Serious class imbalance

[Drury]

I've been trying to have this discussion in "New content" thread, but it fruitless and off-topic there, and it is big enough of an issue to deserve it's own thread.

In short: There are classes in RenegadeX that are better than others. This shouldn't be a thing, it has never been a thing in any CnC game worth it's salt, and yet it's here in this very game, and to a huge degree.

To start off with a bang:

Engineer/Technician/Hotwire

These are the classes that you want to play if you want to win. I would go as far as saying that besides these and SBH (Stealth Black Hand), there are no classes capable of effectively dealing with buildings on their own. It is no secret that an easy way to easily get an upper hand is to fill an APC with these and rush a building, then try to bomb it's MCT, due to the many explosives they carry.

As for their combat ability, they can use remote explosives as an offensive tool, throwing it at foe of any kind, be it a tank or infantry, and detonating for instant/nearly instant kill. Even their mines can be used offensively to a degree, placing them while retreating to lure the enemy onto them. They can also use tiberium auto-rifle, much like any other class - this doesn't mean it makes them balanced relative to the other classes, though. The weapon is quite powerful on it's own and makes the class that much better at defending itself without a powerful primary of their own.

Not only are they the best offensive class, they are also the best defensive class. They can repair anything, from buildings, to vehicles, to infantry. They can lay mines around their base, and even in enemy base, absolutely anywhere. They can disable any sort of explosive, superweapon beacon, and they can capture tech buildings

And last but not least, they are the class that you want to use for vehicle warfare, due to their aforementioned repair ability. Once their vehicle gets destroyed, they can just repair whatever friendly vehicle is around. And if they find themselves surrounded by enemy vehicles, they can use their explosives to take them down or at least deal heavy damage to them.

Every other class

Their worst downside is that they are not Engineers/Techs/Hotties. They have no special abilities that Engineers do. They can't capture anything, effectively destroy any buildings, they are not as good for vehicle warfare, they can't repair anything, they only carry one measly timed C4. The only thing they are good for is killing enemy troops - this is an issue in an objective-based game that RenegadeX is, where you are supposed to destroy the enemy base, not X tanks or Y soldiers. This one their attribute only helps for helping their Engineers reach the enemy base by escort so those can deal the damage there.

Their only true strength is bigger health pool and their ability to defend superweapon beacon in case the Engineers have already taken care of the base defenses, possibly by the means of APC/tank rush. Up until that point, there is no point to them, other than preventing enemy engineers from doing the same to their base. Then there are many classes that are bad even at that, like flamethower.

Why is this an issue?

You have essentially two classes in the game:

-Engineer and his upgrades, which are superior.

-Those other classes and their upgrades, which are inferior in every aspect except man-to-man combat.

Engineers are still better and more useful.

If anyone mentions faction/map balance in this thread I swear I will personally track them down and suffocate them in their sleep.

[TotemAatz]

Reason they are so good is because they can buy weapons and those weapons stay with you after death.

APC rush is a valid tactic and if you let them in you deserve to die.

[Afevis]

Build walls around your conyards. Problem solved.

[Drury]

Just what I thought. People in this place have absolutely zero interest in reading.

[chup]

I agree, that the tech/hotwire is too powerful since they can buy the additional weapons. My two suggestions:

1. You loose extra weapons after you die (keeping them across rounds seems like a bug anyway)

2. Engis/Techs/Hotwire can only upgrade their weapon to the heavy pistol or the carabine, but I think keeping them to pistol is somehow more fitting

[Noodlesocks]

Most of the other classes have ranged anti vehicle weapons. The rocket soldiers, laser chain guns, gunners, mendoza/mobius, sydney/raveshaw etc.. Even the ramjet snipers do a ton of damage to light armour and aircraft.

Chem troopers and gunners are pretty good against structures and mendoza/mobius can kill structures singlehandedly if they get to the MCT.

Edited March 7, 2014 by Guest

[Noodlesocks]

I agree, that the tech/hotwire is too powerful since they can buy the additional weapons. My two suggestions:

1. You loose extra weapons after you die (keeping them across rounds seems like a bug anyway)

2. Engis/Techs/Hotwire can only upgrade their weapon to the heavy pistol or the carabine, but I think keeping them to pistol is somehow more fitting

It is a bug that has been fixed for next version. You're supposed to lose stuff when you die.

[Sebqt]

I'm no fan of engineers getting automatic weps even for one life to be honest. Tech buildings should unlock characters not weapons. (ie. Tiberium Scientist)

[Drury]

Chem troopers and gunners are pretty good against structures and mendoza/mobius can kill structures singlehandedly if they get to the MCT.

