[Commonly used RenX slang. Favorites? Most used?]

There is a list on wiki

https://wiki.ren-x.com/wiki/Glossary_of_player_terms

I enjoy the term "clicker". It refers to the few highly skilled infantry players who enjoy farming kills. I can't quite remember who came up with it, but I remember that the first time that I heard it was on a PUG, when the guy on my team said "clicker down!" with this enthusiasm in his voice, and only after I heard it a few times did I realize what he meant by this. (Now that I think about it, it could have been @Akbaro?) Sadly, this term didn't really stick around and I don't see it used much.

[CNC-Forest needs some more cover for Nod?]

3 hours ago, Luhrian said:

Anyways, many things on Forest will be changed and I hope I can rely on your feedback to improve the gameplay now and in the future.

I don't think the map needs drastic changes. It's in an all right state right now in my opinion.

I agree with Ryz and Riou that the vehicle area needs some more cover to help Nod. Right now it is definately advantageous to GDI (I also have never seen Nod win this). As for harvester, I think the path is fine (vehicle entrances are tight anyway, probably it's better not to force the harvy into them), but my 2 suggested changes is to decrease the harv dump credits and put the tib field closer to the pipeline exit so that infantry can shoot the enemy harvester reliably from the distance, but not c4 it (because the pipeline exit is one way only). Such design is quite rare I believe, I wonder how it would work.

And yeah, performance issues. I've heard many people complain about FPS drops.

[Manual laser mining of Tiberium]

@Mystic~

I'm not a fan of the mining idea. It would lead to people doing that instead of actually helping their team - which you can still do using free units or cheap units in many ways.

I think there are better ways to help a baselocked team to increase their chances. Some simple things which could help is 1) increase the passive credit tick rate and decrease the harv dump, 2) decrease the amount of VP you get for killing people/vehicles inside enemy base, 3) decrease the amount of VP you get for killing harvesters and damaging buildings, 4) make the penalties from losing buildings less severe... there's probably more. Notice that some of them have already been implemented over the years.

Unfortunately the economy & game progression system is a core part of Ren X and C&C Ren, and I don't see how we move away from it. We can do some tweaks like described above but I don't see room for any groundbreaking changes to be honest. 

And for maps like Field and Under, these are the pinnacle of bad map design, seems like there is no saving of them. I think their design amplifies the weaknesses of the core Ren game mechanics.

[Medal system]

36 minutes ago, Tytonium said:

I would love to get some achievements to hunt. It'd add more replay value to the game

One achievement you certainly have unlocked is:

Actions Speak Louder Than Words - as the commander, lead a successful rush while muted

 

[It's been 5 years of Ren X for me]

It was somewhere between July and August 2015 when my good friend @SinisterPoem randomly found Renegade X and suggested we try it out. And hell yeah did we try it out. Here we are today, 5 years later, and me and him are still rocking...

Wanted to say I'm really happy that I had the opportunity to meet all the different people and to spend so much time in this great game. Big thanks to all the devs who put in their time and effort working on Ren X to make this possible.

Special shoutout to all the regular PUG players as well as regular EU players with and against whom I've played so much over the years. You all helped me improve at the game and motivate me to keep playing. There are too many people to name them all here.

Hoping for many more years of Ren X to come!

[Please consider NvN on seperate servers only or remove at this point]

I have similar feelings. The gameplay in NvN is definately more stale - although I am not 100% sure why.

I think it can be a good novelty to play NvN every now and then (say, once a week or a month), especially in a competitive environment like PUG. But playing it every 3 or so maps on a public server is far too much. Like people said here, there are too many players just fooling around with recon bikes / SBHs and too many newbies not knowing what to do and who to shoot at. Plus, reading teamchat in blue Nod is really hard, which for me is a big issue as it hampers teamwork on public servers.

[Improving C&C Reservoir]

Just saying that my thread which you linked to is 3 years old, and the map saw many changes since then. I'm happy to say that many of my points were addressed, and Reservoir is much better than it used to be.

The biggest issue still remaining in the map in my opinion is the fact that there's only one vehicle exit from each base. This means it's really difficult to get out of a base lock (especially as GDI) and creates stale gameplay. Choke points are bad for the game.

Oh, and the map is too small for 64 players, too.

[How we balance teams in PUGs]

So what can go wrong?

Even though I'm fairly certain that this balancing system is better than anything we had in the past, of course it is imperfect and the games won't always feel balanced. I will give a few reasons why and share my thoughts on this.

