iovandrake

I agree with changing nuke/ion crates into C4 crates. I also personally think that 40% of all crates should be mere refill crates all the time. Refill crates are pretty much useless right now. A crate being a refill crate isn't reliable enough to justify the potential (and likely) suicide that you will get for picking up a crate. So most of the time people get a refill crate with a fresh and disposable character who doesn't need a refill.

The issue with that is it isn't hard for everyone defending a base to catch someone who looks like a class from their team but has a red or yellow name. You have to come within name viewing distance to enter most bases. This defeats the whole point of being a spy. It's not even hard to tell when a (usually expensive) character comes running toward your base and they have the wrong color name you know to shoot them. It would be far less noticeable if they just had no name at all appearing. You'd still be able to know something's up if you're paying attention, but not be tipped off when someone runs past you like you would with different color names. The only time I've seen the new spy system used effectively is in shooting vehicles and infantry as unwary people won't immediately suspect that friendly unit in the distance.

Well some should only be available on certain (possibly new) maps. I know I heard that the tiberium silo for the Under map (yet to be released) would be on the mountain side. The bunker side (the half-circle ridge) could easily accommodate a tech building. Maps the size of Glacier (and the new Goldrush) can easily hold more than one tech building as well.

Why not actually make it part of the armor system? Like for example body shots do significantly reduced damage as long as there is still armor while headshots do their bonus damage all the time. This means that while a character is a full health (with armor) a headshot is far more preferable to land and yet when a character has taken significant damage and has no armor body shots become a viable way to finish them off.

Yes options are good and to each their own.

How are they unwilling to continue the battle when they are winning? I mean winning in the aspect of pounding the enemy into oblivion. The only thing that stops this is the clock. So did GDI forces once 30 minutes are up go "Oh well, their 1 building vs our 4 is too much for us to ever overcome. Abandon the battlefield everyone!" Ridiculous.

There would never be a large enough point lead? Say you're up 4-5k points. You're never going to completely stop earning points. It's conceivable that without abusing some cheap tactic (like whoring a building) you would never make up that deficit. Anyway the point originally was that a team deciding to quit can happen at any time. It doesn't have to be because you lost too many buildings it can happen just because the other team has too much of a lead too late in the game. In fact that's usually the only way timed servers end with base destruction. When one side quits. Most other times its a 30 minute grind fest all aimed at scoring points like you're playing Galaga.

By your logic the team who's down a lot of points with 10 minutes to go and no sign of a change should just give up since destroying enemy buildings isn't likely going to matter.

Maybe have it so that each building extra that a team has over you wish worth a certain number of points? That way it evens out if the buildings are even. I just want building loss to matter. It's stupid that a base that is mostly rubble won a fight. What did GDI or Nod just give up? It's just stupid.

How eloquent. I've seen entire servers empty out because of a hacker running around with aimbot and some kind of infinite ammo/rapid fire cheat. I agree with you completely. Glitch abuse (beacons that you can't find) and hackers are the main things that are keeping people away. The next biggest group would be people who are waiting for the bugs to be sorted out. All this doom and gloom nonsense from people is shortsighted.

Actually you could do it with the spawn system. If your entire team is without any credits then you automatically lose. Add a cost to formerly free units (maybe like 15 credits?). Have the limit of tiberium on the map be set to a certain amount and as that number of a field shrinks so does the field (toward the center of that field where harvesters actually harvest). If a field runs out before another then the harvester has an adjusted path to that field. This would make tiberium control an essential part of that mode's gameplay. Perhaps call the gameplay mode something like: Resource Control

If they're the better team then why did they lose those buildings? Clearly they lacked the ability to destroy the enemy's buildings or else it would be the enemy with fewer buildings. It's this kind of backward logic that makes arguments in favor of points based timelimit wins look sad. You are arguing that losing more means you are winning. Why make part of the core gameplay have it not matter if you lose buildings as long as you accumulate points? Even accepting points (which aren't a horrible idea in and of themselves) I can never accept that a team with one building left that was getting crushed towards the end as the other team gets the upperhand (through skill or planning) somehow manages to win merely because they accumulated more points (with those points were earned potentially being from cheap stupidly easy tactics). To me the team with only one building left lost regardless of how many points they had. "Most of my base is rubble because we sucked too much to defend it, but we managed to get enough points for it not to matter!"

