Riou Insuiko

Poi occasionally changes his name here or there so it might be him. If it is, it's not surprising. Maybe someone with access to the logs can confirm or deny it.

I'm a middle of the road commander at best but I have some tips from my experience doing it. One tip I can offer is, outside of very coordinated efforts, it's not worth buffing a rush before veteran or better rank. Too many times I've seen teams where a commander tries to get a rocket rush going too early in the match before people have even earned any VP. There's such a huge chance of failure it's not really worth trying unless you are seriously getting 12+ people and the other team isn't bothering to defend or repair. Occasionally you'll have successful officer rushes or rushes in general that will infiltrate a building right at the start of a match but those are very rare, especially in random matches. Being too eager to try the same thing over and over again is another. Where a Doza rush doesn't work so as soon as the commander has CP for another one they'll try again regardless of how successful the first attempt was. If you got a building into the red but failed to kill it the first time, maybe it's worth a shot, but assuming that the opposing team will never see another rush against the same target coming is a bit of a stretch. Constantly going for the same target over and over can be a mistake. Sort of in response to what has been said here about being decisive and really taking command, it should be made clear that being decisive is not the same thing as ignoring what the rest of your team says/thinks and just following through with your exact plan. Sometimes it's worth changing plans depending on the battlefield situation. If you're prepping a Gunner rush on something like Walls to fly to the plateau but your team informs you that the side path allowing you to hit the Hand of Nod has nobody on it and is basically free it's worth at least considering that as a change of plans. Finally.. don't camp the CP cap at any point in time. I see this too often.

Bowl might be more a more fitting name to call it. I don't think the game focuses super heavily on realism. Obviously not. When I say realism I more mean that it is a convincing setting for a battle. Background scenery makes a pretty big difference in my opinion. Even if clearly the battlefield is one giant arena when you have things to look at and 'ways out' of the battlefield, to me anyway, makes a much more engaging setting. In some ways it absolutely detracts from the gameplay experience when it's done poorly. You shouldn't be able to parkour in and out of the battlefield constantly avoiding a timer to get to some otherwise unreachable place. Nor should something that looks like it would be reasonably useful be a lure for people to get the warning countdown. In a sense, it should be clear and obvious when you are leaving the battlefield. Not sort of a guessing game as to when it's going to happen while skirting the edge of a map.

If nothing else I think they should do more damage to infantry.

Med center I mean. Doh'

I think it would be interesting if each vehicle path was more advantageous to one side. Maybe have the back path heading to the hon/bar be wide open for GDI tanks to dominate as it is now. The opposing vehicle path near the medical center could have more cover better suited for Nod. I'd even go so far as to say that I think there should be a one sided ramp starting right at the exit to the Nod base, med center side, that has a dropoff somewhere near the middle of that area. This could serve as a legitimate aid to flame tanks & stealth tanks, allowing them to get about half way through the field without being easily targeted by GDI. Of course you might want to set this up in such a way as to avoid having a difficult to hit spot for artillery to camp. I've seen GDI win pretty much every time as well. Not sure if my experience or your 6 map experience combined is enough to say that a balance change is needed, but it's something worth discussing.

1) Lakeside 2) Field X 3) Reservoir 4) Islands 5) Eyes

We just disagree then. I would be in favor of making secondary weapons slightly cheaper, something like airstrikes for 500, if there were a structure on death that increased the cost to 1000. Without that I think that the price of secondary items should be high. From my point of view if mines need to be changed to accommodate new players, if they just can't learn on their own, then limiting them to buildings is essential.

Send em on over.

I disagree. I think they should be intentionally expensive by design. Both in credit cost and functionality. The broad idea being that it should be much harder overall to place mines in other locations but you have the option to do so if you have the credits. The scenario where 1,000 credits for 3 is fair is when you are playing a defensive role. It's easy to justify the 1,000 credits for extra mines if you are otherwise repairing a building for example or scouting for intruders. The personal mines in general would be an additional defensive measure against sneaking or rushes that would be running into buildings. They would not be designed to act as a 'tripwire' to alert you of an intruder. Thus they would not be added to the mine count/total. In the same way that tank mines are absent. They would still make the same noise on explosion or disarming, so you'd be able to hear that. The problem with having personal mines sticking around even after death or being cheap is that when you are dominating offensively the other team will have a much, much harder time trying to do infantry rushes or sneaking if the mines stick around forever. When there is no risk of you running out of money and you have the other team locked into their base it'll quickly become a normal strategy to cement that victory by having all of your players purchase and place extra mines in an attempt to completely prevent your base locked opponent from pushing out using infantry. The idea behind them disappearing on death is so that it won't be practical for you to constantly be replenishing them if you are playing an infantry role and have a decent chance of dying. You make up a good point that they should be visually distinct. That's something I didn't mention but should be included. Something a bit more than a palate swap might be ideal but maybe you can get away with just changing the colors around a little & the name.

