Initial Thoughts

[themime]

This is after a few games, my initial observations. Obviously some of this may change after playing some more, but since people will judge a game within a very short amount of time, I thought it be good to get this down while I can.

I'm aware its in alpha stages still, so everything I say is to help this game become a great one, which I think it can be. These aren't just frustrated complaints (in the sense of "bah, your game sucks, heres why..." They're meant to be constructive. I'm a game design hobbyist, I can appreciate how important user feedback is

First of all, I'm playing on basically maxed settings (4g/3.25 (vista 32-bit) ram, quad core, 9800 GTX+) with no computer lag. I own the original Renegade and played it occasionally (I started late, was hard to find servers, so I didn't log as much time as I would have liked).

I believe I was only on GDI, so that may have influenced my experience as some people were saying Nod vehicles were overpowered currently. So this is my play experience of GDI within the first 3 games or so.

-After finally getting a kill, I was rewarded with the oh so fun boink sound. I would have been thoroughly disappointed had I not heard it. I'm very glad this is in the early version

-Visual feedback

It seems when I'm doing pretty much anything, there isn't enough visual confirmation. It's hard to describe this issue - basically, strong visual feedback reinforces actions taken, which improve the game experience. For example: when I shoot someone, it's hard to tell if I've actually hit them or not. Since it's a very much team based game, there are at times several people hitting a target at once, and it would be nice to know that I am making a difference.

Another is when I die. It sucks. This is obvious, but again with the visual cues, it kinda hard to tell when I'm getting hit, and it seems like I suddenly die at times, which adds to the annoying fact I just died.

-Slooowwww

At the start of the game, it takes a longass time to get to the action on some maps. Maybe a sprint ability? Or cheap movement-only vehicles? I've seen worse in games, so this isn't a super big issue.

-Underpowered infantry

This relates to vs vehicles primarily.

Either the vehicles have too much health, or the infantry just don't do enough damage, but it seems like a grenadier, within the first 5 minutes of the game, should be able to kill a freshly spawned light tank. Part of the issue was getting a launched grenade to actually *hit* the tank in the first place. This could have been because of the latency (right now I'm showing ~140ms response, which isn't absurd) but it didn't feel like the grenades went far enough to make a difference. In order to hit anything I'd have to get close enough to get squished, even if I'm hiding behind a building or rock, it was hard to get the grenade to go far enough or hit the target is some way. Perhaps a higher splash range? It was hard to tell the range since the visual cue on the grenade was low. Maybe they DO do enough damage, and I'm just awful at aiming right now. But I even bought the Gunner with his rocket gun and I felt like sometimes I just wasn't making a difference. Maybe I'm lagging too much. Any insight from people who have played longer are welcome, I'm curious to see how much of this is just me and my inexperience.

I played the other 0 cost classes a bit, and it's just kind of hard to tell how effective I'm being, again mostly because of the visual cues. I'm not sure how far the spread of the shotgun is, or its range. I can't tell how often I'm hitting the target.

The weapon effects seem lacking and ..jerky? Like the engineer repair gun, most of the blasts (the multi rocket vehicle seemed pretty good though).

Ending on a good note, the player models and vehicles look pretty good, as do the outside buildings.

*edit*

Oh, one last thing. The general feel of the game does feel like the original. This is a great start!

-Will

[R315r4z0r]

I actually feel like the infantry are very well balanced against vehicles. Especially the anti-armor infantry.

Gunner is especially useful against vehicles. Much more than he is in the original Renegade, but not over powered enough to make it unbalanced. It fits right into the game and makes him more useful.

Grenadiers are 'explosive' weapons, yes, but they cost 0 credits. You really shouldn't expect them to do a substantial amount of damage to an enemy tank. However, they are pretty effective against other infantry.

You also mentioned something about the early game pace. I actually like the speed. It's not really supposed to go straight into action. It's like the calm before the storm. If you think about it that way, it's actually a bit too fast. The beginning game is the time were you quickly discuss tactics with your team and try to organize a force. I think speeding the game up during that time will do more harm than it helps.

Also, there is one thing I want to add onto what you were saying. The shotgun is hard to read. However, despite that fact, it doesn't have enough power. In Renegade, if you got up to point blank range of an enemy (his back is turned or he is afk or something) and shoot him with a shotgun, it should kill him in one to two shots depending on the character. In Renegade X, t takes like 4 at point blank range to kill a free character and it doesn't feel like all the shots are hitting. It doesn't necessarily need visual feedback, more like an audio feedback.

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

QUOTE

Also, there is one thing I want to add onto what you were saying. The shotgun is hard to read. However, despite that fact, it doesn't have enough power. In Renegade, if you got up to point blank range of an enemy (his back is turned or he is afk or something) and shoot him with a shotgun, it should kill him in one to two shots depending on the character. In Renegade X, t takes like 4 at point blank range to kill a free character and it doesn't feel like all the shots are hitting. It doesn't necessarily need visual feedback, more like an audio feedback.[/b]

Actually I was just spawn killing right now with the shotgun and I was killing free infantry in 1-2 hits. The reason why it seems like more is because of the server-side hit detection system which, depending on your ping, can slightly delay a shot.

[R315r4z0r]

I keep running into issues with that kind of lag. Is there work being done to maybe polish it a bit? It's definitely worse than the lag that was present in the original Renegade. Especially since my ping in Renegade X is lower than it was in Renegade..

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

^ It's because Renegade had client side hit detection, so when you'd hit someone on your screen they'd actually get hit, as long as you see it. Unfortunately this is the same way cheats worked in Renegade - if you see the enemy (through a wall for example) you could hit them. That's why in Renegade X, even when your ping is lower, you still feel a delay with your projectiles while Renegade did not have one.

We're gonna see if we could change that in the UDK version, at least for instant hit weapons.

[Demigan]

Good to know about the server-side hit detection.

The thing about the shotgun is I think that the spread goes out way too fast. If you are at near point blank range, there will still be bullets that go past the target. Where in renegade it acted more as a short range sniper. I had in fact once shot someone who was at the limit of my shotgun range and enough bullets hit him to get a one hit kill (it was a patch).

So while I am completely thrilled with the fact that we now have a real shotgun, I am also a bit irritated as the bullets spread out too fast.

However, it might have to do with the players, we might just not be used to the new shotgun, my brother, who frequents many different types of FPS's, asked if he could go a turn or two. And he managed 5 kills in a row before they got him, making headshots at short ranges, but way too far away to be called point blank.

Other then that, I think the game would be helped tremendously with more visual and audio input as someone already implied. As mentioned, I also died quite a lot 'suddenly' because I just didn't have any way to see how much I was hit. In normal renegade, all I had to do was check the colour of the bar, along with the giant health numbers which would appear more centered on the screen should my health drop in red. In renegade-x I just can't see how much health I have at the flash I deem it worthy to check up on it. I think it's mostly the fact that the colours around it are nearly the same, and the lack of change to the colours on the whole, screaming attention when it goes bad.

Yours sincerely,

Demigan.

[R315r4z0r]

I really hope you guys can smooth out the issue.

As it stands right now... I would much rather invite a horde of Renecheaters over rather than miss every shot I make. It's basically impossible for me to fight infantry battles. It's a futile waste of time and money atm.

[[NE]Fobby[GEN]]

I've just learned to shoot slightly ahead of the infantry - shoot a step ahead of where he's going rather than where he is.

But even if it were client side hit detection, you can't join a UT3 server with cheats for the same reason why you can't join with skins.