How has character balance been addressed?

[badguy]

I used to play Renegade a lot back in the way and I am excited about Renegade X but as I watched the new promotional video I started to wonder: have the effectiveness of the various characters in the game been addressed?

The reason I ask is because I remember most character upgrades being mostly useless. Snipers are very useful, so are technicians/hotwires and a few other character upgrades - but the vast majority were always useless, especially since winning in C&C Renegade tends to almost always go down to tanks and tanks alone. Was this a problem that Renegade X addresses or is Renegade X just a performance/graphic improvement to the original game?

[Ban4life]

Yes this has been addressed. Rocket officers now have only one rocker per clip, but the missiles lock on after a second, even after firing if I'm correct. The grenadier seems better. The cheap Sydney with the tib auto rifle has been replaced with a better grenadier, not sure how it works. Mammoth tanks and mrls work differently, making at least the mammoth tank live up to its high reputation and not just a strong box on wheels. Sbh have a different weapon that gives more incentive to fire, making sbh ghosts less frequent. Air strikes, tech buildings, gun emplacements, self deployable gun emplacements, extra sidearm weapons. Running, dodging and swimming. A down sight view that might help in some cases and people who are used to down sight view. Cueing of vehicles, new maps, better physics and more.

No this is not a carbon copy with extra graphics. It is and extension in every way possible, giving the old game feel without the glaws and with so much extra.

Also for a next time, check out all video's and the faq, as there is so much now that answers your question within a minute.

[Ban4life]

Oh and units seem much more effective in the field. Forgot to mention that. So tanks and units are both really useful to get to your goal and not just tanks.

[RoundShades]

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=71483

Watch that video. Shows the new replacement for the duplicate 175 sydney character, though doesn't use it's weapon before game ends. However, still shows much of the combat revamp for infantry. There is another video you could look up from before this where he plays nod. Also, at the end of this video the devs do a Q&A.

I think the best features, as far as infantry goes, are the adjustments to weapons to make each weapon useful, the sprinting combined with c4, the change of the duplicate cheap sydney, the addition of the free unit "marksman" which is a low damage sniper-accuracy unit, the sidearm replacements, and the grenade replacement for c4.

Vehicle features include, the Mammoth Tank now has a double-fire cannon weapon and a seperate quad-missile weapon which have seperate ammo and can fire in tandem (6 shots in the same setting, each weapon reloads seperately and fires seperately but can fire together all at once), the mrls back swivels like the artillery, the artillery has slight curvature but not like a limp arrow so the shell drops a slight bit if fired across the whole map, the helicopters have 4 missiles and a lengthy reload time making them more like bombers, the transport helicopters fit 4 people and have an explosive minigun on both sides, and maps have balance adjustments to strictly balance where a base can be attacked from the field so no base to base on islands and walls requires you to be midfield and field requires you to be just about at the entrance...

...gameplay features, the vehicle factories can take multiple player orders and do them in sequence so you don't stand there waiting for the icon to be clickable, vehicles auto lock to player so no teamstealing and the L button unlocks them but enemies can still steal them, donating credits to teammates is a feature, calling out has been shortened by the Q command so whatever you aim at and click q you will call out to attack it or repair it depending if its yours or not, AI bots are now ingame and are as powerful as a player so they know how to use purchase terminals and use vehicles and use repairguns and focus on repairing vehicles and buildings and actively attack infantry from ranged weapons or autofire closerange weapons or chip at vehicles with antiarmor weaponry and attack vehicles and structures with tanks and such, generally glitches were fixed such as purchases through walls and explosions damaging through walls and as such tunnel beacons fixed and oblesk backpedal walking fixed and such.

[Daedhart]

There are a great many changes that cannot be simply said. I suggest checking it out when released.

[badguy]

That's awesome! I am super excited

[omega79]

this has been said many times:

Mammy now has rockets and doubble cannon

but that was always the case ... nothing new

[HaTe]

It shoots differently is the point being made, I believe. Which is definitely true.