This. The most likely alternative is to start arguing in the middle of a match. !noob is just enough of a dig at someone to act as a vent for frustration. Even if the counts don't actually mean anything.

Mines have been a hot topic since the release of the latest patch. I've got some suggestions regarding this. These suggestions would require maps to individually be tailored to the change. First is a classification/distinction between mines: Base mines and personal mines. Mine limits on all maps should be reverted/changed to a maximum equivalent of 3 mines per door. Only within the buildings of your base will you be allowed to place base mines. Base mines behave as mines did previously and do not disappear on death. This change will make it impossible for Hotwire/Technician mines to be placed outside of buildings. Personal mines will be able to be purchased as additional equipment and take up the secondary equipment slot in your inventory. For example you won't be able to take mines & a superweapon beacon. One or the other. These mines can be placed anywhere. Personal mines will have 75% the strength of standard mines, disappear on death, and cost 1,000 credits for a 3 pack. 3 being your personal mine limit. These mines should also have less health, in line with their strength, I'd say that they should have 25% less health than base mines making disarming them quicker and easier. Also faster with EMP weapons than standard base mines. Interested in hearing feedback regarding this idea.

Well they can serve as very temporary escape points. If for example you are a stealth black hand you can potentially exit the designated play area temporarily and repeatedly to avoid detection from players traversing the normal path. There are also aesthetic reasons for being able to exit the battlefield or to have an ability to do so. The alternative is would be either visible objects blocking your path, such as rocks, barbed wire, etc. Or you can have invisible walls. Invisible walls are inherently bad game design for a variety of reasons. In my opinion they should be avoided in nearly every case. So you're left with visible objects blocking your path. When every "path" outside of the battlefield is blocked off it basically turns the battlefield into one giant tunnel. It detracts even further from any semblance of 'realism' in a battlefield. It's kind of a cliche for every exit to be blocked.

Nod vs Nod can be decent fun once in a while. For me personally I find myself wishing that we were playing GDI vs Nod ~90% of the time when a Nod vs Nod map is voted in. Often times I end up dropping from the match when it gets voted in. Part of what I like about Renegade X in general is that the different teams have different strategies. In some ways I think Nod vs Nod needs to be quite different from the traditional format of the games to be more engaging. I think map changes can contribute heavily to this. It would be interesting if on Nod vs Nod Walls you could have the side ramps on either wall be replaced by powered gates, like the ones seen on Storm for the harvester. Having those gates no longer be functional and drop down (allowing 2 more potential openings for tanks or infantry to enter the base) if your team's power plant was destroyed would make protecting the PP much more important on that map and also allow for faster games or alternate strategies when rushing with stealth tanks for example. Things like potentially disallowing proximity mines to be placed or particular units to be disallowed during the match might also add some change of strategy. No stealth black hand for example. Or maybe we have a map without access to artillery or snipers. Maybe even maps where flame tanks are just as powerful as normal but cost half as much as usual. It would lead to a more interesting dynamic on the battlefield. One obvious problem with changes like infantry choices being limited on particular maps is that it creates an inconsistency that is hard to understand. Especially for new players who might not fully grasp each unit's potential or why they might be removed. Why certain maps have certain features added or removed, etc. So I think changes would ideally be universal across the mode but I can't help but feel that individual/unique map changes would also spice things up quite a bit. Above all else the mode just seems like a novelty to try once in a while. I think the work that was put into the mode is worthwhile. I'd just like to see some changes to make it a bit more interesting.

Recently in an update the regular GDI vs Nod map of Under GDI was given a sniping platform to match that of Nods. When playing the newly released version of Nod vs. Nod Blackhand I noticed that the sniping platform was absent on the Black Hand side. Is this intentional or something that was overlooked? I haven't had a chance to play GDI vs Nod on Under since the update so I've been unable to see if that was changed.