Oh, nice to see someone who actually understood my issue.

Problem is, even as they do possess the same ability to destroy buildings, they don't share the other abilities, meaning Engineer is still a better choice.

All in all, I feel like the whole class system needs an overhaul. Let me just write it down now that we know the problem at hand.

Remote explosives

One of the more obvious issues is that Engineers have remote explosives unlike any other class. What do they need them for? Base defense? Mines do a better job. Those remote explosives basically just make Engineers better at everything they weren't ever supposed to be good for in the first place. They don't really need them. Goodbye APC rushes, we won't need you in the bright future where base defenses aren't invincible. More on that later

Repair gun

Then there's the repair gun. That thing is way way too useful for just one class. It should either be changed up, split and shared by multiple classes, left as is and shared by multiple classes to make them somewhat on-par with Engineers as a temporary band-aid, or outright removed. As the latter two are pretty much self-explanatory (and quite extreme for my taste), let me just explain what changes I had in mind:

Re-balancing it

I've already written down just what a repair gun can do in the OP. It basically has four basic functions: Building repair, vehicle repair, infantry healing and tech building capture.

Buildings

Engineers should no doubts have the ability to repair buildings. However, the way it works now, the offenders have an extremely hard time breaking base defense when there are multiple engineers camping the MCT. This makes vehicle sieges difficult and prompts for extreme measures like single-class rushes. On top of that, healing speed from outside has been apparently buffed in RenX, making it all that easier to turtle.

One design aspect that is urgently needed is to make more than one engineer camping the MCT redundant. If there are more camping it, it won't increase the healing rate any more. This would both prompt people not to pick Engineer when there are more than 5 on their team already repairing the buildings, and make the defense easier to break by vehicle/infantry siege. In the broader sense, it would bring more game into the game - people would actually have to go out and destroy/scare off those mams pounding on their base rather than getting 50 engineers and camp the MCT's or doing whatever else the oversaturated class can do, rather than waiting for the enemy to come up with a better plan and eventually finish them off 3 fruitless hours later. The game would also become less defense-based, more in the spirit of CnC - if you camp for too long, you lose to the team that knows that camping doesn't win games. And let me put this straight: at this point defense is too easy. There is no point telling me that you can use tactic X or Y to win easily. Defense is easy, breaking it is counter-intuitive and that is a fact.

An alternative measure would be to break building HP into segments instead. This would make chip-damage weapons more effective against buildings - only, say, 20% of building's health would be needed to empty one segment. Once a segment empties, it can't be refilled, much like destroyed buildings can't be repaired. In another case, it would make MCT campers less effective against organized vehicle pushes. The problem that exists now is that while they do usually take more than 20% of the building's health, but it always gets repaired. With segments, each push would be successful to a degree, and if defenders don't do anything about it, they lose the building after 5 pushes.

Vehicles

You just bought a Mammoth Tank, sweet. What class do you go? Sydney? Mobius? Nah. Hotwire. You don't want to lose 1000 credits and a ton of firepower just because you couldn't go out and repair it.

This is another thing that makes Engineer unbalanced relative to the other classes. They are the class you want to pilot vehicles as. Every class should have equal chances when it comes to piloting vehicles.

I hate to remove features, especially the good ones. But one way to break Engineer+vehicle relationship would be to make it impossible to repair your own vehicle. I know it hurts. I know you hate me and think it's not overpowered because you have to go out and you can have your tank stolen etc etc. But that's thankfully not the only way.

Another way would be to give every class a blowtorch that works like point-blank repair gun, but only on vehicles. You might say that I've played too much Battlefield 3, but the truth is, I've only seen a few videos of blowtorch drivebys on helicopters and such, never before have I played the game. Ahem, so basically, you could repair your vehicle as any class, but Engineer would still have a more powerful Repair Gun for that.

Infantry healing

Frankly it is pretty hard to heal infantry with Repair Gun, so I'd keep it as it is, but I have an ide-

Hello frauleins! No fear, herr Medic is hier!

Yeah we could have a Medic infantry class I guess, but that was not my initial idea. I thought it would be much cooler to have a Medigun secondary weapon that any class would be able to equip - at the expense of it not being Tiberium Auto-Rifle, and yes, it would only last one life, much like secondary replacements are meant to. Have I told you that Medics in TF2 drop like flies? And there aren't even as many snipers and sniper-friendly maps! Now you know.

And I guess passive healing inside a vehicle wouldn't hurt, at least for certain types of vehicle like APC. All in all, those things are expensive.

