Helpful Feedback from a Former Competitive Player

[Aegisx5]

Hi guys,

So back when this game was popular, I was one of the top players in the world at it (not to toot my own horn or anything, just making the point that I played it 24/7 and knew every nuance of the game - AeoNELiTe admin of FooFoo and leader of =DoA= for those of you from Westwood) and I had a few game-play and glitch observations which I hope will be helpful. And before I get to that, I'd like to say THANK YOU for remaking one of my favorite games of all time. I understand it's the first iteration of an early stage beta, so don't take any of these to mean that I don't appreciate you making a free remake of an awesome game.

GENERAL

- After purchasing a special weapon (i.e. a tiberium flachette gun), the player can simply go back to the weapons menu after they die to get the weapon again. That is, they don't have to actually spend the 225 credits and purchase it.

- The addition of carbines to every character, especially engineers is completely overpowered. Even in 1v1 sniper battles, often a sniper will get a body shot and then pull out his machine gun to finish me off. It feels cheap and completely unbalances the characters.

- Same goes for the addition of other weapons onto characters, i.e. SBH with tiberium flachette gun. It completely demolishes engineers/Hotwires when trying to stealth plant a beacon. I would love if you removed this feature entirely and leave people with the guns their character is supposed to have, and a side pistol.

- There was a city map with a giant bridge going across a middle area, city_flying I believe, I hope you add it. I liked that one.

- I like the addition of a free marksman unit, I think its balanced and a good option.

- In the later days of Renegade after Westwood shut down, a lot of people made their own fan maps and ran them. I hope eventually you can add this feature in, some of those were pretty damn cool. What's that one with the club music?

- Grenades are pretty OP for a free weapon option. Maybe make them cost like $50 or $100 so that at least it takes something to get the upgrade? In some situations there is no advantage to choosing the timed C4 if they are both free.

- I notice some people are able to spam the voice commands several times in a row. This is actually a good thing, as it adds urgency. "Defend the Refinery!, Defend the Refinery!, Defend the Refinery!" for me it makes me wait several seconds between commands. I have no idea why other people can repeat quickly but I have to wait.

- The resolution resets to 1280x860 or whatever it is every time I launch the game. It also reverts from windowed mode back to fullscreen. The other adjustments all save properly.

- The volume settings stay once I hit the menu, but the loading scenes are at full blast. I have to take off my headphones every time.

- Joining servers by hitting "join" often puts me in the wrong server. Joining by IP seems to prevent this 95% of time time, but not always.

- I've seen 41 people on a 40 player server. Also, it'd be nice if it told you "server is full" rather than just bringing you back to the lobby.

- The in-game chat lobby was pretty awesome back in the Westwood/Gamespy days. People would go on there looking for clan scrims, recruiting, etc. Any chance you can add it that feature back?

SNIPERS

- Reloading is way, way, way too slow. It never used to be that way. It should be a magazine reload, all 4 bullets at once.

- Capacity should be increased from 4 to 5 before reload.

- When playing in 3rd person (as many people did in the original) the sniper has to be accurate when you aim directly onto someone. It's almost like a part of the game, that people would strafe back and forth in 3rd person trying to click on the other sniper right as their head passed your dot. The small circle area of fire on the sniper rifles now completely defeats this part of the game and one of my favorite parts of Renegade; I'd really like to see it changed back. It's not just a 1st person FPS, it's a 3rd person shooter as well.

- I noticed a glitch where sometimes a pair of hands will be hovering above my character in 3rd person while using the sniper. If I zoom in and then come back out, they are gone. Check out the screenshot.

- Is it just me or did it seem like $1000 snipers used to have way more health? It's like every noob with a machine gun can get me to half life now even when I kill them in just a few shots.

- Remember, people pay more for a Havoc or Raveshaw than a medium or stealth tank. They're supposed to be hard to kill and do a lot of damage, that's the point.

- Airstrikes are completely OP against vehicles. I've seen one airstrike at the entrance of the base on Field kill 5 or 6 vehicles and a handful of engineers all at once, for $700. What kind of crap is that? Way OP.

- On Whiteout, the base defenses for GDI are ridiculous. They kill basically anything in one or two shots - stronger than a guard tower. It took is most of the game to finally get rid of them and make any progress into the base.

VEHICLES

- The Orca/Apache machine gun seems hard to aim. Often if you're aiming high above or below, the place where the bullets go does not line up with the reticule. Also, they are too slow, the point of them was to pop into an area, get a few good hits, and then fly off in a hurry.

