vleessjuu

These are all nice ideas. I disagree, though, that having constant access to the map would be OP: having access to information about your own team should never be considered OP, if you ask me. It just helps to cut down chatter to a minimum so that communication can focus on the actually important parts rather than "I'm class Y at position X" and such. Especially for a pub-oriented game like Renegade, I think it's very important for everyone to have access to important team information, because let's face it: communication in pubs is always going to be quite limited. Having the right information can really help to pick up the slack there and make team play a lot more common.

I never got this complaint. I've literally (yes, literally literally) never seen games getting destroyed due to voicechat and I've played plenty of pubgames that were greatly enhanced by it. If anything, it's programs like teamspeak/mumble that are ridiculously overrated if you ask me. Yeah, sure, they're nice for competitive play, but for pubs it doesn't make any sense having to use a separate program for communication. And for people who don't want to hear voicechat, all you need is a simple mute option.

I see what you mean, but I don't think the splash damage on tanks is what makes them effective: it's their survivability IMO. Pretty much only the Volt rifle deals enough dps to legitimately catch out a tank and destroy it quickly, everything else is only enough to scare a tank back at best (and that's honestly the main job of anti-vehicle infantry). This is why attacking an all infantry team is so tedious: infantry is great at defense, but has no real way to go on a counteroffensive against vehicles. I don't think that reducing the tank's splash would make them much more vulnerable to infantry (especially because of the proposed speed buff to tanks) since they're still very survivable and because the long range units can bombard chokes and cover more effectively. The refill cooldown plays into that as well, since it makes infantry less powerful at defense, but the reduced splash would give them some more room to go on the offensive instead. Also: reducing the effectiveness of tanks vs infantry would free up a niche for the APC as crowd controller, which I think wouldn't be a bad thing.

If you disagree about the vehicle changes: fair enough. I agree that it's partially a flavor change, but my motivation is also to get closer to the old CnC feel. Like I said: these are things I already kinda disliked about the original Ren, so I decided to just throw it out and see what others think. I also think that the new sprinting ability to infantry made some vehicles too slow by comparison (and personally I think that speed should be one of their primary advantages), so that's basically a reaction to the new changes. About the splash: I still think it is problematic on some maps with big chokepoints (Field being the prime offender). Having the long range units constantly splash the choke is bad enough and I don't think the tanks should contribute as well. This problem could also be addressed by simply redesigning the maps, of course, but I really think something needs to be done to deal with this (what I think is a) rather serious issue. About the engineer C4s: my point is not that shotgunners are/should better building sweepers; it's that that engineers shouldn't be at all. For a free class, engies already fulfill enough roles as it is: they repair stuff, they can camp doorways, they are good building killers and they can blow up vehicles from up close. Cleaning a building should not be their job IMO, that's what other combat classes are for. Besides, the new pistol is awesome in Ren X and engies are no slouch in a close range gunfight either. Nerfing their C4 damage/splash vs infantry would hamper their camping ability a bit (which is not necessary, IMO), while my nerf will only affect their direct manfighting ability. And they can still land a skillshot by sticking the C4 right on top of someone and killing them that way.

So here's some ideas I've been having over the last few days I've played RenX. Most of these are basically resurfacing thoughts I also had during the old Renegade days, but back then there was basically no point in really discussing them. Anyway, consider these to be mere suggestions to take into consideration and nothing more. Vehicles. Personally, I think that the vehicles should be diversified a bit more in their roles. If you think back to the original CnC games, tanks were always the vehicles to deal with other vehicles and buildings, but not infantry. In Renegade, though, all infantry is extremely vulnerable to tank fire do to their significant splash and high RoF. On the flip side, artilleries/mrls are very powerful vs tanks, even though their role should be, IMO, primarily to suppress infantry and kill buildings from afar, just like in the old CnC. Furthermore, tank vs tank combat is sort of boring because it's pretty difficult to dodge shots and because the high RoF of tanks means that you have no real time to weave in-and-out of LoS to make the most out of your cover. Suggestions: - MRLS/arties get more splash radius, but less damage vs heavy armor. MRLS might need a little of something else to boost their anti-infantry role, though I'm ok with MRLS being slightly more focused on killing vehicles and arties being better at dealing with infantry. - Tanks get to be a bit faster (except for the Mammoth). Infantry can sprint now and tanks now feel rather slow by comparison (well, they're still faster, but not much). Only the Mammoth and arties/MRLS should be truly slow, all other vehicles should be able to convincingly outpace infantry. - Tanks get less splash: killing infantry with a tank should be a skillshot (direct hit) rather than just shooting the ground. Or you run them over/avoid them (which should be easier with the speed buff). The splash on Mammoth stingers remains unaffected, though. - Tanks get higher firepower, but lower RoF (keeping dps equal). This is mostly to make tank combat more about positioning and ambushing rather than just a slugfest. This also makes tanks more viable vs mrls/arties, since they can more effectively hide from them and take potshots. It also makes skillshots vs infantry more rewarding, yet harder to get. I don't really want to go in the direction of directional armor (like many modern games with tanks do) since it doesn't really feel like CnC (CnC 3 did it, but ok). - Finally, the last change will affect Mammoths a lot, since it will be much easier to chip them down safely. To compensate for that, I suggest an extra armor tier specifically for Mammoths (let's call it "very heavy armor"). This armor is equal to heavy armor for base defenses and infantry weapons, but very heavy armor takes less damage from all vehicles, making the Mammoth more formidable in vehicle combat and making them a valuable repair target. Infantry. The vehicle changes will already affect infantry quite significantly, so I don't want to touch them too much. The tank changes ensure that infantry have to worry less about getting chipped down by tank spam so they can ignore them more easily and focus on what they really want to do. However, there are a few things I want to suggest: -Make engineers less potent as suicide terrorists. It's almost silly how incredibly effective these guys are at base defense by just running at something and tossing remote C4. I have no problem with engies setting up remote traps to guard a building, but inside a building they are incredible at dealing with attacking infantry and it hardly takes any skill. Just throw C4s and refill constantly. To address this, just give remote C4 a ~2 sec set time before it can be detonated. Engis have to be less fearful of getting blown up by tanks due to the reduced splash I suggested, so this change wouldn't affect their anti-vehicle role much, but it would make them much less potent at blowing up infantry. Shotgunners should have the role of sweeping buildings, not engies, if you ask me. -Put a cooldown on refills at terminals. Just a small one, like 5-10 seconds. -Finally, I think it would be cool for infantry to have some sort of sustain in the field to deal with their limited ammo supply. One example could be a deployable item that you can buy at the terminal (so a third option after beacon and airstrike) that gives infantry the ability to resupply ammo (not health). The deployable should have a limited life time (30-60 seconds or so) and should be destroyable by the enemy team. If this is to OP, there is the option to make this item only available to engies/techs.

