Gameplay Suggestions

[IIandrew]

Hey I'm new to the forums so hello. I have some general suggestions for this game that I think would add to the player experience.

1. Both sides should have some sort of cloaking/stealth character.

2. Instead of a default character with a shotgun, there should be one with a rocket launcher. It doesn't have to be very powerful just something general that can be used to defend your base once your barracks has been destroyed.

3. Re-spawn time increases once barracks has been destroyed.

4. Obleisks/Advanced guard towers, take longer to repair than normal. I've been in games where both sides were completely stalemated because of this.

5. Buildings should provide more of a benefit than they currently do to eliminate stale mates.

Generally most of these improvements are just suggestions that help towards eliminating game stalemates.

Thanks for reading.

[Jake48.2]

1) Having both sides having the things the only one side ruins the asymmetrical balancing. Nod is built around small hitboxes, stealth, and nimbleness. GDI is built around large, hulking hitboxes, good health, and having troops being slow in reacting to new threats. It also ruins the existing lore of the CnC franchise to give GDI stealth capabilities.

2) Both teams have two competent anti tank measures among the free infantry classes: The Grenadier/Flamethrower, and the Engineer. The grenadier can pelt tanks from safety, the flamethrower can obscure vision and provide reliable DPS vs vehicles, and the engineers have remote C4s for instant burst damage. Additionally, every infantryman has timed C4 by default.

3) The barracks going down already has a few major downsides in that repairs are slower (no technician/hotwire), no mines, and the fact all free infantry are one hit kills for bodyshooting top tier snipers.

4) Any moment that an engineer is repairing one structure is three moments where they're unable to repair another. Take another structure if you see you're not beating the repairs.

5) They already provide massive benefits. Power plants affect prices and defense power. Vehicles are solely tied to the air strip or weapons factory. So on and so forth.

Generally, when a stalemate occurs, it's not due to the mechanics. It's due to neither team taking initiative in changing their assault strategy. There's already a lot of force multipliers to break stalemates, between misdirection, super weapon beacons, and airstrikes. Organize a new plan of attack, whether it's by changing vehicle choices, or by coordinating pincer movements.

[SFJake]

Like I said in another topic and like my fellow with the amazing name above me said, its one beauty of this game that a game can reach a stalemate through "normal" play and force both teams to employ teamwork or advanced strategies to achieve victory. If brute force can go through a proper defense easily, then whats the point of the game?

And its quite the Renegade moment to have 1 building and survive against 3+.

[IIandrew]

1) Having both sides having the things the only one side ruins the asymmetrical balancing. Nod is built around small hitboxes, stealth, and nimbleness. GDI is built around large, hulking hitboxes, good health, and having troops being slow in reacting to new threats. It also ruins the existing lore of the CnC franchise to give GDI stealth capabilities.

2) Both teams have two competent anti tank measures among the free infantry classes: The Grenadier/Flamethrower, and the Engineer. The grenadier can pelt tanks from safety, the flamethrower can obscure vision and provide reliable DPS vs vehicles, and the engineers have remote C4s for instant burst damage. Additionally, every infantryman has timed C4 by default.

3) The barracks going down already has a few major downsides in that repairs are slower (no technician/hotwire), no mines, and the fact all free infantry are one hit kills for bodyshooting top tier snipers.

4) Any moment that an engineer is repairing one structure is three moments where they're unable to repair another. Take another structure if you see you're not beating the repairs.

5) They already provide massive benefits. Power plants affect prices and defense power. Vehicles are solely tied to the air strip or weapons factory. So on and so forth.

Generally, when a stalemate occurs, it's not due to the mechanics. It's due to neither team taking initiative in changing their assault strategy. There's already a lot of force multipliers to break stalemates, between misdirection, super weapon beacons, and airstrikes. Organize a new plan of attack, whether it's by changing vehicle choices, or by coordinating pincer movements.

First off defensive lists such as this never help to improve the game, they simply try to make it static. The purpose of a beta is to improve through change. Defensive lists such as these are not good for a forum. They do not encourage discussion, however I'm going to fight fire with fire here, so here is my response.

1. NOD is a faction based off of more stealth based tactics, however hit-boxes have never varied in side for the factions, and I don't believe health has either. Asymmetrical balancing is nice, however there is no practical way for GDI to infiltrate a base undetected. It doesn't have to be a cloak necessarily, perhaps a holographic disguise of some sort. Also lore was built for the game(s), not the other way around.

2. All of the anti tank measures you have described rely on close quarters combat, with the exception of the grenadier. However the grenadiers damage is very poor against tanks and was clearly designed as an anti infantry measure. On of of this the c4 (Including the remote detonation c4) is not very effective, and is risky to use in most situations.

3. The barracks going down does provide an advantage, assuming the team that still has the barracks has money for characters. If their refinery has been destroyed they will hold a very small advantage, only being able to spawn characters once in a while.

4. "Any moment that an engineer is repairing one structure is three moments where they're unable to repair another. Take another structure if you see you're not beating the repairs." There are maps where it is not possible to target buildings beyond the obleisk, and beyond this the obleisk and advanced guard posts, are very powerful and it is a requirement to destroy them before mounting any sort of assault on the enemy. The original renegade had these same problems, however there were often more tunnels, and places with enough cover to make it to an enemy structure before being killed.

