Autobalance and NOD OP

[disorder]

Hi I like the mod so far, it has a lot of potential.

The first issue I would like to address is the autobalance feature and the fact that a lot of players tend to go for NOD which tips the balance in their favour. I have played many games where the NOD players are always 3-4 extra over the GDI.

I think if the amount of players exceed the other team by a certain amount, then the losing team should get a credit income boost of a certain %. This % will be calculated from the difference. For example 20 players on NOD and 18 on GDI = 10% boost for GDI

Secondly, I'm not sure if it is me not knowing all the numbers involved, but some of NODS infantry weapons seem more powerful that GDI? For example the red rail gun weapon seems a bit OP and I'm sure someone was using an aimbot with it yesterday and causing grief.

Yes I do know its a beta and there might be more balance changes and stuff to come, but let me know of your opinions anyway as I may be mistaken.

[H.D. Lovecraft]

Rail gun should be exactly the same power as the Personal Ion Cannon on GDI.

I do think the credit thing could be interesting. Autobalance in a game like this would be hell. Spend 30 mins fighting hard for your team only to get swapped by the server? No thanks.

[omega79]

uhm .. today i saw people complain about how GDI is OP ... just GDI won like 3 or 4 matches in a row

[super_gsx]

I think there's one flaw to the balancing in the original Renegade. The SBH and the Stank. Nod has invisible characters. In any map with no base defenses, they'll almost always win.

Something must be done to counteract this nonsense!!

[omega79]

what you say is nonsense ...

you easyly can counter stanks and sbh with patrols of hotwires and apc scanning with its gun

I mean, GDI knows there is no basedefense and they know there are stealth units ... if they take no action against that, their problem

[wolfrikku]

what you say is nonsense ...

you easyly can counter stanks and sbh with patrols of hotwires and apc scanning with its gun

I mean, GDI knows there is no basedefense and they know there are stealth units ... if they take no action against that, their problem

Agree its the teams fault. They are the ones not defending their base on a map without base defense in a game where the goal is to kill the enemy base while protecting your own.

I think there's one flaw to the balancing in the original Renegade. The SBH and the Stank. Nod has invisible characters. In any map with no base defenses, they'll almost always win.

Something must be done to counteract this nonsense!!

That isn't true I been in a lot of matches where GDI won with no base defense, because the team worked together and actually had a group of people setup to defend the base. You get a static apc and 2 or 3 engineers/hotwires most Stealth Black Hand get nervous about setting the beacon they cant defend even more so, if you have the buildings mined so they cant get inside or on the roof out of range of the apc.

[Valor]

Currently the GDI/Nod win ratios are definitely skewed but it depends on the maps.

On maps without defense Nod will definitely win more due because of the SBH. In Ren X, the new players aren't accustomed to defending the base so GDI is in general more careless and susceptible to nuking. In the original Ren, there would always be a Mobius guarding the entrances and an APC patrolling the base. Now, you can set a nuke and everyone on GDI will just assume someone else will take care of it. I'm sure that given time, GDI will start defending better, as the original Ren probably suffered from the same problem when it was released.

This is further exacerbated by things like quiet beacons, illegal beacon placements into a building's wall, and the glitch in Walls Flying, but this can be fixed by the devs.

On maps with defenses, GDI will win likely due to their superior vehicle power and the large nerf to the Nod artillery. I have yet to see a Field game where Nod managed to take the field.

Just keep in mind this is a work in progress and the original Renegade was not perfectly balanced either.

[IMBALISK]

Nod need the invisible units since they just don't have the durability available to bruteforce like GDI does. Nod must rely on backstabs and sneak attacks to win most of the time. And the artillery "nerf" isn't that bad. Only the splash damage is reduced a lot it feels to me at least. Shooting with the artillery is so much fun cause the projectile doesn't fly a straight line anymore. It makes it more fun when you master the new shooting and actually improve hitting your targets with it. It also opens more options to stay unattackable behind obstacles while you are still able to hit a target

[super_gsx]

All I was saying was the stealth causes GDI to be a lot more defensive and NOD to be a lot more offensive.

[disorder]

I would say the mammoth tank makes GDI as equally offensive when a lot of people support them with MLRS and HUMVEE. I think the style of the teams appeal to different types of players too, GDI = conventional modern army, NOD = more high tech future army.. So people might want to play NOD more if they like robots, aliens, space ships and sci-fi. People like to play GDI if they are a fan of Battlefield type games.