- What's up with the bullet drop on artillery shells now? And now there is limited range, so you can't fire without being close up to the base? Isn't that the entire point of 'artillery'???

- Same for mammoth and other tank shells... limited range now? The maps are designed to require vehicles to at least come to the center to hit the opposite base - long range is the point.

- Those locking/homing missiles on the MRL make it pretty OP now. Getting the missiles on target was part of the challenge, that's why they do so much damage.

- Stealth tank rocket distance should be increased some. I do remember them having a cutoff, but it was pretty far.

- Nod's harvester got stuck on nothing several times on Field, just outside our base. I pushed into the tiberium field with a flame tank but it still wouldn't move, eventually blowing up. Then when it respawned it got stuck on nothing again.

- Vehicles are generally clunky/hard to maneuver.

- When going in reverse, why do the left/right invert to act as if I were driving forwards? This is completely unlike any other game and very disorienting when trying to maneuver. I wish there was at least an option to turn it off (if there is already sorry, I didn't have a chance to look as there are no options available in-game. That's another thing).

That's all I can think of for now and I'm sure many of these changes are already on your radar anyways. Keep up the good work!

Edited March 3, 2014 by Guest

[SFJake]

I utterly disagree with you wanting the Ramjet rifle back to its glory days. Its STILL incredibly powerful, I'd nerf it even more. A good sniper can still pretty much ruin the entire game as far as I'm concerned, but thats not a competitive side of it, just me getting bored to death when snipers dominate everything from field to tunnels.

I agree though that the crosshair is awful, it should have a dot if its going to be 100% accurate, in fact everything should have a dot (some tanks don't have them for example, its just annoying). Interface shouldn't be getting in the way of using a weapon, if they really wanted to make no scope impossible with the snipers then just do that (but that would make people like you incredibly mad).

I'm also against the removal of weapons you can buy, but hey, I'm not a serious player. I wish we could buy a Repair Gun on any character (at a cost). I played with weapon drops back in Renegade and loved it. I want crazy. But for competitive matches, can't they be turned off? If not, it should be made possible, if the competitive community wants it that way.

The orca and apache (the orca more) are definitely in need of a buff.

MRLs is overpowered, I kind of agree. At the very least, it shouldn't get easy locks on everything.

Artillery is fine. Drop off makes it hit in places it couldn't before, its great. Range is fine, so that not every map and every corner devolves into artillery abuse, and they still have good enough spots.

Other vehicles have same or better range, as far as I know, so I'm not sure what you're saying there.

[R315r4z0r]

Just a few quick comments.

MRLS range is pretty short from what I've noticed. I've been trying to hit buildings in the back of a base and I find the shots explode before they get there. However, all of the other vehicles have approximately the same range they did in Renegade... except the stealth tank which has its ranged increased a lot and I do think it should be reduced (even if it's an anti-air measure).

Regarding the base defenses on Whiteout: those are player controlled emplacements. The bases only have automated air defenses.

[Soldieroffate]

I like the slow reload speed for the Ramjet now. Makes it a LOT more balanced since the old Ramjet was ridiculous-twice the firepower of a sniper rifle AND faster reload at the cost of slightly decreased firing speed?

Never liked that weapon as someone who frequented with the run-of-the-mill sniper. The only fact I see it to be a perfectly reasonable weapon is an anti-arty weapon.

[goztow]

Use q to spot. When used on buildings u can spam radii commands with it.

[Whooohaaa]

Thanks for your comments. I too played a lot of renegade when it first came out. I think it might be nice to separate game play suggestions, and bugs for clarity.

Some things I am in complete agreement with:

City_Flying - When/if you guys add more maps this should be at the top of the list

Purchasable Weapons - While I think this is a cool idea, overall I dislike it for reasons mentioned above. Not to mention, a skilled player can do some damage with a pistol

Sniping - I spent most of my time in the original game with a ramjet in my hands. I think sniping mostly feels good except for the above mention reload times and 3rd person sniping. I can't tell if the circle reticule denotes a cone of fire or not. I still seem to do fairly well "firing from the hip", but head shots do seem harder to come by. I can't tell if my glory days are behind me, or the ramjet is less accurate by design when fired from the hip. I would like some clarification.

All in all though, GREAT FREAKIN JOB!!!!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!