[omega79]

okay, that never comes out, it always sounds like b4 it had only a single cannon shot and the only difference to the med was its heavy armor ...

i cant wait to try it ... even tho i liked the old mammy aswell

[Daedhart]

okay, that never comes out, it always sounds like b4 it had only a single cannon shot and the only difference to the med was its heavy armor ...

i cant wait to try it ... even tho i liked the old mammy aswell

They have a mammy in Black Dawn that operates probably the same as in RenX that you can take for a test drive. Being able to shoot both cannon and rockets at the same time will definitely take some getting use to for me, especially when they made both guns need to reload like APCs, so you never want to just shoot one bullet or else find yourself with only one bullet still loaded when you really need more in a moment's notice.

[HaTe]

Check out some of the livestream videos to see how it works for those wondering.

[Ban4life]

@Omega: what we mean is that with the old tank you had one shot every second or so. Every shot you could do either a shell or a rocket. Rockets have large and strong aoe next to their direct damage and some tracking, but have short range. Shells have long range with decent direct damage but more normal aeo, which is weak and small. The tanks only merrits were the biggest health and the fastest rate of fire of all shell tanks. It was a slow damage sponge with a severe limited use. Priced nearly double that of a medium tank, it was severely overpriced. In the early days it gave tons of points if it still had more than half of its health, especially to snipers. This made the tank in timed games a really poor choice, giving nod the money and the points often leading to Nod's victory. In marathon it was a bad choice, but less because Nod cannot win by points. The points have been fixed and the tank is better, but stil the old mammoth tank lacks the firepower and fear it should inspire.

The new mammoth tank is has 2 clips. One for rockets and one for shells. It can fire at the same time and especially the rockets form a long range payload attack with tracking. The reload time for both is longer, giving the rockets several seconds (dont know how many, but quite a few), but the shells will have about the normal amount of shells per minute. This should more than compensate for that rare new problem that Daedhart notices, if you fired one shot and didn't reload. You have more firepower per second. Its like the normal mammoth tank with a mrls on top (only with 4 rockets instead of 6).... I could be wrong about a thing or two. Maybe you cannot fire at the same time and have a second after the rockets before you can resume normal fire. Still, this makes this tank a scary sight for buildings, tanks, units and even airplanes if they are in firing angle of the rockets. I think I can say before even playing with it in the multiplayer that it is now a tank worth of its money and living up to that tremendous reputation.

Is that a more accurate description? I thought BroTranquilty his explanation was good enough though

[omega79]

ah okay, I see.

you are right ...

I remember buying the old mammy to hunt down SBH ...

sounds crazy BUT the splashdamge of the rockets, and the frequency you were able to fire

made it perfect to clean a bigger area ... but a huge and massive tank like this to hunt SBH

is kinda under its value

[Daedhart]

@Omega: what we mean is that with the old tank you had one shot every second or so. Every shot you could do either a shell or a rocket. Rockets have large and strong aoe next to their direct damage and some tracking, but have short range. Shells have long range with decent direct damage but more normal aeo, which is weak and small. The tanks only merrits were the biggest health and the fastest rate of fire of all shell tanks. It was a slow damage sponge with a severe limited use. Priced nearly double that of a medium tank, it was severely overpriced. In the early days it gave tons of points if it still had more than half of its health, especially to snipers. This made the tank in timed games a really poor choice, giving nod the money and the points often leading to Nod's victory. In marathon it was a bad choice, but less because Nod cannot win by points. The points have been fixed and the tank is better, but stil the old mammoth tank lacks the firepower and fear it should inspire.

The new mammoth tank is has 2 clips. One for rockets and one for shells. It can fire at the same time and especially the rockets form a long range payload attack with tracking. The reload time for both is longer, giving the rockets several seconds (dont know how many, but quite a few), but the shells will have about the normal amount of shells per minute. This should more than compensate for that rare new problem that Daedhart notices, if you fired one shot and didn't reload. You have more firepower per second. Its like the normal mammoth tank with a mrls on top (only with 4 rockets instead of 6).... I could be wrong about a thing or two. Maybe you cannot fire at the same time and have a second after the rockets before you can resume normal fire. Still, this makes this tank a scary sight for buildings, tanks, units and even airplanes if they are in firing angle of the rockets. I think I can say before even playing with it in the multiplayer that it is now a tank worth of its money and living up to that tremendous reputation.