Great news

Airstrikes add a lot to the game if you actually have an open mind and aren't just butthurt because it changes tactics you relied to heavily on. That's what this boils down to SFJake. You don't want to adapt to a new thing. Below I'm going to list what airstrikes add to the game and what changes to your tactics you can use to circumvent them. This is a new layer of skill required to win a match. Also take into consideration that airstrikes do need balancing. They need an appropriate cost and tweaks to keep them from being spammed. The concept of airstrikes with those tweaks is what I'm defending. Airstrikes ------------------------------------------------- Rushes: Airstrikes can be used to break up a rush that is boiling at your base's entrance or to break up a rush as it slams into whatever buildings that happen to be the target. Counter: Rush tactics need to change. You need to start using assortments of vehicles instead of just one grouping. For example having a couple apcs in the mix to speed in. If they get hit with the airstrike your main force doesn't. If not they can move in and hit infantry. You should have them loaded with some infantry to pop out at buildings. You're giving them multiple things to juggle, particularly on larger maps. Pre-Rush: Airstrikes can be used to prep an area for your rush. Like decimating the defending tanks of the base prior. Counter: Watchful snipers preventing enemy units from targeting the necessary area. Area Control: Allows one unit who's spent the necessary credits (and who can die quite easily) to provide adequate defense for an area. They can at least stall incoming forces with the threat. Counter: Once again units can die. Particularly infantry. If it's someone in a vehicle then they must exit the vehicle to use it. Which makes them or their vehicle vulnerable. Airstrikes just need work. They don't need removing as they add a new dimension to the game. You just need to be willing to learn how to fit your tactics around them and stop being a little crybaby.

Airstrikes covering beacons should be removed. In fact airstrikes shouldn't work near beacons at all. That's the danger zone and any plane above that area would be getting hit with an ion or nuke strike.

More like headshots in the original were over rewarded vs body shots. The changes to headshots here seem far better. The changes aren't perfect (Orca) but stop pretending that 5x damage headshots were a great way to balance the game. It was severely easy to kill people with headshots and not hard to land them in Renegade.

I like Goldrush aside from a few pesky problems. I like the lighting in it too. Much more interesting than bright ass daytime or dark nighttime.

Man the Orca sucks really bad now.

I suppose that's a fair solution. It's amazing how a good nights sleep affects my ability to agree. My problem with Gunner's reload time stems from how he compares in Ren X to other units. His reload time worked fine in Renegade, but in Ren X it just seems so incredibly slow compared to a lot of other changes.

It's not about K/D! Only crybabies complain that you are aimbotting based SOLELY off of K/D. I've seen more than enough legitimate snipers behind rocks or walls pop out and get someone because they were watching that area and waiting. Aimbotting can be done like that, but it isn't obvious like that. It is obvious though when you operate like you have eyes in the back or sides of your head. 100% accurate snapshots to different people's heads is aimbotting when it keeps happening. I personally err on the side of caution when accusing someone. I mean death in Renegade (original or X) is cheap. There's no reason to get bent out of shape because you got sniped several times by the same guy. I've even ignored suspicious shots if they happen rarely. I mean people do get lucky. However it is obvious when you notice impossible shots being taken repeatedly. If you're a good sniper you need to stop defending accused aimbotters from the position of your own perspective. It's fine to err on the side of caution as no one wants to be accused themselves of something they aren't doing just because they are that good. It isn't fine to insult the intelligence of legitimate players who believe they've witnessed aimbotting after it happens repeatedly. You might just be defending a cheater.

I think a cooldown of 10 seconds between airstrikes for each team would be fair. The aircraft have to return to base to refuel and rearm (in 10 seconds, those are some fast planes). I could get behind superweapon cooldowns though.

I understand it is impractical and I've quit a lot of marathon matches because they dragged on way too long. People have things to do and watching two teams without refineries grind against each other can be quite lacking in the fun department. I know it was probably lost in my ranting about pointwhores, but I did suggest that you could have it timed and win by building destruction count when time runs out. If you have the same buildings only then would points be taken into consideration. No. What I mean is that if GDI has 3 buildings left and Nod has 2 when time runs out then GDI wins. They did more to destroy the enemy base. If they both have 3 buildings (or 2) then the one with the most points wins. This would be far more accurate and fair than "GDI wins because they could hit your refinery from safety early in the match with an MLRS for 10 minutes." That's a crude analogy but it is entirely possible scenario. It doesn't boil down to team skill either because that team could have been busy doing a number of legitimate things to defeat the enemy and just not been focused on a MLRS that retreats and comes back every five seconds. Sure you could put a lot of effort into killing it and at the same time lose a lot of points in the attempt while getting few back. How have you been more effective at eliminating them? If I'm shooting a building I know won't die and they know it won't die then there is no threat of elimination. Just my accumulating numbers that only mean anything because of a stupid victory condition involving points. My problem with points isn't that they are an unlegitimate way to win (obviously they are legit in a timed server as it is now). My problem with them is that they are an undesirable win for me. I don't feel satisfied winning with points and I don't really respect those who are satisfied with those wins. I've had a lot of grindy marathon games sure, but even those games involved more strategy and daring than a by the numbers points game. Credits have a lot more meaning in games without a timelimit. Reducing a team's resources by sacrificing my surplus resources is a valid tactic in a marathon game. In a points game it's me giving them points. So it is true that managing your team's point count in relation to the other team takes some skill and care, but it removes a lot of other strategy. Too much for my tastes. I do apologize for my ranting. I've just bottled up most of my thoughts about timed servers for years.