[GatsuFox]

Sniping - I spent most of my time in the original game with a ramjet in my hands. I think sniping mostly feels good except for the above mention reload times and 3rd person sniping. I can't tell if the circle reticule denotes a cone of fire or not. I still seem to do fairly well "firing from the hip", but head shots do seem harder to come by. I can't tell if my glory days are behind me, or the ramjet is less accurate by design when fired from the hip. I would like some clarification.

Ramjets are 100% accurate all the time, its just that the crosshairs for the PIC/Rail/Ramjets fucking suck hard. I just want an option to change all my crosshairs to a colored cross, is that so much to ask for?

[Dellta_34]

Ok I totally disagree with what you said about snipers and the other 1000$ classes like raveshaw and sydney.

When I take the 1000$ sniper class I decimate entire infantry squads by myself,killing infantry(especially free one)feels like childs play,deffinetly dont need a buff there.

As for raveshaw and sydney,well do you know about the quick switching trick?

With the quick switch you almost get the firepower of a mamoth tank in an infantry unit,it's the class I abuse the most right now,you can almost insta gib air units,you make heavy tanks run away from you and you dominate infantry just as much.

If i wasnt enjoying it as much I would even be asking for the nerf hammer,but I just like feeling like a bad ass too much

The rest of what you said I generally agree with,especially with whiteout deffenses beeing to strong(or any deffenses in this game to be honest)and MRL's lock on to be too good(I really hate lock on in any games,especially on skillbased games like that,would of love to see some sort of wire guided rockets to replace the lock on shit).

[lane]

I agree with most things you said, save for your comments on Havocs. He might be expensive, but on most maps you're gonna get that 1k pretty early and you very rarely die. If I manage to actually sneak up on one who's been railing on our infantry carefree for 20 minutes, I expect him to die.

[ErroR]

I agree that grenades should cost money. They're incredibly overpowered in situations that c4 is completely useless. A single unit spamming grenades from the airstrip into the tunnel on field can stop a gunner rush in it's tracks.

It's incredibly frustrating and unfair for a free weapon to be this powerful.

[Aegisx5]

- I may be incorrect about the stealth missiles being shorter-ranged, I didn't play with stealth tanks that much yet. It does seem they are underpowered for $900 (as they were in the old one as well) so some type of buff might be a good thing.

- Snipers were always powerful in tunnels and whatnot, but it was all dependent on the skill of the sniper. A free shotgun class could usually take out a Havoc after rushing him 2 or 3 times, so there are ways around having snipers being OP. But when every infantry guy is spamming grenades and shooting at you with that tiberium rifle, its pretty annoying.

- The spotting feature is pretty cool. Good addition.

[goztow]

Stanks underpowered? Dude hey are invisible.

[Moshik21]

I think That people in general should be easier to kill. not to say that i like COD, Battlefield, or halo better but it seems kind of ridiculous how many bullets i put into someone and they don't die. for example in COD killing someone with a pistol takes depending on the pistol 8 or 9 shots. using the magnum is only two, and with the 5-7 i can kill someone in 3. granted that there are no vehicles in COD so health should be increased some. but then if you argue that point we can go to Battlefield. There are a plethora of vehicles in that game, but killing someone with a gun is relatively easy. In Renegade X killing someone with a gun literally takes an entire mag if you are using the main infantry soldier. and that's if they are not moving. Humans should not be able to take that much abuse?? I mean in halo they are Spartans. they have increase speed strength, and not to mention they have a freaking shield. even so it is easier to kill someone on halo than it is on Renegade. A little adjustment would be nice

[SFJake]

I think That people in general should be easier to kill. not to say that i like COD, Battlefield, or halo better but it seems kind of ridiculous how many bullets i put into someone and they don't die. for example in COD killing someone with a pistol takes depending on the pistol 8 or 9 shots. using the magnum is only two, and with the 5-7 i can kill someone in 3. granted that there are no vehicles in COD so health should be increased some. but then if you argue that point we can go to Battlefield. There are a plethora of vehicles in that game, but killing someone with a gun is relatively easy. In Renegade X killing someone with a gun literally takes an entire mag if you are using the main infantry soldier. and that's if they are not moving. Humans should not be able to take that much abuse?? I mean in halo they are Spartans. they have increase speed strength, and not to mention they have a freaking shield. even so it is easier to kill someone on halo than it is on Renegade. A little adjustment would be nice

...........sigh.