Is that a more accurate description? I thought BroTranquilty his explanation was good enough though

I believe the new mammy's rockets are short range like its predecessor. I believe the purpose is to use the rockets for defense while the main cannon attacks far away units or buildings. It is very worthy, but Im so rooted in the old ways that it will take quite some getting use to for me.

[Valor]

From what I remember, it was always better to use mammy rockets when you were in close enough range because they did more damage and had bigger splash. It's going to be different in Ren X, but I don't know whether the overall DPS of the mammy will be higher in Ren X. Based on what I've read, you can use both cannons and rockets at the same time, so the total damage you dish out should be brutal for a close target.

[RoundShades]

The only use for the mammy I remember, was for SBH like you said, where you constantly fire 1 missile at a time when you lost your AGT in Hourglass and sweep across the walkway to kill any SBH. That is a pretty lame use for it.

This game, mammoth tanks don't have the same firepower as it's med tank counterpart. Mammoth tanks have double-barrel instead of one-barrel-at-a-time and have 4 rockets with their own clip fired in tandem. It isn't as strong as a MRLS maybe barely because it probably have 2x reload speed for 4 rockets, but the double-shells are fairly steady. Even with just the cannon, you can do 2x damage faster where a tank does 1x damage, which gives it "burst damage" and tramples another single unit.

[ehh]

that was mammys only use?

That is awfully incorrect.

[R315r4z0r]

Like everyone's been saying, the Ren X mammy has two pools of ammo. One for its cannons and another for its missiles. They can be fired together as both weapons can be controlled independently from each other. Primary fire is cannons while secondary fire is missiles.

Missile reload time is longer than cannons, but it's not horribly long.

Missiles also have much longer range in Ren X compared to Renegade. They are still shorter range vs the cannons, but the longer range gives them better anti-aircraft capabilities.

Basically, the mammy is pretty boss and it's not an utter waste of credits.

[RoundShades]

Like everyone's been saying, the Ren X mammy has two pools of ammo. One for its cannons and another for its missiles. They can be fired together as both weapons can be controlled independently from each other. Primary fire is cannons while secondary fire is missiles.

Missile reload time is longer than cannons, but it's not horribly long.

Missiles also have much longer range in Ren X compared to Renegade. They are still shorter range vs the cannons, but the longer range gives them better anti-aircraft capabilities.

Basically, the mammy is pretty boss and it's not an utter waste of credits.

Awesome.

I do remember the other use for mammies. It was that vehicle the newbie teammate bought on Under to park in front of Nod base and feed them points until he lost the game for his team. It was like parking a structure up to nod's front door and letting them pointmass from their own base with arty and raves.

[R315r4z0r]

They were good base defenders in Renegade. Being so slow and bulky, they made great blockers against enemy rushes. Just park it sideways in front of the AGT and watch the Stanks pile up.

[ehh]

There are very good use in the field/enemy bases if used by someone who knows what there are doing, i.e not a noob.

[bizkid23]

Just wow. I was so excited to see this game being released and now I realize it will be doomed by all of the typical idiots. Not balanced? The game was near perfect and nothing needed to be addressed. Ugh.

[R315r4z0r]

Just wow. I was so excited to see this game being released and now I realize it will be doomed by all of the typical idiots. Not balanced? The game was near perfect and nothing needed to be addressed. Ugh.

The original Renegade didn't have all of the new weapons and abilities this game has. Airstrikes, for example. It also didn't have the depth of physics this engine has either.

Balance tweaking is needed.

[RoundShades]

Just wow. I was so excited to see this game being released and now I realize it will be doomed by all of the typical idiots. Not balanced? The game was near perfect and nothing needed to be addressed. Ugh.

It got different. Then again, if it were exactly the same, it would basically be a retextured remodeled Renegade.

When they do add new features, they then need to add new balance. Give here, take there.