Tech building capture

At this point only Engineers can do it, which is, well, lame. Especially the incredible pistol fights that always occur around them as normal classes don't care for tech buildings, they can't do anything with them, they can't destroy them, they can't capture them, waiting for an enemy engineer to kill isn't as much fun as blowing up tanks. Really, what's the point of even getting near one when not playing Engineer?

I already mentioned blowtorch, that could be one way for the other classes to capture them.

TB's hilarious suicide when trying to C4 one is another inspiration. Simply damage it to capture it. I don't like this idea too much, but it could work.

Or simply use it like you would a normal purchase terminal and wait for beacon-like "hacking" bar to fill.

Tiberium Auto-Rifle super-engineers

Non-issue with the next patch, hopefully.

If you made it this far, I applaud you. Incredible scrolling skills. I wish my mousewheel was so fast.

[Crab]

I think offering some kind of one handed repair gun able to be purchased for your secondary weapon may lessen the load on engineer reliance. On the volt rifle characters a secondary weapon isn't very useful for how versatile the volt rifle is. This way offensive characters will be able to assist with repair duties that are core to keeping their team in the game.

I don't think this fixes how much of a generalist that the engineer is, though.

[yosh56]

I'm going to run some counters here, but admittedly (thanks mostly to the permaweapon bug) I feel like it is easy to get away with just playing a Hotty or a Tech all game. But that's merely because I can supplement my main weakness with a one-time payment of $125.

Let's talk about:

Remotes: Honestly, I don't see the problem with remote C4s at all. I've died a total of... twice to remote C4s, namely because they're very situational in terms of combat. If an engi is defending, they make sense since one can simply refill them, not to mention their attackers are likely going to be trying to get into an enclosed space (a structure). Dodging a remote C4, when in actual combat outside of a building, hasn't given me the least bit of trouble, and at best they may take a chunk of armor. If an engi is using remote C4 while assaulting... well they're just wasting their ability to do one of their primary jobs.

As for the Remotes being unnecessary... I beg to differ. They actually help to nerf single engis in their building-busting potential whilst simultaneously rewarding a team for getting a legitimate squad of engineers into a structure. I say they nerf single engis, because remotes die off after death, meaning the engineer/tech can not time their explosion to virtually insta-gib structures. If every C4 was timed, there'd literally be no tactic necessary for what to do with C4 and an MCT. You'd just place it and hope for the best. Choosing when to detonate remotes on an MCT determines whether or not those enemy engis trying to kill you are actually going to be able to save this structure or not. If you trigger too early, they can just save the building by healing enough.

Repair guns: I honestly can't see the problem with the current repair gun. Engineers are supposed to be versatile, and the biggest reason that everything about engineers feels a bit OP right now is the fact that suddenly they can carry weapons that are questionably powerful. Them being the only class that can disarm mines and heal/capture buildings is just... very engineer of them. Again, it's the fact that they're now able to do all of that.... and wtfpwn anybody who stands in their way. I'm only for engis being the only class able to cap tech buildings because it'd stay true to the CnC nature. Well, that... and before engineers were offensive powerhouses, they felt like they could be of some other use than throwing remotes on MCTs and repairing things(Engis, not tech/hoty). In short, the repair gun is SUPPOSED to be powerful to make up for a lack of offensive capability; buy-able weapons (especially the tib ones) have kinda' broken that. Okay, they've completely rewritten the rules.

The repairing of buildings has been discussed before. Honestly, as much as I hate siding with some of the childish idiots and pretty much saying L2P, I have to agree with them here. Pounding buildings is the WORST way to kill them. It is, and always has been. Hell, the Renegade single-player campaign even had a mission surrounding that. The repair rate, and the completely consistent returns of the repair gun are fine IMO. The more engineers that are dumb enough to make a building stay at 100%+, the less resistance you'd actually run into outside. On top of that, if there are other buildings to destroy, it's high time you convince everyone to just rush them, block the doors, and laugh as the team of +50%- engis tries to switch buildings in time. And then... well, there's always a beacon. Honestly, pounding structures is more about pressure than actual destruction, unless it's a legit rush. where doors are blocked and engis out in the open are mercilessly destroyed.

Repping vehicles: I don't think it's really all that bad. You made some points that all kind of just led to common sense. In Planetside/Battlefield, you go engineer whenever you plan on tanking as well. Why? Because you want to be able to heal your own stuff if it comes down to it. It's not like you can heal and shoot at the same time, and stepping out of your vehicle on GDI generally results in you seeing every detail of that $1500 mammoth tank you just bought for Nod. Being able to heal friendly vehicles around you is just a plus, but once more people learn that sniping engineers is the best way to kill vehicles... well that won't seem quite as powerful as it is now. As much as I hate to beat a dead horse; nobody is really really being a team-player with their sniping.