[TotemAatz]

I think That people in general should be easier to kill. not to say that i like COD, Battlefield, or halo better but it seems kind of ridiculous how many bullets i put into someone and they don't die. for example in COD killing someone with a pistol takes depending on the pistol 8 or 9 shots. using the magnum is only two, and with the 5-7 i can kill someone in 3. granted that there are no vehicles in COD so health should be increased some. but then if you argue that point we can go to Battlefield. There are a plethora of vehicles in that game, but killing someone with a gun is relatively easy. In Renegade X killing someone with a gun literally takes an entire mag if you are using the main infantry soldier. and that's if they are not moving. Humans should not be able to take that much abuse?? I mean in halo they are Spartans. they have increase speed strength, and not to mention they have a freaking shield. even so it is easier to kill someone on halo than it is on Renegade. A little adjustment would be nice

Are you seriously comparing Renegade, a totally different universe to say, Battlefield and Halo? What the shit....

[Aegisx5]

Additional feedback:

- Vehicle sensitivity left/right seems to be too sensitive/quick/jerky. I think this is why people are complaining about the steering.

- There is a glitch where sometimes the nuke beacon no longer lets you disarm when it reaches the 10 second countdown.

- Fell through the map on Walls_Flying after a spawn, and was parachuting into nowhere.

[Volcom]

Hi guys,

So back when this game was popular, I was one of the top players in the world at it (not to toot my own horn or anything, just making the point that I played it 24/7 and knew every nuance of the game - AeoNELiTe admin of FooFoo and leader of =DoA= for those of you from Westwood) and I had a few game-play and glitch observations which I hope will be helpful. And before I get to that, I'd like to say THANK YOU for remaking one of my favorite games of all time. I understand it's the first iteration of an early stage beta, so don't take any of these to mean that I don't appreciate you making a free remake of an awesome game.

GENERAL

- After purchasing a special weapon (i.e. a tiberium flachette gun), the player can simply go back to the weapons menu after they die to get the weapon again. That is, they don't have to actually spend the 225 credits and purchase it.

Already being fixed.

- The addition of carbines to every character, especially engineers is completely overpowered. Even in 1v1 sniper battles, often a sniper will get a body shot and then pull out his machine gun to finish me off. It feels cheap and completely unbalances the characters.

I think it will be more balanced when you need to buy the guns every time you die.

- Same goes for the addition of other weapons onto characters, i.e. SBH with tiberium flachette gun. It completely demolishes engineers/Hotwires when trying to stealth plant a beacon. I would love if you removed this feature entirely and leave people with the guns their character is supposed to have, and a side pistol.

See above post.

- There was a city map with a giant bridge going across a middle area, city_flying I believe, I hope you add it. I liked that one.

Will be made

- I like the addition of a free marksman unit, I think its balanced and a good option.

- In the later days of Renegade after Westwood shut down, a lot of people made their own fan maps and ran them. I hope eventually you can add this feature in, some of those were pretty damn cool. What's that one with the club music?

Anyone is able to make maps.

- Grenades are pretty OP for a free weapon option. Maybe make them cost like $50 or $100 so that at least it takes something to get the upgrade? In some situations there is no advantage to choosing the timed C4 if they are both free.

Well you sacrifice your timed, so you can't do any damage to any buildings.

- I notice some people are able to spam the voice commands several times in a row. This is actually a good thing, as it adds urgency. "Defend the Refinery!, Defend the Refinery!, Defend the Refinery!" for me it makes me wait several seconds between commands. I have no idea why other people can repeat quickly but I have to wait.

Use Q

- The resolution resets to 1280x860 or whatever it is every time I launch the game. It also reverts from windowed mode back to fullscreen. The other adjustments all save properly.

Try running the game as administrator

- The volume settings stay once I hit the menu, but the loading scenes are at full blast. I have to take off my headphones every time.

Lower the game sounds in windows sounds for now

- Joining servers by hitting "join" often puts me in the wrong server. Joining by IP seems to prevent this 95% of time time, but not always.

Known issue, will be fixed. Use the Renegade X Launcher for now.

- I've seen 41 people on a 40 player server. Also, it'd be nice if it told you "server is full" rather than just bringing you back to the lobby.

Most likely was a bot in game.

- The in-game chat lobby was pretty awesome back in the Westwood/Gamespy days. People would go on there looking for clan scrims, recruiting, etc. Any chance you can add it that feature back?

Working on it

SNIPERS

- Reloading is way, way, way too slow. It never used to be that way. It should be a magazine reload, all 4 bullets at once.

It is there to help nerf down certain weapons.

