Megakoresh

Amen to that.

This is precisely what he did and I can assure you this is precisely what most of the so-called "hardcore fans" (there is really no proper name for them, maybe fanboi?) will do. In my opinion they are best ignored, like the way they themselves ignore reason, but it can be a tricky thing to do when you are a developer as they are often very vocal.

I think this game suffers from the classic "Faithfulness syndrome". That is the developers are restricting themselves in the design process in order to stay as close as possible to the original game, to the point when it's old flaws or simply outdated design is being inherited by this game as well. You can read about the details that I mean in particular in my feedback thread, I don't post much, it's easy to find from my profile, but the main problem how I see it is they are too afraid to make some changes that will piss off hardcore fans (will is deliberate here. In my experience a "hardcore fan" is pissed off 100% of the time, unless they get an exact copy of their beloved game with upgraded graphics. And even then they are pissed off because "the original looked clearer"). I have said, that me and the clan I am in seriously considered this to be our next game of focus, we conducted an event for it and played it for a very long time almost non-stop and pretty much everyone had the exact same complaints that I outline in my feedback. The whole spam problem, the games dragging out, the gunplay and the movement system, the low-damage/high-health model, being forced to play or have an engineer on a leash to be even remotely useful: all those things are problems most people will not be willing to deal with in 2014 and they don't. And in order for the game to stay fresh with new players coming in, some brave steps have to be taken in terms of combat balance, pacing, map design (especially the invisible walls everywhere), gunplay and so on. Furthermore some ranking system with badges would also be nice: you can login with Steam ID, so why not enable stat tracking which can be linked to a rank system. A simple badge next to the player's name in the scoreboard can do wonders in terms of attachment factor for many players. The unique part of Renegade is the Base-Gameplay link and attached gameplay elements (repairs, super weapons, sieging/combined arms, advanced classes and attack-defence balance). As long as those elements exist the game's "soul" exist. Everything else can be changed, no doubt followed by a volley of screams from veterans about every little number tweak. But if not, I see no prospect of growth for this game, sadly. Will the developers be willing to sacrifice their relationship with hardcore veteran crowd in order to bring Renegade IP the recognition it deserves, or will they be content developing a niche game without gaining anymore players, is up to them to decide. But what I have seen in terms of feedback from players who are not fans of/never played original Renegade leaves little room for pondering as to what the issues are (and FYI the sole person in my clan who plays Modern Military Shooters didn't come online during the event at all. Most of us come from games like SW: Battlefront, Tribes, BF2142, as far as these types of MP shooters are concerned).

Strafe speed isn't the problem. Direction change without loss of velocity is. What makes the infantry fights so spammy and unenjoyable is the fact that there's no momentum. Ideally I would like to see a Painkiller-like movement system in this game, whereby you can gain momentum by chaining jumps in a smooth path or simply like in Mirror's Edge: the longer you run without chaining direction, the greater is your speed. Main point is to make other player's movement predictable, but make it a skill to hit them. Like in Tribes or Unreal. Furthermore, as I have posted in my own feedback thread, both the weapon damage AND the recoil they produce needs to be increased and made more responsive. I agree that the strafe spamming and infantry combat in general right now are neither enjoyable nor skillful and more annoying rather than anything else, but I don't think making people like the drunk slugs they are in Modern Military shooters will help. It will just make stuff more boring and even less skillful.

So when the patch becomes available, i just launch the game and it will update automagically?

"100222776 Gigabytes Available"?! WTF?

So you suggest removing variety and nerfing guns that are otherwise perfectly balanced for the sake of making one class useless in combat, such that people are forced to equip other classes if they want to fight, but must somehow always convince someone on the server to follow them around while doing nothing but aiming one gun at various objects and hoping that other person you are following around can protect you from the dangers of the galaxy? Riiight... Somehow I don't see that working out. I think another thing about engineers is how boring they are to play, just like anything that is forced on the player. Engineers are definitely forced, and as I said, if it was like that in the original Renegade, that just means it was also not very well balanced. As I said, maybe removing them is too extreme, but disarming mines, capturing buildings and disarming beacons should be tasks that any character can do. Maybe engineers can be made to do it better. But not the ONLY ones to perform these tasks. And healing players should also, IMO, be other class's job. I get what you two are trying to say. But do not view Renegade as the "perfect" game, there's nothing perfect in this world. If Engineers were like that in the old game, that just means it was also flawed. Flaws should be improved. As for the sidearms being equipped on death, I like that. I wasn't aware it was not consuming money, but I like the idea of not having to manually rebuy the same thing every time I spawn.