First of all, we might be wrong in our assessments of a player's skill / playstyle. The balancing team is, 90% of the time, just me and Xeon. While, I dare say, we are experienced in balancing and have a good knowledge of the playerbase, we can of course be biased and under/over-estimate some players. Also, there's been a lot of new players recently, about whom all we know is that they're new. Obviously, most new players will be still learning so we just end up splitting them in pairs, but this isn't always optimal. New players can still add a lot of value to their team if they, for example, stick to repairing tanks instead of trying to tank or play anti-infantry. Overall, this is one of the reasons why we are looking to expand the balancing team - to get a wider perspective and knowledge on as many players as possible.

Secondly, sometimes, it is difficult to create two balanced teams out of the group of people who show up for a PUG due to vast differences in skill or playstyle. The best example is when we only have one elite infantry player. Since we can't find a pair to balance him/her out, we normally end up making a larger split, which, from my experience, doesn't always work out right. Another example is when there's only one defender with a mic. Having such a person on your team can be a ton of help. Or: only one infiltrator - his/her team will have an advantage, particularly in smaller PUGs. In such cases it is hard to find the right balance.

Let's look at the big picture though. What is this balance that we are seeking and do balanced teams always lead to balanced gameplay / close matches?

Surely not. Whether we like it or not, Ren X is a complex game and there is a number of factors which influence the course of a round and its outcome. Even if we had a sophisticated way of measuring the players' skill/usefulness,  which would take into account all their traits, and if we had a complicated algorithm to compose the teams based on it, I am 100% sure some games would end up being one-sided (although, on average, the games would be closer).

There have been quite a few PUGs in which team A would stomp team B on the first map only to get stomped back on the next map (by the way, this is why I'm not a fan of rebalancing after the first map). What does that say about balance? In my opinion, in this case it's safe to assume that the teams are relatively balanced, even though none of the maps provided balanced gameplay.

Let me give a few reasons why even the best balanced (theoretically) teams can produce one-sided rounds:

1. The luck factor. Example: team A might take the risk and attempt an early rush. If they luck out and nobody spots it, the rush succeeds, they basically won the round. If they fail, they will likely lose the round due to having lost the first harvester / wasted too many credits early game.

2. Players not sticking to the roles which the balancing team assumed they will have. Everybody plays the way they wish to, and there are a couple of jack-of-all-trade players in our community. However, this might affect the balance a lot. Let's say a player who's normally a dedicated infantry player decides to practice playing MRLS. In that case, the enemy infantry players have free reign on the infantry path.

3. Players having better or worse days. None of us are robots and the levels at which we play vary. Performance of elite players is particularly impactful as these players can decide the course of the game.

4. Infiltration. A solo kill of a crucial building can result in a quick stomp despite the teams being balanced.

5. Snowball-ish design of the game. We all know how important early harvesters are, and how crucial some areas of certain maps are. Killing the first enemy harv while defending your own, or taking control of the hill on Whiteout / plateau on Walls first can lead to quick, one-sided games. And that is even if the fight for harvesters / crucial areas was close. Even if the teams are relatively balanced, once team A gets locked in base, it can be very difficult for them to break out, depending on the map layout. That doesn't have to mean that team A is worse skill-wise than team B. Team A is just fighting an uphill battle, because they barely lost the important early fight or didn't have their priorities right in the early game.

6. Another snowballing aspect I would like to talk about is PUG-specific. There are quite a few regular PUG players who, as Xeon put nicely, "can't keep their cool when they're losing". Combined with them being vocal, they can easily break their team's morale and affect the satisfaction of the whole team as well as the perception of balance. Let's say team A has several such players (even though we try to split them evenly across teams). The usual chain reaction is: team A loses the first map (due to whatever), these players start to complain on voice / chat, their team gets pissed and loses their focus and morale, which leads them to losing the second map. Their commander gets tilted. PUG goes to shit. Does that mean that teams were not balanced in the first place? Maybe, but maybe not. Them losing the first map could have been unrelated to team balance, see above points.

I made this list partly because it often gets on my nerve when people blame team balance whenever the gameplay was not balanced or when they do not get their satisfaction from a PUG. As you see, it is not that simple. The task of the balancing team is just to increase the chance the games will be balanced. There's no way to assure close games and a 2-2 PUG score every weekend. Of course, we can always do better and sometimes we do miss the balance. But sometimes we do our job right and that's when it would be nice if people understood and recognized that there are other factors which influence the course and score of the PUG and which could have led to them not having fun.
 