A commander could be very cool and there are a few examples of it working very well. Natural Selection also combined shooter gameplay with an RTS element in the form of a commander and it can lead to really intense gameplay. However, it typically comes with it's own set of problems as well, since a bad commander can easily lose you the game all by himself. If Renegade X were to go down the commander route, I strongly suggest that the commander role should be highly optional and playing without a commander should still be possible. He shouldn't have very powerful/crucial abilities at his disposal other than being able to have a battlefield overview and being able to direct his team. Maybe some moderately useful support abilities, but not more.

The original renegade simply listed the names behind every player's name. It got the job done, but it was not always the easiest to get a quick overview. An alternative would be to just give the player a screen with a tally of all the classes, like: Officer: 1, Chem: 0, SBH: 3, Laser chaingunner: 2, ... etc. That way you can easily see what classes are currently lacking or if a class you want to play is already overcrowded.

In the old Renegade you could bring up this overview that showed exactly what everyone on your team was playing and what vehicle they had. So unless I missed it, I didn't find this feature in Renegade X yet. It's possible to see who's playing engi/Tech with the extended scoreboard and at a purchase terminal you can see what vehicles are in play. Still, I miss the old overview that also showed how many snipers, PICs etc. there are on your team. So has this already been implemented and did I miss it? Or is it simply not there yet?

In Tribes it works like this: first you push the voice command button (usually v), which brings up a menu with general ideas like "attack (a)", "defend (b)" etc. You push what you want to do, and then a next menu will pop up for more specifics, such as again "defend!(d)" or "generator (g, or whatever)". So pressing "vdd" will just give you "Defend!" while "vdg" gives you "Defend the generator!" These menu's can go 3 or 4 tiers deep, giving a lot of different possible messages that you basically write out with the first letter of each word (in most cases). It's really easy to learn and very fast.

I played tons of Renegade back in the days and this was pretty much my main gripe. Sure, you can play on a finite time limit server, but that doesn't really solve the problem, IMO. Winning by points is kinda unsatisfying and the winner is pretty much determined once one of the two teams has been boxed in by the other. Don't get me wrong, I love Renegade for everything it does right: the asymmetric gameplay, the C&C feel, the action. Gameflow has always been off, though, if you ask me. Dynamic games with a good flow have a proper balance between snowball mechanisms and comeback mechanisms. In Renegade, I feel like it's too easy to get an insurmountable advantage while at the same time it's often too difficult to finish the job. Initially one team can snowball very hard, but then the game either ends very quickly (which is ok, as long as those kinds of snowball doesn't happen too often and too easily) or not at all. Personally, I would prefer a bit less initial snowballing and simultaneous more opportunity to finish the job and I don't think this requires very big changes to the core gameplay.

I love Renegade, but I agree with the OP that the endgame can be a bit of a drag. If neither side manages to take a building down and both sides end up with a good amount of resources, it can go on for ever and ever just because there's no real way to starve the enemy team out. Killing the harvester over and over makes it difficult for the enemy team to mount a counter offensive and gives your team a ton of extra credits, but the advantage is often not enough to break the innate defender's advantage. Now I don't have any real solutions ready, but I'm thinking along the line of minor stuff, such as making vehicle purchases slower (i.e. longer cooldown between buying vehicles) or simply re balancing the economy. Perhaps even a cooldown on infantry purchases? Some maps could probably use an extra avenue of attack to make defending a bit more difficult.

I hardly played Renegade X so far, but from the original I remember Field as a map that you just shouldn't play with more than 24 players (and that's pushing it). Same with Under (though Under was quite a bit more flawed than Field). I also always disliked MRLS and arty spam on field and honestly think the map needs something that limits their firing lines, but that's just me.

I agree with this suggestion. I liked the Renegade voice commands back in the day, but coming back to the game after all this time, it clearly shows that the hotkeys are outdated. The Tribes system is brilliant, IMO, and makes it very easy to implement MANY different (and useful) voice commands. It would be very convenient if we could have additional voice commands like "Defend the Weapons Factory!".