- Capacity should be increased from 4 to 5 before reload.

Disagree

- When playing in 3rd person (as many people did in the original) the sniper has to be accurate when you aim directly onto someone. It's almost like a part of the game, that people would strafe back and forth in 3rd person trying to click on the other sniper right as their head passed your dot. The small circle area of fire on the sniper rifles now completely defeats this part of the game and one of my favorite parts of Renegade; I'd really like to see it changed back. It's not just a 1st person FPS, it's a 3rd person shooter as well.

It is like that to nerf down the powerful guns.

- I noticed a glitch where sometimes a pair of hands will be hovering above my character in 3rd person while using the sniper. If I zoom in and then come back out, they are gone. Check out the screenshot.

Known. Will be fixed.

- Is it just me or did it seem like $1000 snipers used to have way more health? It's like every noob with a machine gun can get me to half life now even when I kill them in just a few shots.

Same health.

- Remember, people pay more for a Havoc or Raveshaw than a medium or stealth tank. They're supposed to be hard to kill and do a lot of damage, that's the point.

They still are once you get used to them.

- Airstrikes are completely OP against vehicles. I've seen one airstrike at the entrance of the base on Field kill 5 or 6 vehicles and a handful of engineers all at once, for $700. What kind of crap is that? Way OP.

Will be fixed in the next patch

- On Whiteout, the base defenses for GDI are ridiculous. They kill basically anything in one or two shots - stronger than a guard tower. It took is most of the game to finally get rid of them and make any progress into the base.

Will fix so they wont respawn. I think damage is good as they aren't automatic and are stationary. People need to be in them.

VEHICLES

- The Orca/Apache machine gun seems hard to aim. Often if you're aiming high above or below, the place where the bullets go does not line up with the reticule. Also, they are too slow, the point of them was to pop into an area, get a few good hits, and then fly off in a hurry.

Just need to get used to it

- What's up with the bullet drop on artillery shells now? And now there is limited range, so you can't fire without being close up to the base? Isn't that the entire point of 'artillery'???

Again you just need to get used to it.

- Same for mammoth and other tank shells... limited range now? The maps are designed to require vehicles to at least come to the center to hit the opposite base - long range is the point.

I don't really share this opinion

- Those locking/homing missiles on the MRL make it pretty OP now. Getting the missiles on target was part of the challenge, that's why they do so much damage.

Hence the limited range.

- Stealth tank rocket distance should be increased some. I do remember them having a cutoff, but it was pretty far.

I think they have enough advantage being stealthed. Also the range matches renegade.

- Nod's harvester got stuck on nothing several times on Field, just outside our base. I pushed into the tiberium field with a flame tank but it still wouldn't move, eventually blowing up. Then when it respawned it got stuck on nothing again.

Yea known bug. Will be fixed soon.

- Vehicles are generally clunky/hard to maneuver.

Again I think you need to play more. I have no issues with this.

- When going in reverse, why do the left/right invert to act as if I were driving forwards? This is completely unlike any other game and very disorienting when trying to maneuver. I wish there was at least an option to turn it off (if there is already sorry, I didn't have a chance to look as there are no options available in-game. That's another thing).

There is an option in settings for this.

That's all I can think of for now and I'm sure many of these changes are already on your radar anyways. Keep up the good work!

[Moshik21]

i am only comparing amount of bullets it takes to kill people. its completely unrealistic

[perfectblue]

@Volcom, I am pretty sure I read that the devs will NOT introduce a dev kit making for fan made maps not possible.

[SFJake]

i am only comparing amount of bullets it takes to kill people. its completely unrealistic

Its completely irrelevant.

[Volcom]

@Volcom, I am pretty sure I read that the devs will NOT introduce a dev kit making for fan made maps not possible.

It's being looked into. We are trying to make it possible.

[Whooohaaa]

Sniping - I spent most of my time in the original game with a ramjet in my hands. I think sniping mostly feels good except for the above mention reload times and 3rd person sniping. I can't tell if the circle reticule denotes a cone of fire or not. I still seem to do fairly well "firing from the hip", but head shots do seem harder to come by. I can't tell if my glory days are behind me, or the ramjet is less accurate by design when fired from the hip. I would like some clarification.

Ramjets are 100% accurate all the time, its just that the crosshairs for the PIC/Rail/Ramjets fucking suck hard. I just want an option to change all my crosshairs to a colored cross, is that so much to ask for?

Thanks for the clarification