In that case the original game mechanics are simply bad. Bad mechanics should not be copied. When the only way to disarm a minefield is to either suicide rush it or babysit it with techs for 10 full minutes (!!!) that objectively can not be good. And right, some servers set limit for how many mines are allowed, but a mine, by it's very definition, can not be indestructible. If engineers are so essential and can't be removed, why not remove all the other classes then? The 8 of us in the clan just spawned as tech/hotwire classes and were able to do everything objective-wise better than everyone else, as well as defend ourselves easily with mines and remote C4, combined with tiberium rifle or heavy pistol. At no point, did I feel like I would do more good as any other class. The sole motivation to switch was out of boredom. This one class can do everything: capture, defend, repair, heal, disarm and destroy and due to the way this game is paced, defend themselves well too. When someone plants a beacon and there are no engineers nearby, there's no point to even try to find and disarm it. While you are switching it will be past it's threshhold, you won't be able to get to it in time. So if you are defending why would risk and take a different class? While at the front lines, when you have a bunch of vehicles sieging the enemy, every vehicle costs a bunch of money, so why would you switch a different class (and pay more for it too), if you can repair the vehicle as an engineer? While in the chokepoints, when preventing enemy from infiltrating, why would risk babysitting the choke point, with some class when you can just throw a bunch of mines, knowing it will take them at least half a minute to disarm your 3 mines and ONLY if they are lucky to have an engineer with them? Alternatively why would take someone else to recon an area, if you know that only engineers can go through a minefield intact? Why? No reason. So I never felt a reason, besides wanting variety, to play other classes. Especially if you are good with secondary weapons, which are really just as good as other class's primaries, just a bit more difficult to use. The vibe of this original game consists of the base defence/attack objective, combined arms, cool vehicles, superweapons, base structures being tied to resources and multiple separated routes on the maps. I can not see how requiring every player to be an engineer in order to play the objective carries any sort of vibe. Maybe removal is a solution that is too extreme (I was thinking in terms of what's easier to do), but spreading the class's responsibilities across multiple players/classes is certainly going to significantly improve the game. And definitely won't destroy the feel of the original Renegade, because it simply can't, it's just a balance improvement.

