to do when you are down to your hand of nod and forced to fight off waves of mammys with rocketers (as one example) these games can drag on, and on, as you well know. The surrender vote is not always a saving grace, and more often than not - it is anti-climatic and 7 times out of 10 -- most people (outside of PUG) reject it, leading to games that do drag. This has gotten so bad on some matches that the ADMIN of several servers has forcefully changed the map. This is not something we want to be encouraging, or showing new players. Currently, the system we have in place promotes; camping and fear -- to expand on this point, if I want to go out on the field but am currently the last techie (and this happens a lot to many players) then you are pigeon holed into remining and base healing -- for the whole game (as one example) the same can be said for the last med tank or light tank. The argument for crates can be used for tanks, but that is luck, not skill or teamwork, which is what we want to enhance. Yes we get ABCs and buggies -- so why not a basic light or med as well? I fail to see how having the option to buy back a hottie / techie (which you can't get from boxes anyway) / tier 2 units / tier 1 tanks would be a bad thing - if anything, leaving things as they are is a bad thing. What you have said here, is what I want in a nut shell -- as it was touched upon, we do not want a building to come back without a HEAVY cost; but having the ability to buy a hotwire for say 1k? and 5 min cooldown works, as does buying a light tank for 2k with 5 min cooldown. The whole purpose of this, is to give the losing team more tools (though heavily over priced or difficult to get) to give them some chance of fighting back. I stand by my guns, and firmly believe that having a system in place like that will heavily improve not only gameplay but also take a lot of pressure off of 'last tier units' / tanks' -- help promote teamwork and reduce camping out of fear of losing that unit.

I strongly disagree with J0g32, but totally understand where he is coming from. Yes, we shouldn't covercomplicate this and I 100% agree that if this is to be done it should 1) Be as simple as possible 2) Be fair to both the winning and the losing team (as I said in my last post) But with those two things in mind I believe a system in place to get hold of higher tier units (through any of the systems spoken about in this thread) will do wonders for the community, if done correctly. How many games have you been in where both teams only have x building left? How many games have you been in that drag on, and on, and on? The amount of times I've heard people complain, moan, quit -- I lost count, but in the 1000s of games i've played these games do crop up a lot, these 'stalemates' They are not fun. If a team loses the strip to bad luck within the first 5 mins of gameplay -- then fight like lions for the next hour, why shouldn't they be rewarded a chance to get back their strip? It gives the team 'hope' a 'goal' an 'insentive' -- teamwork, and motivation; which is what Ren-X is all about and I struggle to see how having this system in place will ulter that. Who wants to be trapped in their base for 3+ hours defending the hand of nod from mammys? Both teams struggling to push and pull? Because this happens a lot. I was in a game last night with Ryz (for example) that dragged on, and on - they hand no strip or ref, we hand no bar -- it meant I was the ONLY hottie for the whole 2+ hour slug fest, forcing me to remine and camp the whole game, is that fun? And this happens all the time - why not add in a system, where players can 'earn' back the right to play as a hottie or tech? Why not have the option to reward teamwork with buy back options? Who wants to constantly charge tier 3 units with marksman? Because I don't. I agree, this has to be done right - it has to be fair, but it also has to be done, period - a 'buy back' system, in any form will do wonders for this game and the community.

I've looked over a few other topics that have brought this subject up and would like to pool all the ideas I've found / thought of so far. I'll add new ideas that are posted here. Ideas to address the player problem on Ren-X Listing Ren-X on Steam for free ($100 fee) Listing Ren-X on GOG for free Targetted ads vis Facebook or Google? YouTube Promotion via Pug videos etc... Ask game reviewers (e.g. AngryJoe) to play the game Tournament with small prizes Offical Facebook / Twitter page Posting on other message boards (with permission)

I love the zombie building idea! What I like The 'zombie' building still counts as a 'destoryed structure' - so the winning team don't have to worry about it again to win Takes increased damage making it easier to destory again Can be unlocked on the buy panel (with commander points?) this will motivate teams to use the commander feature and improve teamwork. It can't be spamed (tied into commander points) as they need to be 'earned' via teamwork / working together Building can be re-zombiefied over and over, but the team has to work hard to replace the 'commander points' to do so meaning they need to 'earn back' the right to that building via good teamwork and pushing back. What I think A minor credit penalty should still stand to buy back buildings (pp still has a global 15% price increase, wf / bar have additional 15% increase, ref has no harv) Commander points can be used to losen this penalty, or unlock higher tier units (as suggested above, but I feel there is no need to complicate it further and stick to a one-trick-pony zombie building option). Or, remove the price increase and add a timer (like when WF or strip is destoryed) where you can still buy ABCs but with a cooldown. This can work for units. What we need to be careful about Losing a building should still come at a cost to make it fair for both sides of the fight; we do not want to give the middle finger to a well placed sneak kill or well timed tank rush. This can be a price increase, a unit restriction or a cooldown (or a mix of all three) as long as we have atleast one for the 'zombie building' then everything will go fine. Outside of PUGs, people might not want to vote in a commader to spend the points, not a deal breaker but might be something to think about. Final thoughts A credit based system will not work due to ref hogging, it will also make both teams more skittish about buying tanks / units which we don't want A VP system has some room for abuse (as I touched upon above) it also seems cheap and unfair mid and late game if you are demoted to a low rank when fighting elites or heros. Commander points would work well, my issue with commander points is who has them? Are they stored as a 'credit' like resource on the commander only? If so what if he/she leaves the game, are the points lost? To address this issue I believe the credits should be 'universal' and stored as a 'bank' on the team, that can only be spent via the commander. A system based on HP removal of other buildings could work; but this system becomes moot if (for example) only one building remains or we have maps with only 2 buildings.