Then, in some opinions, there were legitimate balance adjustments to be made to the original. Mammoth tanks moved under half med tank speed and had under double health, so obviously it looses gunfights in anything but open ground and can't even make use of cover like any tank could and would beat it with. Also, sometimes vehicles could just kite and always beat infantry, effortlessly, no danger involved, just killfarm infantry. Same with default infantry and snipers, snipers just farmed base infantry.

So buffing the mammoth tank, nerfing snipers a bit (though they could buff a bit from what I seen), adding a marksman class to at least make base infantry not totally screwed, and adding sprint and aim down site and kick and interesting fire rates, was generally good decisions.

At least they removed the "rolling" dives feature. They also didn't put in leaning, they kept some things well enough alone.

[Daedhart]

Just wow. I was so excited to see this game being released and now I realize it will be doomed by all of the typical idiots. Not balanced? The game was near perfect and nothing needed to be addressed. Ugh.

Balanced? Search around here and youll find a thread where people got very passionate about Nod being overpowered in the original.

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=71085

Id say the game wasnt balanced, but then...I kinda liked it that way. It gave a lot of personality to each side. Now the MRL turret turns. *sadface*

[omega79]

everywhere I saw NOD had a little advantage in statistics ... but it was very well balanced ...

and one of the best (if not the best) balanced games with two total different fractions ...

every idiot can balance a game with two equal teams, like counterstrike or BF ...

the differences between the teams in those games are so minor that it barely can felt during playing ...

balancing a game like renegdae, with two so different teams, is a tough job ...

and seeing that NOD over all has a slight advantage, makes it a very good job!

even with this statistic advantage, GDI has still a very very very huge chance to win!

thats also part of the reason why so many people love this game.

it was pretty good balanced!

[bizkid23]

Just wow. I was so excited to see this game being released and now I realize it will be doomed by all of the typical idiots. Not balanced? The game was near perfect and nothing needed to be addressed. Ugh.

It got different. Then again, if it were exactly the same, it would basically be a retextured remodeled Renegade.

When they do add new features, they then need to add new balance. Give here, take there.

Then, in some opinions, there were legitimate balance adjustments to be made to the original. Mammoth tanks moved under half med tank speed and had under double health, so obviously it looses gunfights in anything but open ground and can't even make use of cover like any tank could and would beat it with. Also, sometimes vehicles could just kite and always beat infantry, effortlessly, no danger involved, just killfarm infantry. Same with default infantry and snipers, snipers just farmed base infantry.

So buffing the mammoth tank, nerfing snipers a bit (though they could buff a bit from what I seen), adding a marksman class to at least make base infantry not totally screwed, and adding sprint and aim down site and kick and interesting fire rates, was generally good decisions.

At least they removed the "rolling" dives feature. They also didn't put in leaning, they kept some things well enough alone.

I remember exactly zero issues with the mammoth tank. Yes it was slow, because it was a beast and an army of them could destroy a base in no time and had health regeneration. Some of the most epic fights ever involved several mammoth tanks in the middle of the field BACKED UP with engineers and going against long range artillery and multiple stealth tanks from Nod.

But let's forget that for a minute. I am sure that the same people crying about things like this will cry the opposite direction when they are getting destroyed by Mammoth armies and this problem will self correct.

My main problem is that I see people posting quite a bit about things that will change this game into something entirely different. Weapon drops? I don't care what modern day or even the most popular games are doing, weapon drops would completely destroy the standard strategies that were so awesome in Renegade. After reading posts from several of these mod loving fools I come over here and figure I'll run into some purists that are setting them straight only to see the mods will eventually turn on drops as an option **and** that people are asking for even more ridiculous mods such as regeneration for people that have been on a server for longer than others.

I will possibly actually cry if one of my favorite games of all time is released and ruined by modders. I was so happy to see this release date was only weeks away then devastated when I saw the community feedback knowing how ridiculous the mods can get with the Unreal engine.

Basically, this game was nearly perfect and the flaws had nothing to do with gameplay. If you weren't stupid you could jump in a game and fit right in, even if you needed to be an engineer to support your team or grab a Buggy and drive past the giant war going on to crash into the opponents barracks to C4 the terminal 7 times in a row to shift the opponents focus just enough for your team to advance. It was a masterpiece and a lot of people really loved it. The front page here is right, it could revolutionize FPS, especially as a free game. These requests are the opposite of revolutionary, they are going back to the normal stuff that every other FPS does which is why many of us quit playing them long ago.