Anti-vehicle: If you think Engis are the best anti-vehicle, then you simply run into some horrible vehicle drivers. Most drivers with any sense will simply stay back from engineers and use this thing called a GUN to make their heads into something they'll smear on their toast later. Getting close enough for an engineer to C4 you is generally just your own damned fault for either A) lack of awareness, or B) sitting still, or just outright driving too close. I'd like to see your awareness of my (currently broken) Raveshaw actually help you. It won't, because Ravs/Pics/Anti-vehicle-infantry-in-general are all capable of putting the hurt on MULTIPLE vehicles from range. You can't simply kite them, and you knowing where they are does not aid you in the least bit so long as they're in range of you.

Of course, we can also chalk up the ease of C4ing vehicles to the fact that it's much harder to run people over in RenX than it was in Renegade.

Medic Guns: Sorry, this isn't Tiberian Sun era... otherwise I'd debate that. Still, as you already mentioned, healing infantry is hard enough as is. It's one of the most balanced things in this game, and we probably shouldn't touch it... then it might explode.

Synopsis

Tiberium Auto Rifle for engis kind of broke everything. Seriously... I know the gun was virtually useless in Renegade, but now I feel like it circumvents the need to have any skill in a gun fight. The flechete(sp?) gun is debatable, but at least it requires aim. We'll have to see how much Tib rifles are exploited in the next patch, as I believe the major issue right now is that EVERY engi/hotty/tech is rolling with a gun that belongs on a character that costs twice as much as they do.

And yes I like my mouse-wheel.

[SFJake]

You'll know that with sprint, its a lot easier to stay close to vehicles in this game I find.

It also happens that a lot of people STILL don't know to sprint with vehicles (and obviously -> one of the dumbest feature in the game right now, still don't get why vehicles "sprint", everytime I do a rush I have to tell them YO GUYS VEHICLES CAN SPRINT and suddenly EVERYONE's faster)

The Tiberium Auto Rifle definitely need that bug to go. I'm sick and tired of that weapon being in everyone's hand for free and then they abuse it in every map that shouldn't even have it, for free.

Anyway, we're getting our panties in a bunch here because the engineers are too versatile, yet in other topics the idea of a repair gun you could buy (for a decently costly price, like 300 credits for a NORMAL repair gun) the idea was always completely shut down. Yet it helps spread versatility just a tad and really doesn't make engineers and techs any less useful.

[Noodlesocks]

The difference is that the engineers and techs don't have any long range offensive abilities. Sure, you buy a vehicle, you go engi/tech to repair. Of course you do, that's just sensible. But what are the enemy going to do? They aren't going to counter you with engis and techs, trying to run at you with their C4 drawn. No, they're going to go with their rocket guys or raveshaws or mendozas. They're going to go with snipers to pick off the engineers hiding in back, repairing the vehicles.

And sure, techs and engis are good against buildings but they have to get their first and chances are they're going to run into some sort of resistance. Even with the Tech weapons, they aren't nearly as good as the dedicated anti infantry classes. Even a good shotty/rifleman can be a hassle for a tib equipped tech.

Like most class based games, each class has a role, a place and a time to use and although the technician is versatile, it's not always the best choice for you or your team to go with.

---

That being said, I do find that repair spam on buildings is a bit more effective than it was in renegade. I've often found that we've been able to outrepair damage from numerous mammoths and MRLS with only 3 or 4 engineers/technicians. It has been many years since I played renegade but I don't remember it being that easy to keep a building functional. If it really is a problem, the easiest solution would be to simply reduce the rate at which an individual engi/tech repairs a building.

[ErroR]

If it really is a problem, the easiest solution would be to simply reduce the rate at which an individual engi/tech repairs a building.

How about reducing the repairing effectiveness of each individual the more of them are repairing at the same time. That way a single engie trying to repair when nobody else cares wouldn't be punished by that while 5 engineers repairing one building wouldn't be as effective as they are now.

[HaTe]

I had posted this prior to even playing the beta as an idea to split up the technician classes:1.

Edited repairing units in Renegade:

Instead of each team having one infantry option for a strong repair gun, I thought up of something a little bit different (since hotwires/technicians are almost always the most used character in the game, and honestly a bit OP when it comes to repairing). The idea actually came from Planetside 2's character system, which really works well with that game. Obviously I edited it up a bit so that it would work with Renegade - but here is the general idea:

Two Hotwire/Technician options for each team. Both cost the standard 350 credits.