[HaTe]

All I was saying was the stealth causes GDI to be a lot more defensive and NOD to be a lot more offensive.

It's the global defense initiative...

Also, it is Nod, not NOD. Nod is not supposed to be an ultra high tech faction. They are a hit and run faction with stealth units. Each team has their own technology, and neither team's is supposed to be superior. In the tiberium series, there is a constant struggle for technology. GDI had the ion cannon beacon before Nod had nuclear strikes, and Nod had to steal an orca to frame a GDI attack to win supporters. Nod uses guerrilla warfare and unethical practices, whereas GDI is a faction made from the UN and is supposed to represent world peace.

[HaTe]

If you're looking for an advanced high tech faction, you'd be talking about Scrin,and playing the wrong game

I've always wondered how cool it would be if some sort of future renegade expansion was made that included the Scrin faction. Would be awesome to say the least.

[CommanderWasp1x]

I kind of agree the game does need an Auto balance option.

Nod is not Over Powered, although Nod is the more powerful faction it always was.

GDI's Mammoth is Under Powered though, the Mammoths main cannons are meant to be a bit more powerful than they already are, then making the mammoth a good help to help balance the battlefield abit.

I've already posted a thread with other ideas to extend and balance the game. :-)

[super_gsx]

We should add Scrin in a mod...

[iran]

Yeah I agree with the Mammoth Tank being underpowered, it's so fat and slow and only has marginally more armor than the Medium Tank. It gets roasted by Flame Tanks too lol..

Nod tanks are a lot more powerful than the ever were in Renegade though, devs might want to take a look into it. Especially the splash and firepower of the Mobile Artillery, but splash damage from vehicles in general seems to kill tech repairs more quickly.

[CommanderWasp1x]

I wasn't going to add anything else but the Mammoth tank is meant to be fat and slow, its just its CANNONS that need a bit more power/damage.

As for Nod tanks and MA, they are fine as they are, the Flame Tank always did the most damage and again is fine as it is.

GDI "can" beat Nod, example on Walls I used a tranport Chinnock to carry GDI grunts with Ion beacons and we raped the Nod base.

The only problem is uneven teams and the underpowered Mammoth Cannons, lol

[EvilReFlex]

NOD is op, mutch more OP as in the old Renegade!

On Maps with no base defence, black hands with nuke destroy anything...

and the countdown is too short to find and disarm it!

[SFJake]

The beacons you can't disarm, the alarms that blends in everything, the beep of the nuke that is not distinct enough (it actually makes it impossible to tell which nuke was put first by the sound), stealth is harder to see, most ramps are harder to mine, airstrike cover is retarded.

Its just... too much.

[sarabi]

1 on 1 a mammoth tank beats the snot out of any other tank unless it's ambushed by a flame tank (which is easily countered by having a bit of situational awareness). The issue is more overconfidence gained from the beasts huge size.

[kugelfaenger]

I have to congratulate the Devs that they have already reached a good balancing - in my view. I can not see that the Brotherhood is op. Its certainly in the hand of the team-play to gain victory or not. I had games were GDI rapped the NOD base with tanks in minutes after the start or were mammoths were all over the place and GDI airstrikes annihilated whole armies in seconds. Only with team-play, coordination and tactics the brotherhood were able to crush this massive power On the other side NOD stealth units were destroying a complete base nearly unnoticed by a team of 20 GDI players. (I have played six hours straight)

Certainly there have to be a lot of fine-tuning for every unit, otherwise the game becomes too hard for fresh players and the fun is shrinking for the veterans. Also the role of the playable characters and vehicles and also countermeasures must be easier to find (I didn't knew that die GDI APC can detect stealth units until I found this information here somewhere in the forum^^)

[dommafia]

(I didn't knew that die GDI APC can detect stealth units until I found this information here somewhere in the forum^^)

Wait what? Where's this information? how does it detect it exactly? range? WE NEED TO KNOW THESE THINGS.

[disorder]

Yes there are few things which could be explained better. For example vehicles have a boost if you press shift (like sprinting) I only found that out recently. Even tanks get it.

[Tovias]

What if you try and git gud?

[XD_ERROR_XD]

I'm really not sure about vehicle balance... All vehicles have a sprint feature. The Stealth Tanks is stealthy, but slower then usual and have a low accuracy because of the huge arc they shoot with. Half of the time i have no idea if i'm actually hitting something.