I managed to get our grand and glorious clan interested in this little gem of a game, just as we are changing focus and reformatting the clan for a new primary game, and yesterday we did a "Get to know" event for this game. We played quite a lot, almost 6 hours straight (not all and with some breaks, but still). I have been playing this game since it came out and since it's rings quite a few bells for me, I have assimilated rather well to it. I have been to many betas before and I am studying game design (focusing on gameplay/combat design) professionally, so I think after yesterday's extensive run, I have enough experience in this game give a reasonably extensive feedback from the "average gamer standpoint". This will be long, sorry, can't help myself. Please do NOT treat this feedback in regards to the "original Renegade" and whatnot. I am talking ONLY based on gameplay and will try to provide suggestions based on that without any bias towards the original (which I played so long ago I don't even remember much of how it was to begin with) or anything else. And because some people will think something which I rather not mention: I am Tribes and Quake veteran, played a lot of those games. I also played a fair bit of Nuclear Dawn and a little Natural Selection 2. I really dislike MMS with their grindy progression models and while I do not despise BF as much as I do CoD, I still can't find it fun for long. Also ALL people in our clan are hardcore gamers. None of them can be called "casuals" from any perspective. So from that standpoint, they are definitely the audience to aim for. Note that I focus on critical things in feedback. If it works fine, why write about it? I love this game, but praising it won't help to improve it, so I will write about it's problems, not what works well, like scale or variety of classes or graphics. Let's go! Gameplay Most in my clan complained HEAVILY about gun feedback. Being a veteran of Quake, I do not have as big a problem with it, but I see where my friends are coming from and I see how it can deter a larger audience. Let me explain: Gun's recoil/damage model is not balanced for feedback. In simple terms it just means: not enough recoil AND damage. In order for them to feel weighty they need to kick the enemy as much they kick the aim. That is when I shoot GDI gunner's bazooka it should kick like a horse, because it deals 50% of HP in one hit. Similarly weapons such as soldiers LMG should have around 50% greater muzzle climb AND 50% greater damage. The main point of recoil is that it allows you to have a very powerful weapon that kills fast, but takes more skill to control. Thus you compensate for that damage by making it so that projectiles are not easy to land on the target. The gun that i personally find the best in terms of recoil-damage ratio (although could certainly use more recoil) is Raveshaw's gun. That one hits like a truck, but kicks too. Suggestion? Buff damage across the board for most weapons and buff recoil just as much. Recoil should go hand in hand with damage. Better yet? Make varying recoil patterns. I know UDK allows for example these recoil X and Y axis biases. Vary those up for different weapons. Make it a skill to learn any weapons and make a skillful soldier always beat a not skillful Laser gunner just because one lands all hits to the head and another has trouble landing his hits at all. Look at how CS does it for example. Why is this important you may ask? Quake didn't need recoil... Painkiller didn't need it... Tribes doesn't have much of it either. Well you know what those games do have? Speed. When you fly around at 300kph or jump around like a maniac to gain momentum or fly around on jump pads, you do not have time for recoil, it's just annoying. But when combat is focused in choke points, when you stand beside a tank and are trying to lay suppressing fire on the engineers across the field, recoil WITH the proper damage DOES matter a lot. You need to feel that you are really putting effort into every burst, every shot. And THEY need to FEAR your bullets, they need to know that if you are good and you manage to hit, then it will HURT. As it stands the only bullet I fear and take cover from is Sakura's or GDI Sniper's oneHK bodyshots (which need a nerf, 1HK bodyshots are just BS). [*]That's not all about the guns. In addition to dealing low damage and having low recoil thus fighting condensing to the weird strafing around at low speeds, the gun's iron sights are practically useless. Unless you are playing as a sniper, there's literally no point trying to aim down sights: it slows you down and makes it impossible to dodge bullets, while not giving you any noticeable accuracy advantage. [*]Aiming down sights, coupled with proper recoil should reduce recoil on the weapon by around 30-50% depending on the weapon and reduce spread by 50-100% depending on the weapon. That is a real tradeoff to standing still. [*]Also try to match recoil with the gun's fire animations. Look at Patch. Aim down sights and fire. Warning: motion sickness might ensue. [*]Hit feedback is also a problem: When you are being hit, it the indicator should be more noticeable. I would reduce it's size, but make it brighter. Make the camera bob a liiitle bit down when you are hit by a bullet. Just a little bit. No screenshake. Just a smooth bob. You studied animation? Know about easing? Use a curve like this. You'd be surprised how big an effect it would have. When you hit someone there should an audio confirmation that is loud and satisfying. The BEST audio hit confirmation sound I have ever heard in games is probably in Tribes Ascend. I dunno how difficult it would be, but can we have a selection of sounds for kills? I don't mind boink, but some of my friends are disturbed by it. [*]Vehicles are for the most part quite nice, but I am not keen on the "passenger" role. [*]Let the passenger do something. In transport helis I can shoot stuff. Why can't I shoot the LMG on APCs or tanks? The driver already has driving to worry about. Let passengers worry about shooting people. Otherwise sitting there chewing tiberium sandwiches is boring. And unhealthy. Balance Ohoho there's quite a few problems there... ENGINEERS This one is just insane. The more I play the more I am shocked by how EVERYTHING is done by engineers. Just REMOVE them. Remove engineers, techs, hotwires. Give ALL classes a repair tool. Make advanced repair tool a purchasable weapon upgrade. And make it so repair tools can't heal players. Instead add a "Support" class, to also solve another problem with balance/convenience in this game: Support class should be able to heal players. Support class should have resupply crates. This is a big issue in the game now, when you run out of ammo, you have to go back to the base or suicide. And unless you are carrying an item, you bought, of course you will just suicide. That is quite silly. Adding a class that would be able to resupply players in the field adds tactical depth to the game and allows pressured, tense fights to last longer. The Support class should have around 3 supply crates. One supply crate should be usable by 2 separate players (excluding Support class, which should just have unlimited ammo and no C4/grenades). [*]MINES! Indestructible mines that take like 10 seconds EACH to disarm using a repair gun mean you can basically permanently wall off a tunnel or an area from both sides. This is just silly. Mines should be tricky to SEE, not get rid of. Instead of making them indestructible, make them explode if shot and to balance out, make them not pop up on the visors when looked at. Give them a more neutral texture too. Make it a skill to place mines where they are less likely to be spotted, but more likely to be stepped on, like top of the hills or in shadows, around corners, etc. [*]Maps with obelisks/AGTs should not also have turrets in them, that's just too much. [*]PLEASE balance maps like Fields to give both teams a fair defence structure coverage. In the fields it's pretty much impossible to get to the NOD structures without getting fried by the obelisk, whereas you can easily without any harm both sneak in the back and blow up GDI refinery with a beacon without getting hit by the AGT at all AND you can easily just change in along the wall in the buggy straight to the AGT thanks to the huge opening and plant a C4/beacon in the tower. Very unbalanced map. So far it's the most unbalanced map. [*]Flame tanks should not do so much damage to buildings. They are supposed to be able to clear out fields from infantry and vehicles, and protect friendly NOD units, not be the most effective siege weapon in the game. That's what NOD artillery is for. [*]Please make some variations in movement speed for classes. Why is a shotgunner or flamethrower soldier moving at the same speed as a Heavy gunner or a Rocket soldier? They should move faster. [*]Flying vehicles don't seem to do much most rockets have lock on and there are no flairs. Dogfighting is effectively non-existent and I just don't see a reason to buy a helicopter aside for transportation purposes. Not to mention that most maps don't even allow flying vehicles (more on that in the last section). [*]Like I posted here, I think Refinery is not in a very good spot right now. Whenever Refinery or the Harvester+Vehicle structure get destroyed, the game becomes incredibly dull. [*]I am of the opinion that instead passive credit gain should always be the same and increase towards the end of the game (at the end people should never worry about money, to reduce match dragging out), and Refineries+Harvesters be responsible for getting additional resource required to buy advanced vehicles like Mammoths, Stealth tanks or Flame tanks and well as possible some infantry classes. Convenience/Usability/User Experience Please allow us to respawn with a selected class. So If I select flamer class, and die, I will respawn with the flamer class. Please allow purchase menu on death, so I can immediately spawn with desired loadout. Please let us rebind keys/change settings from within the match without usage of consoles. I dunno if it's possible, but if you can please allow joining through steam and adding servers to favourites. Please let us view server info for the server we are currently on. The invisible walls everywhere are just terrible. On some maps where I can clearly fit a small vehicle in some place, it wouldnt let me do that because there's a wall. The helicopter ceiling is super-low as well. In Islands I can't go into water and swim around. It's a GIANT bummer for me. "Out of bounds, respawn in..." type of soft boundaries is MUCH better. Please do something about these invisible walls. Half the time they should not even be there. Give players more room. Voice chat? Let us rebind voice command activation. For me it is physically impossible to press for example ctrl+v+8 with one hand. I would like to rebind all of these activator buttons and possibly change the method of activation from hold to toggle. Make radar more useful Make enemies and friendlies pop up on it and flash when they move or fire. Radar should be a tactical tool, but it's very bleak and inconvenient to use ATM. Well that is it for now. The game is great, we'll definitely be playing it, keep up the good work. I probably forgot something, but I will then add it later...