[[Suggestion] Mining]

By the way, mining was well analyzed by boxes in this topic almost 2 years ago:

 

[About balance.... again...]

Some good points made, Ryz. Obviously, skill balance between teams is an important factor, especially infantry balance. Infantry balance is the first thing we look at in PUGs when we manually balance the teams. The infantry players who keep on stacking teams on public servers are largely responsible for the poor gameplay experience for everybody, and we all know who those people are.

At the same time, it's important to keep in mind what Havoc said about core mechanics. The game has plenty of snowball factors: veterancy, economy, and map design (choke points) are the main three. They make comebacks / getting out of base very difficult - and then there's the skill difference. Those who play in PUGs know that one-sided games can happen even if the teams are balanced skill-wise. Sometimes we have Team 1 roflstomp Team 2 in 10 minutes, only to get roflstomped back on the next map. So from that perspective, a team balancer would of course help but I don't think it would be as revolutionary as some people think, because the core design of C&C Ren / Ren X unfortunately plays a big role in this issue.

[Mesa improvement suggestion]

Some good points, Ryz.

Let me add that, if GDI takes control of the cave, it's difficult for Nod to do anything about it either. I've noticed that it's hard for arties to line up their shots into cave because of the little bump at Nod cave entrance... small things like that can be annoying. And well, choke points in Ren X sometimes are just unbreakable. 

No offense to anybody, but I honestly don't know if the new Mesa is any better than the old one. Maybe it's not as much Nod favoured... but the gameplay is meh. Seems like there is a reason why people rarely vote for it.

[Let's help Quinc3y find a nickname!]

Well, I don't know about that XD

I'm happy with my name!

[Let's help poi find a nickname!]

Call me a nerd but my first thought when I read "Cerulean" was Warhammer 40k:

https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Knights_Cerulean

[Let's help poi find a nickname!]

(Jokes aside, I think the fact that poi - and plenty of other strong infantry players - keep changing their names is a good reason why there are so many hacking accusations flying around during games, why people trying to vote kick people with new names and high K/Ds, and why so many newbies insist that "the game is dominated by cheaters" and "mods aren't doing anything about it". 

I mean, if I didn't know Ren X, I would too feel that way if I were casually playing the game when suddenly a guy you've never seen before joins and bangs 100 kills within 30 minutes)

[Let's help poi find a nickname!]

Any ideas? 

And for the poi fans out there, remember that Ren X names must be civil! 😁

[How to be a good commander?]

Overall game knowledge, knowledge of each team's strengths and weaknesses, and awareness of the situation in a game are the most important. Plus, effective use of commander powers. Each of these points comes with practice. If you can learn them, you will become a better commander and, through this, learn people's respect.

4 hours ago, Demigan said:

What are good tactics to take the field when you are being camped?

That is a good question to which there is no simple answer. Sometimes, it can be close to impossible to take the field no matter what you do as a commander. Namely, if at least one of the below is true:

- you are down a building(s);

- teams are grossly imbalanced;

- the map design forces you to make your way through a narrow chokepoint;

...then you're going to have to accept the fact that you probably won't take the field. The only way to turn a game around in this scenario is either solo infiltration or a rush which does not take more than 5 people to pull off. If you commit more people than that, your base will likely not survive (depending on the map).

If, however, none of the above points apply, the best way to take the field is to play patiently with tanks, advanced reps, and heavy infantry (ravs/sydneys), possibly with help of commander powers like EMP/defensive buff and/or an airstrike. For breaking base locks, I prefer meds and light tanks over mammoths and arties, because speed is useful to be able to make it past a choke and capitalize on EMP.

[Vote for your favourite custom map]

Plenty of good maps on this list. I've picked Field X, Tomb, Tunnels, and Eyes as the ones that stand out.

Those 4 are all rather balanced, have little to no choke points, offer dynamic gameplay, and allow for different playstyles. Additionally, the amount of credits available to players is reasonable (destroying the enemy harvester is neither too easy nor too difficult on each of these maps).

These - along with lack of glitches and OP tactics / spots - are the most important characteristics of a map imo.