Mammoth tanks have powerful weapons, but they are also very good at being a sitting duck. They're never meant to take the field alone, they need support from other vehicles and hotwires, which requires a lot of teamwork. But once they have you besieged... I don't want to fight such enemies, as the second you crawl out of base you get insta'd, crawl back to get healed and same thing happens. Seriously, the only moment in the game where the mammy is OP is once they are next to your base's entrance. I can't lay my finger on the exact word, but they do amazing damage for 1 second and then reload for 3 seconds. Other vehicles don't have this.

Medium tanks have 800 health and a decent speed. Their length makes them more vulnerable to enemy fire then other vehicles though, and this is where the light tank comes in. They're arch rivals, and if both drivers are skilled, they make for really exciting tank battles. The light tank is small, fast and shaped accordingly. The light tank will win in long range fights, whereas the Medium tanks are definately superior in short-range fights. It's an interesting tradeoff.

Flame tanks pack quite the punch, but guess what, they're only effective in close range.

If it comes to firepower (only firepower!), in Tiberium Dawn:

Crappy against heavy vehicles, excellent against light vehicles and the ultimate building slayer of the Tiberium age.

In C&C Renegade:

(Quite) effective against heavy vehicles, excellent against light vehicles, excellent against buildings.

Whereas in Renegade X:

OP, almost to the point of broken against heavy vehicles, excellent against light vehicles, excellent against buildings.

This needs a fix. Range is fine, speed is fine, vehicle damage is my only complaint here.

[SFJake]

I only have one thing to say about vehicles:

Why is the medium tank such a piece of crap now?

Its utterly worthless now.

[Letty]

Tell me why you think the Medium tank is bad and I'll tell you why you are bad. It's GDI's best vehicle.

[Valor]

In Ren X, the mammy is the new med.

Though I can't be certain if the med was actually nerfed or not.

[SFJake]

It was nerfed slighly and everything else was buffed. Mostly the turret placement is worse, I don't even feel like I need to drive backward which means it feels even worse in the field, it gets destroyed by stealth tanks by a few million miles away... It feels worse against everything, even the light tank, which already was a superior field vehicle.

Nowadays you feel incredibly bad just taking a med because it doesn't have anywhere near the firepower of the mammoth tank (nevermind its burst damage), and gets blown up by everything in the field. I do great with the light tank. Tell me how do I use the med tank here, I actually never see it used these days and when I do as Nod it just gets obliterated, be it by light tanks, artilleries or stealth tanks. (nevermind raveshaws)

[Letty]

Mammoth is basically useless for anything but point whoring or killing Nod vehicles dumb enough to engage head on (unless it's a flame tank, in which case you lose).

Med tank's speed lets you move faster and get within range of the Nod Artillery (Nod's best vehicle). Vs. the Flame Tank (Nod's 2nd best vehicle) speed lets you actually get away. For base pushes (i.e. what you should be using vehicles for) Med tank lets your team actually get in, surround a building to cut off engineer support and take it down. Nevermind the fact that it's much cheaper.

AFAIK Med tank was pretty much unchanged stat-wise, except for the Boost ability that all vehicles have and which benefits the Med tank much more than the Mammoth. The major change in vehicle balance is that Nod's Artillery is way better now, which means slow Mammoths are toast, and MRLS lock on far better, which means Light Tanks get destroyed without cover to hide behind.

[Agent]

As a statistical reference, on the first page of the leader-board, organized by score:

65/100 players had a higher win rate with Nod.

35/100 players had a higher win rate with GDI.

I was originally expecting this to be closer to 50/50. Oddly enough, it does seem that there's an imbalance in Nod's favor.

[Valor]

That's probably only because of the SBH nuking and most maps have no defenses, especially Islands and Walls which are voted very often.

On Field GDI still wins over 3/4 games, this speaks something about the vehicle balance.

[Letty]

Wall is probably the most played map and with an uncoordinated team it's basically a free win for Nod 90% of the time through SBH beacons. Never mind all of the glitches where you can make the beacon undisarmable, which greatly benefit Nod and are used in probably 3 out of every 4 games now that everyone knows them. Islands slants Nod as well thanks to this.

Whiteout is even more tilted in Nod's favour since the base defenses respawn. GDI can't win unless Nod's engineers simply fall asleep.

Keep in mind that if the winrate was 50/50 without glitched beacons and glitched beacons were only used in 1/6th of games the odds would go to approximately 35/65. And glitched beacons are being used in way more than 1/6th of games.