That's true though, 5-6 mammoths and the whole NOD team is busy with them. I always said they are way to easy to obtain. Having vehicles like that should take team effort not just a lot of farm. I suggested before that the refinery be repurposed into providing an extra resource that would be required for these Mammoth tanks on GDI side and in smaller amounts for Flame and Stealth tanks for NOD. If it would do that, and the passive credit gains would be, well, passive, that will also help with the problem of every match becoming super dull once the refinery goes down. I actually noticed on some servers people specifically target refineries last because of this very problem. But it is of course rare that people would care about this sort of thing. Most of the time refinery goes down, people get bored and leave. And I can't blame them seeing as it's a horrible grind for another 15 or so minutes till the end.

Mammoths are quite slow, attack them from the front AND from behind, they seem to go down pretty much always. For example I took a flame tank and burned the spammers while my team was zerging them from the front. Not a very elaborate tactics, but on pug servers you can't really expect organized teamplay.

Yeah sure, it's misplaced, but I think it's on purpose. Like you know the ZZZZZAAAP!! icon when you get killed by an obelisk. This game is not particularly lore-friendly, but I personally don't care. But isn't it a UDK game? Can't people mod things like sounds on their own?

I have 2 questions: Refinery makes all matches very dull upon destruction, like I posted in a thread before. Is this gonna be looked into? Will there be some way (vehcile/class/calldown item) to enable resupply for your team out in the field? Right now if you run out of ammo, you just die to refill, which is not very umm... tactical. And not very convenient either.

I also suggested changing it's role. In strategy games you'd need extra resource types to build advanced units. I think Refinery would do best if it was not responsible for the passive income (rather keep passive income always the same), but for resources to access advanced vehicles like Mammoths and Flame tanks as well as some of the more powerful infantry like Patch or that NOD equivalent (I don't remember the name, one with slow firing plasma weapon that kills everything really quickly). Making it invincible would probably be among the options for admins anyway.

I can not rebind any voice command bindings (the ctrl+[something] combination). This feature is essentially unusable for me because there's no way in a million years I can ever press ctrl or alt+v and then number keys from 1 to 0 with one hand while moving or under fire. Is this a bug or just not implemented feature yet? Since the 1920x1080 resolution option missing from the menu is a bug, I imagine this one is also such. Is there a way to edit the config files to remap this stuff? I want to remap ctrl/alt (the hold keys basically) to my mouse thumb buttons.