Oh, and they look good, too, for the most part

[Radio commands are a mess]

It is a waste of muscle memory though. It took me quite a while to learn all the radio commands and I tried using them regularly. I've been pressing CTRL+7 for "Affirmative" for 3 years of classic Ren + 5 years of Ren X. Now I don't know anything anymore... except for "I need repairs" which kept its place.

And why were some of the commands removed altogether? If the opinion is that they are not useful / obsolete, we could move them to high numbers. I enjoyed using goofy ones like "Watch where you're pointing that". That one was fun and always had that old Ren feeling. 

What is the benefit of these changes anyway? Easier access to "affirmative" and "negative"? I guess... but it's not worth it IMO. At the least, players should be able to keep the old radio commands setup if they will.

[Patch Kinda Weaksauce]

I think Patch is far from weak. His speed and close range burst damage with the nade (which is on a really low cooldown) makes him great for controlling infantry areas. Patch is easily capable of 1v1ing any Nod character except for maybe Mendoza. And as mystic said, I don't think it makes sense to compare Patch to LCG - they're really different from each other and should be played differently. 

[Do you sometimes feel guilty about killing newbies?]

So recently, I've been trying a different playstyle, where I'd focus on killing enemies ("poi style"). And honestly, I might be too soft for this 😆

While I always knew that there are plenty bad players on public servers, it's when you adopt this focus-on-killing playstyle that you see it even more clearly. There are people who reguarly stand still / walk in straight lines / have zero game sense / don't notice enemies around them / storm into a group of enemies / make other poor choices, etc. They don't contribute much at all to their team and instead, they donate VP to the enemy team. Killing them takes little to no effort or skill.

99% of the time, they are simply new players. They installed the game last week, have a nostalgic feeling about the C&C universe, tried maybe one or two games against bots but they would prefer playing against other players because it's more fun and they want to reminisce the old days when they played with their friends.

At the same time, due to low population / only 1 active server, they are forced to play against veterans with many years of experience. Obviously, they stand no chance: Ren X is not that easy of a game, especially when it comes to aiming. How are they supposed to explore the game and have a positive first impression, when they keep getting sent back to spawn every moment? The second they leave their base, they get sniped or destroyed by a supreme infantry player. And when they try to shoot that infantry player back, they deal almost no damage because of their bad aim/cheaper unit/lower veterancy. I'd hate to be them in this scenario.

Of course, I'd like to keep these people around and not discourage them from Ren X. This is why, after I kill the same guy twice and see him again standing still in the same spot, I aim at his head and hesitate before pulling the trigger... please, learn from your mistakes, dude... I say to myself. And then I end up shooting him anyway because well.. it's part of the game. If I don't do it, somebody else on my team will kill him... a few deaths later, he quits and I never see him again. Sigh.

This kind of guilty feeling I get especially when I snipe people inside their base. This can be easily done on maps like Walls, Complex or Under, when your team is already dominating. Really, buying a new hard-earned unit, exiting a building and getting sniped immediately has to be the worst feeling in Ren.

So this is just a couple of my thoughts. What do you think? Am I the only one who has this problem?

 

 

 

 

[Your 10 Dream Clan Team players ?]

Team Slavs:

1. Quinc3y - the Tsar

2. Vertigo AKA Fucking - Tsar's advisor and right-hand man

3. MARIUSZ - public games GOD

4. Morskoy Kotik - public games GOD. Highest KD on the team

5. Slavic Knight - obviously

6. ks.ol - sniper from Siberia

7. dr.schrott - the most positive Slav

8. testman - the most Slavic accent

9. Hackerham - best shotgunner east of the Urals

10. DenWellingston - if someone can give him the password

 

the bench: WickedJack[RUS], Nafig[RUS], and paulzycz

[PUB Commanding]

Ah yes, that Islands game was a gg

I agree that mental fortitude is needed to be a commander both in PUGs and and PUBs. After all, you're often the person to blame if the team is losing, people will demand that you come up with plans (and by a plan they mean a rush, because they don't consider "take control of the field" to be a real plan, it's too boring for most), people will demand that you control the harvester, de-mine buildings, mark targets, use CP correctly, listen to their suggestions, etc.... it can be a lot of work that can be overwhelming for some. That's why there aren't many willing to command. Surely, earning people's trust & respect makes things easier. Although even the best commanders will get flamed occasionally.

I also agree that voting out / volunteering to be a new commander without even talking to the current commander is a bit toxic. Especially if the current commander is trying his ass off to make something work. People often don't appreciate it enough.