5. The benefits are not massive enough, they need to be more direct concerning infantry. When it comes down to it this game is about boots on the ground and how effective they are. A team with a barracks but no refinery, versus a team with a vehicle bay and no refinery, can easily stalemate once the income has stopped. For a while one side will have characters and the other vehicles, but if they cannot overwhelm the other teams defenses before running out of money a stalemate will occur. Occasionally one side will have characters and the other vehicles, but it usually is not enough for either side to gain a strong enough advantage. There are also several other scenarios like this concerning different buildings. The bottom line is that buildings should each provide a solid boost to regular ground troops. Defending your base is important, but offense is also important if you want to actually win.

Stalemates cannot always be beaten with "superior strategy". When you lose a building in this game your options begin to get more and more limited. Thus taking away a lot of strategic options and encouraging stalemate. I believe this should be counter acted. Stalemates are fun for a while, but eventually they become very monotonous and discourage most people from playing a game. Why play if every game you get into ends in stalemate?

[Jake48.2]

I'm all for improvements, but you have to recognize that making ham omlettes should not require throwing away existing vegetable omlettes, so to speak. It requires cracking new eggs with some ham.

1 a) Hit boxes are definitely a factor on vehicle design. All of GDI's land vehicles are tall and imposing, so as to cover supporting engineers from being shot from an equal topographical height. Mammoth tanks take entire bridges. None of Nod's vehicles have a similar footprint, and the only vehicle that benefits from being cover to supporting engineers is the artillery cannon. It's also in the design that GDI vehicles inherently take more punches than similarly valued forces from Nod.

1 b) The point of asymmetrical balancing is that you don't have the same options as the other team. And on the flip side of the same coin, they don't have the same options as your team. GDI being unable to infiltrate is counter balanced by having superior capabilities in fighting equal sized forces. Nod's inability to beat equal forces is counter balanced by their ability to pick their battles in the sense of Fabian tactics and in guerilla warfare. GDI's base has more spots to hide beacons, where as nod has less cover from which to traverse their own base.

1 c) If you're about to argue that the lore is made for the game, then the only thing I have to point at is how Tiberium weapons were treated in the move from Renegade to Renegade X. In the original command and conquer, and in renegade's campaign, GDI was all about containing tiberium and reducing environmental damage. It did not make sense for the multiplayer to then give GDI 2 tiberium weapons, and Nod have only the chem sprayer. So to counter balance, Tiberium rifle Sydney was replaced with McFarland's flak cannon, and Patch's fletchette gun was replaced by a new assault rifle. It should be noted that both of these replacements took away anti infantry choices in favor of anti infantry, anti light armor weapons.

2&3) The key word was competent, not magically insta-killing. Barracks provides a great deal of support to vehicles, and most importantly, the base. The refinery might make you money. The vehicles might be made at a factory. The power plant controls prices and the AGT. But the barracks provides every proactive defense and support decision the team uses. If you want mines or an effective pocket medic, get a hotwire. If you need anti air that isn't a MRLS or Stank, get a rocket officer soldier. If you need anything not directly related to cracking the enemy base, the barracks is your point of purchase. If there were more effective anti tank infantry available as free purchases, you more easily create stalemates, regardless of your team's decisions.

4) It may be uncomfortable to target another structure without targeting the AGT or obelisk while it's still up, but your 800 credit investment being lost while spreading fire on the building not being focused with repairs is worth it. Having 5 vehicles to ignore obviously repairing buildings and defensive vehicles will net you whichever unmanned structure you can get. On field, that might mean ignoring hand of nod and obelisk in favor of shelling the refinery. Also, the defensive structures have a guaranteed blind spot immediately around the structure. If you manage to make it there, you can block engineers from being able to get into it while focusing fire on another structure. But you have to come to terms with the fact you can get things done while at the same time dieing. You may lose field immediately after taking their structure! But you respawn instantly and will be working on preparing your defense to weather out the storm that will be at your base in a minute.

5 a) The refinery going down is not the end of income. Defensive and supportive engineers are rolling in money, and anyone shelling the enemy base is also getting enough money to afford their own kit. Usually, in games where one side has only a barracks, and the other only an airstrip, the airstrip team will win because they have more opportunities to make money. There's also half of the maps including tiberium silos as a source of money. The ones that don't usually have refineries as the last easily targetable structures.

5 b) The thing is that there's already multiple built in mechanics in order to break stalemates. There's crate spawns. There's having a time limit not be infinite (Here's looking at you, Marathon servers). There's the fact that in order to have a stalemate, there has to exist two parties being complacent in their own strategies. If you want stalemates to happen less, you either need to change player behavior (Don't join Crate-less Marathon), or you need to add a mechanic untied to the core mechanics, because the core mechanics are what cause it. Perhaps have something like having a helicopter stop by every few minutes that temporarily gives back a missing buff, like a humvee, or 30 seconds of base power for purchases, or something similar.

And in regards to your ending note: You don't stalemate from a singular action, but from a cascade of actions. Plenty of games have zero sum scenarios. The time tested solution is to go on to the next game once the conditions are met, not change the game. You have to make the decision to play stalemate, it is not forced upon you. There are those that play through stalemate because they refuse to lose. There are those who stay because they want to hear the story of the one pair of jerks that gets in with C4. Then there's the masochists who would have loved Normandy. You would be hard pressed to find those three people playing any other game, why should we deprive them when we can go on to the next game? And the fact of the matter is that Stalemates are already exceptionally rare to begin with. Perhaps two destruction related stalemates a day, among all of the marathon servers. If you want a comparison, go look at Dota. The game gets great appeal not just because of it's mechanical depth, but because of the struggles teams go through to beat seemingly unwinnable games. There are so few games available where exceedingly long stalemates or such massive comebacks are possible. And these comebacks and stalemates are what you compare baseline gameplay against, not other games.