I did watch some gameplay on YouTube and it seems that a lot of people really suck at this game, mostly because they are K/D enthusiasts and employ a strategy suited for any FPS that is NOT Renegade. Well Renegade was great for being different so I can't believe that as soon as it's mentioned the first response is "weapon drops? more health? Break it please!"

Ugh

[bizkid23]

Sorry but one more thing that irritated me about this post is that characters were never supposed to be exactly balanced. Unlike most games of this sort you can change which character (weapon type) you were at any time during the game, if you had contributed enough to do so. If one type of character on GDI was better suited for a war then the NOD team had to counteract that with different characters or by teamwork. Renegade was never, ever, not once about two 100% equal teams squaring off to see who could aim better and that is why so many fell in love with it.

[HaTe]

Weapon drops were in renegade as a server side option. Health regen was a verterancy mod that some servers created. I didn't like it, as you, but that just meant I didn't play in that server.

The game is not as remake of renegade, it is a new game based off of renegade. To say it is being ruined by mods is not accurate because they aren't modifying anything. They were making a new game.

[bizkid23]

Weapon drops were in renegade as a server side option. Health regen was a verterancy mod that some servers created. I didn't like it, as you, but that just meant I didn't play in that server.

The game is not as remake of renegade, it is a new game based off of renegade. To say it is being ruined by mods is not accurate because they aren't modifying anything. They were making a new game.

I understand that, but modders overwhelm purists in most cases leaving us with nowhere untampered to play. You can call this a new game all day but this is Renegade, the same maps and strategies and vehicles and more. Sure they are adding some things and new maps but this is the Renegade I and many others loved and I would really like to play it as it was intended.

Mods were always possible, they just weren't ranked which gave incentives to play in the normal version. If there is no network wide rank then there is no reason for those people to put down their pink rifles and play the normal way.

[Valor]

I don't like mods either, but there are so many server side options that nobody knows what the "pure" game mode is.

1. Starting credits

2. Endgame beacon

3. Donations

4. Crates (some servers only allow money crates)

5. Weapon spawns, random

6. Weapon or health drops upon death

7. Tank shells when destroyed

and others

I guess if these are the only things the servers modifies, it should still be considered a dedicated (ranked) server.

My personal preference is:

1. 0

2. Yes

3. After 5 minutes

4. Money only

5. No

6. No

7. No

Plus, you're worried about this because you're assuming the playerbase will be small. I'd say we wait and see.

[R315r4z0r]

@ bizkid23, you seem to know an awful lot about a game you never played.

The game remains true to Renegade with a bunch of new features. The new features means balance has to be tweaked to make sure they aren't over powered, but nothing is being completely revamped. I think the 3 largest functional changes to the game would be:

1. Aircraft control and weapon use (transports now have side guns for passengers)

2. Mammoth tank can fire both weapons simultaneously.

3. MRLS turret rotates.

There are also a bunch of various tweaks to how some weapons are used, such as an actual working missile tracking system (making rocket infantry very effective vs aircraft which they weren't in Renegade).

The point is, this isn't Renegade reskinned. Lots of new things are in the game, and those things need to fit into the game's balance. If the balance isn't tweaked then the strategies you used in the old game would be rendered completely useless by new equipment in Renegade X.

If you want to play the original Renegade, go play the original Renegade. Because even if they copy and pasted Renegade onto the UDK, it would still need to be balanced tweaked just due to how the physics works. That's just part of the territory when moving to a new game engine.

[HaTe]

Play clanwars if you want pure. Clanwars have and will always be held in pure vanilla servers. They have also always been the most competitive small games possible in renegade. Renegade X will be the same in regards to that.

[omega79]

I don't like mods either, but there are so many server side options that nobody knows what the "pure" game mode is.