Some general commanding tips I can give:

1. Use the mini-map often. The default key is M, but I have it bound to my mouse because of how useful it is. It gives you intel on how the game is shaping and who controls vehicle / infantry areas. It can give you a hint where the enemy rush can come from. It can help you make decisions which map area to reinforce and whether it is a good time to rush or no. If you see that most of the team is in field, then organizing an infantry rush will take a lot of time & will likely lead to losing field. Is it worth it? Etc.

2. Learn all commander powers. All have their own use and can make a difference. Smoke, EMP, and cruise are generally more tricky and require more practice to make best use of. If you're a beginner, start with using radar scans and buffs during rushes. 

3. Try to respond to people's suggestions. It can be a lot effort, but I think it's worth it to comment on what teammates write on the chat. This way the team is more organized. I personally don't like it when I try to gather people to do something and, at the same time, there's 2 other guys giving other orders. There should only be one commander in order to reduce chaos. Your team should always have clear instructions on what to do.

[Goodbye]

OK, maybe I should say something.

Leaderboard / impact of stacks on game balance

The win/loss ratio on the leaderboard really does not say much at all. We have to keep in mind that sometimes poi does play solo, and sometimes jpj also plays solo. Also, sometimes they join in the mid-game / late game, perhaps with a building or more down. These kind of matches are sometimes not winnable no matter what. Not to mention the WLRs of some players on the leaderboard are clearly inflated, which can be done in many ways. With all due respect to MARIUSZ, his impact on the game is nowhere near poi's. 

What would be interesting to know is the win rate of poi and jpj playing together on one team from the beginning till the end of the map. I bet that it is much higher than 60%. You can't tell that from the leaderboard. I will tag @Tytonium here, as I believe he is preparing a data set that may put more light on the issue  of stacking in general (correct me if I'm wrong, Tytonium).

And, as many have already said, it is not only the fact that poi, jpj & friends win a lot of games. Their playstyle - kill farming - plays as much of a role.

Team stacking in general

While it is true that team stacking / lack of team balance has been a part of the game since forever, the issue has never been as severe and never sparked as much emotion as in the recent 1-2 years. There is a reason why you, poi & jpj (and your other friends), became the symbol of stacking. Your skill, your playstyle, and your prevalence is what differentiates you from any other stack (including the "CT stack"). There were weeks (if not months) when you were stacking teams and farming kills day after day in the EU evening peak hours. Of course this was (and still is) frustrating people. You and your friends understand where the frustration comes from (you and Sarah both admitted that).

Of course, many people went too far when venting their frustration. Rules should be enforced, and all cases of harassment / personal attacks should be punished adequately. At the same time, there were many people who legitimately criticized your and your friends' ways by pointing at how fundamentally unfun for half of the server is the game experience that you create. More often than not, you and your friends have ignored them. 

I condemn all haters and people who have insulted you or even touched real life stuff. That should never take place. That being said, putting yourself in the position of a victim is creating a largely false image. You call other bullies, but it is you who have been bullying others - with the way you and your friends stack and dominate games. All of you who stack together are perfectly aware of your impact on the game and of the hate that you generate. But did you or your friends ever care?

@poi

As a competitive player, I have tons of respect for your achievements in the game. In my opinion, there are very few players - if any - who have mastered Ren X to the level you did. Frustration is one thing, but playing against you is always a challenge for me. 

As a person, I have my best wishes for you. I hope you make the best use of your break. God bless you.

 

[Post your RenX screenshots]

(we were actually winning)

I think this famous guy has "FU LOSER TEAM" on a hotkey or something. Here, he tried to quit the game using console, but it seems like he ended up pressing that hotkey.

What a legend 😂

[about teamstack.]

30 minutes ago, Reivax said:

i'll be honest : i think the best way to solve teamstack issue don't depends from devs or mods, it depends from ( pleeaaaaase don't be angry by what i'll say ) maturity of players.

The maturity of stackers, you meant.

 

30 minutes ago, Reivax said:

if players who wants be together thinks about their power, if they can win but have a good challenge against enemy team while keep to your enemies a chance to win, Renegade X can only, and will be, better

Agreed. Unfortunately, the notorious stackers have long forgot about the idea of "good challenge against enemy team" and "fair, competitive game", and "let's make Ren X better for everyone". They take too much pleasure from stomping their enemies to care about such. No hope there, I'm afraid.

Anyway, thank you for your honest post, Reivax.