You don't think that much damage is OP for Rocket Soldier right now? Bearing in mind that 10 rocket soldiers can kill a building from across the map in about 7 seconds, and they are a nearly free unit that can be bought the instant the game starts? Consider, against Light Armor and Heavy Armor Gunner does 40 damage per shot, while the Rocket Officer does 55 damage. The Rocket Officer does only 37.5% more damage per shot. Against Infantry Gunner does 90 damage per shot while the Rocket Officer does 100 damage per shot, for only 11% more damage per shot. But against Buildings, Gunner does 1.66% damage per shot while the Rocket Officer does 3.5% damage per shot. The Rocket Officer does 110% more damage per shot than the Gunner vs. Buildings. This makes no sense and isn't balanced. And if you upped Gunner's RoF even higher to compensate then Gunner would also receive a damage boost against tanks and infantry, allowing him to absolutely annihilate them in the blink of an eye. Gunner rushes were already considered a very powerful tactic in Renegade. Rocket Officer is, right now, far stronger in a building rush than Gunner was in Renegade, and for a much smaller price tag. Talking about buffing Gunner to be stronger is insane. No one looked at Gunner in Renegade and said "Yeah, he needs to be 50% stronger to be useful". Eh, I might be inclined to agree that they need their shots weakened against buildings somewhat. However I don't think they need to be nerfed like crazy. Every GDI could buy a McFarland AT MATCH START and pummel a building to rubble if they were smart. I've yet to see any effective McFarland rushes like I used to see early Gunner rushes and Gunner was never purchaseable prior to the first harvester dump. Why no talk about nerfing McFarland?

I heard it was 2500 a few days back so it may have changed (or it may be different depending if it is AOW Jelly or Marathon). I never tested it myself though. 1000 would be more fair. Maybe even make it so more than one airstrike can't be called within a period of time (a cooldown for the planes).

No I disregarded his entirely stupid excuses for pointwhoring. I am an asshole though, I'll admit that. Points do not promote offense. They promote milking a point sponge (like a building) as much as possible. It's entirely possible for an evenly matched team to lose out because they didn't focus on whoring points via cheap tactics. That's not an increase in skill or gameplay that is a decrease. That is rewarding degenerate behavior and trying to label it as skill to make yourself feel better for it. Any argument that it takes skill to earn points is meaningless because it takes more skill (generally) to destroy the enemy completely. Strategy is good. Pointwhoring removes strategy and it is tragic that you are so blinded by your own need for points to see this. Strategy is organizing an effective plan and moving it forward. In this case that would be trying to destroy the other team. There isn't strategy in shooting a static structure enough times to guarantee your victory regardless of the other team's efforts. The only viable strategy in a pointwhore server is to pointwhore. Base destruction is rare and only happens if the opposing team is sloppy. Point victory is absurdly easy to pull off (skillwise) and it takes very little planning. You're bias won't let you look at this objectively though. You're too caught up with feeling good about winning after whoring up a ton of points. Why not play on a server where the opposing team must actually be overcome? Where the opposing team can come back and win after you've exhausted your own team on bringing them down? No you'd rather win by accumulating enough points than to actually defeat the enemy. Also note: When I talk about skill I'm not trying to be elitist. I'm not the best player or even in the top 50 of players i've met (let alone players who ever played Renegade ever ala those like Got2bRoni). I'm a mediocre marksman. I make up for that often with ingenuity and daring. I've crippled teams with tactics that would be stupid on a pointwhore server. Points remove a lot of tactics and skill from the game and dumb it down. Points become paramount because the clock never stops ticking on a timed server. Whereas on a marathon server my sacrificing expensive units and causing attrition at the right times can help my team win (or save comrades). Relying on points removes this and I've never played a points match that deviated from point whoring. Removing attrition as a viable tactic, expensive distractions, and suicide as a viable tactic. Point whoring removes aspects of skill from the game. Face it.