1. Starting credits

2. Endgame beacon

3. Donations

4. Crates (some servers only allow money crates)

5. Weapon spawns, random

6. Weapon or health drops upon death

7. Tank shells when destroyed

and others

I guess if these are the only things the servers modifies, it should still be considered a dedicated (ranked) server.

My personal preference is:

1. 0

2. Yes

3. After 5 minutes

4. Money only

5. No

6. No

7. No

Plus, you're worried about this because you're assuming the playerbase will be small. I'd say we wait and see.

I like it that way also ...

and if i remember correct, crates were always just money, devs wanted it different but they just pushed out with a not 100% finished game so they keept crates as money only ... mods changed that later ...

[TopDawg]

Personally I never liked the ability to donate, as it lowers the importance of every person on the team performing well. But I'm definitely excited for Clan Wars and 'pure' servers in general.

How hard will it be to host a server? I don't really know much about that or how to go about even doing that.

[Daedhart]

Personally I never liked the ability to donate, as it lowers the importance of every person on the team performing well. But I'm definitely excited for Clan Wars and 'pure' servers in general.

How hard will it be to host a server? I don't really know much about that or how to go about even doing that.

I wouldnt bother with it. There are plenty of servers that are going to pop up right from the get-go. Hosting a server either requires paying to rent a server and bandwidth from a server hosting service (probably something like $100 bucks a month for a game server) or hosting it yourself (requiring semi-decent server hardware and something better than the everyday upload speeds provided by home internet services).

[omega79]

you can rent decent root servers for like 60€ and unlimited BW ... (did myself)

but need at least a little knowledge how to set it up and secure it, hard at the beginning

[Ban4life]

Personally I never liked the ability to donate, as it lowers the importance of every person on the team performing well. But I'm definitely excited for Clan Wars and 'pure' servers in general.

How hard will it be to host a server? I don't really know much about that or how to go about even doing that.

If you just joined it is a nice thing. Also, you can perform very well, but just do things that deliver very little points. For example, patrolling with a APC through the base, killing any SBH is a very strong play, preventing a real threat. How many points does it give? Next to nothing. In games where your GDI ref is gone and you don't have any base defense (anymore), you will have to patrol a lot for all the people trying to infiltrate your base. They should be able to gain some money from the people only playing for points for an effective team.

On the "pure" gamemodes, I can remember that there were some starting credits, endgame beacon was optional but most servers had it on, money crates (I think 100 every crate but not sure) and that was it.

I'm conflicted about the random weapon spawn but I think it wasn't on by default.

With Renegade-X it will be different. With the server side options, you will have to create a standard, or possibly several standards. The mods in Renegade have changed a lot of what is accepted, creating new possibilities. Just like you put 5v5 and 10v10 matches in a different statistic, you do the same with the several "pure" standards.

[TopDawg]

Personally I never liked the ability to donate, as it lowers the importance of every person on the team performing well. But I'm definitely excited for Clan Wars and 'pure' servers in general.

How hard will it be to host a server? I don't really know much about that or how to go about even doing that.

If you just joined it is a nice thing. Also, you can perform very well, but just do things that deliver very little points. For example, patrolling with a APC through the base, killing any SBH is a very strong play, preventing a real threat. How many points does it give? Next to nothing. In games where your GDI ref is gone and you don't have any base defense (anymore), you will have to patrol a lot for all the people trying to infiltrate your base. They should be able to gain some money from the people only playing for points for an effective team.

On the "pure" gamemodes, I can remember that there were some starting credits, endgame beacon was optional but most servers had it on, money crates (I think 100 every crate but not sure) and that was it.

I'm conflicted about the random weapon spawn but I think it wasn't on by default.

With Renegade-X it will be different. With the server side options, you will have to create a standard, or possibly several standards. The mods in Renegade have changed a lot of what is accepted, creating new possibilities. Just like you put 5v5 and 10v10 matches in a different statistic, you do the same with the several "pure" standards.

That's a pretty good point with donating to base defenders that would otherwise be unrewarded for performing important roles. I suppose it is just a matter of 'league rules', so to speak, as you alluded to at the end.

I'll be interested to see what leagues/tournaments arise and what their rulesets are (which luckily are easy to regulate with server options).