[Blade]

Don't tell me the arty is op. The MRLS locks onto stuff and can do more damage. I'd say the Nod arty is more of a tank destroyer.

Never forget that GDI has Mcbrokeland and grenadiers. Of course, there is also that scumbag tactic of locking onto SBH's with a rocket launcher.

[iovandrake]

The medium tank is disadvantaged by one thing for everyone right now. In Renegade the medium tank was mostly driven backwards (a lot of tanks were) and doing it this way allowed for you to hide the medium tanks body behind things. This meant when you drove out to fire you only had to expose the back end (which the tank barrel extended over further). The med (and other tanks) is also disadvantaged by something else (for me at least). That being you can no longer effectively ram other tanks and fire at them point blank. Right now they bounce up or roll over you. In Renegade the way I always engaged stealth tanks, arties, or generaly anything within range was to smash into them. Lighter armored nod vehicles lose all their advantages when dealt with this way (and stealth tanks couldn't really hit you at point blank).

[disorder]

Does anyone know if flanking damage work? as in the vehicles take more damage from the rear like they did in the games? If not then I think it would be good.

[Valor]

Flanking damage isn't in the game.

[Unit]

The medium tank is disadvantaged by one thing for everyone right now. In Renegade the medium tank was mostly driven backwards (a lot of tanks were) and doing it this way allowed for you to hide the medium tanks body behind things. This meant when you drove out to fire you only had to expose the back end (which the tank barrel extended over further). The med (and other tanks) is also disadvantaged by something else (for me at least). That being you can no longer effectively ram other tanks and fire at them point blank. Right now they bounce up or roll over you. In Renegade the way I always engaged stealth tanks, arties, or generaly anything within range was to smash into them. Lighter armored nod vehicles lose all their advantages when dealt with this way (and stealth tanks couldn't really hit you at point blank).

I dont know a single player that drives a medium tank backards on purpose, especially since the medium tank turret is in the middle of a chassis in both games. also the back of the med is fatter than the front, so it is entirely pointless to do that. unlike the light tank. and artillery.

[iovandrake]

The medium tank is disadvantaged by one thing for everyone right now. In Renegade the medium tank was mostly driven backwards (a lot of tanks were) and doing it this way allowed for you to hide the medium tanks body behind things. This meant when you drove out to fire you only had to expose the back end (which the tank barrel extended over further). The med (and other tanks) is also disadvantaged by something else (for me at least). That being you can no longer effectively ram other tanks and fire at them point blank. Right now they bounce up or roll over you. In Renegade the way I always engaged stealth tanks, arties, or generaly anything within range was to smash into them. Lighter armored nod vehicles lose all their advantages when dealt with this way (and stealth tanks couldn't really hit you at point blank).

I dont know a single player that drives a medium tank backards on purpose, especially since the medium tank turret is in the middle of a chassis in both games. also the back of the med is fatter than the front, so it is entirely pointless to do that. unlike the light tank. and artillery.

LOL. Really? You don't know a single person? Wow what game were you playing? Cause when I played Renegade for years everyone drove backwards and got a good advantage from doing so. The med's front is far too long in Renegade, but the back is short. This gave you more barrel clearance when having the med backwards. Really makes me think you never played very much. Now if you were talking solely about Renegade X you'd be right as doing it backwards on X has no advantage.

Lol "nobody drove meds backwards"... lol...

[Unit]

The medium tank is disadvantaged by one thing for everyone right now. In Renegade the medium tank was mostly driven backwards (a lot of tanks were) and doing it this way allowed for you to hide the medium tanks body behind things. This meant when you drove out to fire you only had to expose the back end (which the tank barrel extended over further). The med (and other tanks) is also disadvantaged by something else (for me at least). That being you can no longer effectively ram other tanks and fire at them point blank. Right now they bounce up or roll over you. In Renegade the way I always engaged stealth tanks, arties, or generaly anything within range was to smash into them. Lighter armored nod vehicles lose all their advantages when dealt with this way (and stealth tanks couldn't really hit you at point blank).

I dont know a single player that drives a medium tank backards on purpose, especially since the medium tank turret is in the middle of a chassis in both games. also the back of the med is fatter than the front, so it is entirely pointless to do that. unlike the light tank. and artillery.

smug words becaue he played once 8 years ago.

the difference is about half a meter off center, in otherwords, not worth it. to trade that off you stick out the rear which is actually much easier to hit than the front because its taller, again, by a tiny amount. the mammoth tank turret is offset by the same amount, you gonna tell me all the people used to drive their mammys backwards now too?

[iovandrake]

Driving the mammy backwards isn't worth it, but driving the medium is. I'm not going to say everyone drove them backwards, but I'd say anyone who wanted a good advantage did. It's far better to keep the longer end of the vehicle tucked away around corners. Rushes are about the only time that driving forward or backward with a medium never mattered. If you wanted to just disagree you could have done it better than basically saying you never saw that and trying to call me out on it like I made the whole thing up. It's possible that on the servers you played on people never drove the medium backwards. I played mostly on Jelly Marathon though and I can even give you one of my videos from mid 2012 with me driving backwards. It's a short part (as I didn't feel like driving a med much that night) and doesn't really have a tank battle as the match was pretty much over by then. Still if you want it here you go:

[Unit]

im not really that bothered, both sides of the medium tank have roughly the same surface area overall, so its an irrelavent point. you do not benefit from driving in either direction over the other.

[disorder]

ah right valor, thanks. I asked because it would probably stop the 'driving backwards' thing.. is it an exploit? Not sure entirely since driving backwards never occurred to me and I'm sure many others. It means people with this knowledge would be gaining an advantage?

[iovandrake]

im not really that bothered, both sides of the medium tank have roughly the same surface area overall, so its an irrelavent point. you do not benefit from driving in either direction over the other.

Whatever makes you feel better I guess.

[Unit]

ah right valor, thanks. I asked because it would probably stop the 'driving backwards' thing.. is it an exploit? Not sure entirely since driving backwards never occurred to me and I'm sure many others. It means people with this knowledge would be gaining an advantage?

No, its not an exploit, thats just how command and conquer has always handled damage in all of its titles, there has never been any difference in hitting a unit from the back compared to the front.

A lot of players whom are used to everything being super real just dont know about it, it makes sense to drive a vehicle forwards. thats just common sense, especially in things like world of tanks.

a vehicle has a set amount of HP, it cant be detracked or critical hit, damage is constant regardless of where the impact is, etc. each vehicle remains as effective on 1 HP as it does on full HP. is all about the driver

[HaTe]

The only time you should ever drive forward in a med is if you plan on self-repairing yourself mid-batttle. Otherwise, he's right - driving backwards gives you the advantage.

@unit your last post is true for most instances. However, splash damage is calculated server side, so it is sometimes true that a vehicle will do either just direct hit splash damage, and not direct warhead damage, or vice versa. So sometimes damage in renegade was not constant with any weapon that used the explosive warhead. You also could do splash damage (non-direct hit) to vehicles as well (unlike buildings).

[disorder]

ah right valor, thanks. I asked because it would probably stop the 'driving backwards' thing.. is it an exploit? Not sure entirely since driving backwards never occurred to me and I'm sure many others. It means people with this knowledge would be gaining an advantage?

No, its not an exploit, thats just how command and conquer has always handled damage in all of its titles, there has never been any difference in hitting a unit from the back compared to the front.

Actually c&c 3 and 4 have it, I think RA3 too. That is why you have a drive backwards command ("D" I think) although that is later in the series. not saying it doesn't completely exist in the whole series is wrong

Here is a post explaining http://www.gamereplays.org/commandandco ... me=totw_14

[SFJake]

ah right valor, thanks. I asked because it would probably stop the 'driving backwards' thing.. is it an exploit? Not sure entirely since driving backwards never occurred to me and I'm sure many others. It means people with this knowledge would be gaining an advantage?

I think that is the most ridiculous set of posts I've read.

-Knowledge an exploit? Knowledge an advantage? Yep, knowledge is power. Does this look like a realistic game? (nor should it be, realistic games are god awful)

You learn and you do better. Thats life.

[Unit]

ah right valor, thanks. I asked because it would probably stop the 'driving backwards' thing.. is it an exploit? Not sure entirely since driving backwards never occurred to me and I'm sure many others. It means people with this knowledge would be gaining an advantage?

No, its not an exploit, thats just how command and conquer has always handled damage in all of its titles, there has never been any difference in hitting a unit from the back compared to the front.

Actually c&c 3 and 4 have it, I think RA3 too. That is why you have a drive backwards command ("D" I think) although that is later in the series. not saying it doesn't completely exist in the whole series is wrong

Here is a post explaining http://www.gamereplays.org/commandandco ... me=totw_14

crap i forgot to mention 'Good' command and conquer titles.