(To give you perspective - the weak repair gun (engineer) in Renegade does -2 damage, and the strong does -4 per second to everything).

One will be infantry/mine/beacon repairing based - doing damage equal to that of the current strong repair gun (-4 per second) to all infantry units and beacons, and doing -5 damage per second to all c4s/mines. To buildings and vehicles, however, this unit's repair gun only does -2 damage per second . The character will then also have: 3 remote c4s, but after laying 2 there is a 5 second reload time in order to lay the third one; one timed c4; a pistol; and the default proximity mines.

The other will be vehicle/building repairing based - doing damage equal to that of the current strong repair gun (-4 per second) to all buildings and vehicles, and doing -5 damage per second repairing any building, but not when repairing the MCT (so when targeting the actual building). To infantry, mines/c4s, and beacons, this unit will do -2 damage per second. The character will then also have: 2 remote c4s; 2 timed c4s; a pistol; and a new set of anti-tank mines that are limited per player (rather than per team) at 3 per player. These mines don't count against the mine limit for the team in anyway, and instead are limited solely at 3 anti-tank mines per player. These mines are designed to explode only when a heavy unit (vehicles, not infantry) goes over them. They each do 55 damage to any vehicle (proximity mines do about 30), but cannot be put within 3 yards of each other - if this happens, the mine trying to be laid down will automatically disarm. This is to try and help the fact that proximity mines are pretty useless against tanks as is

[H.D. Lovecraft]

I feel like this discussion is missing the point of classes. You're arguing that engie/tech are the best classes based on their ability to do many things. Indeed, they have many capabilities, they are a jack-of-all trades. You are definitely making them better than they are though.

If I'm going to take down a bunch of vehicles, I'm not going to pick a tech.

If I'm going to (seriously) try to kill a lot of enemies, I'm not going to pick a tech.

Taking away the ability for a tech to be able to do so many different things would be a blatant oversight.

Most classes have their purpose. Good luck killing an Orca with your tech.

[HaTe]

My argument specifically wasn't that the unit is op - it was that the universality of the unit was too wide. The edit I suggested would simply make 2 role specific technicians rather than one universally good technician class. It's silly to think that the repair gun does equal damage to each armor type, whereas other weapons do different damage amounts based on which armor type they are hitting. It'd make more sense if it was split up into 2 separate units that each do their job slightly better, but the other's job slightly worse.

[RoundShades]

Really, the engineer is only as good as where they are. If around vehicles, their own buildings, a group APC attempt, and the tunnels with NOT-ENGI classes.

Really, can the engi long-range-kill apaches, mrls, and arty? Can engi's really kill certain classes better, like a good shotgunner, a sniper, or a grenadier?

Besides that, if an engi uses their c4 on a person, they can no longer slap it on an mct. If you have just 2 engis going to blow a building, you can't spare very much, and if you have 3-4 all going in, you would rather use grenades instead of timer and just stick all the remote on the terminal instead, more instant that way.

And any class + beacon > c4 + apc. Then imagine the apc defending the beacon. Most people say the FACTION with the stealth class is BETTER at nuking, and that both c4 and stealth are BETTER at MAPS BALANCED without base defences, so MAYBE ITS A FACTION OR MAP BALANCE ISSUE.

But seriously, couldn't it just be that, like planetside2 and medics, where you can't get a true kill unless there aren't any medics and if a team of 20 are all medics they are immortal, that medics are just a superior team player? The medic, and engineer in this game, is a utility, which is repair and reheal. The other classes are utilities, which are damage dealing. The healer's damage dealing is like Charlotte's from CastlevaniaHD, high yet it's cone and dps is poor, while the utility combat characters like Soma can make 20 second's work out of Dracula.

Seriously, all the characters are all pieces. It doesn't make you better playing engineer instead of another character unless you are using engineer properly and not using other class properly. I don't get an engineer when I see a rush, I get a ramjet/PIC depending on armor type, and low on creds I still get a laser chaingunner or chem sprayer. You act like all the other classes didn't get buffs. Did you even play Renegade? Did you try to use the old chem sprayer and flamethrower and patch and sydney?

[HaTe]

Are you talking to me when you're asking if I played renegade? Because I did. I played competitively, which is why I brought the suggestion up in the first place. 90% of purchases in competitive renegade are technicians and HotWires. There's rarely ever a reason to get anything else. The other 10% are for when a vehicle cannot be used to achieve the desired result (which was only in specific cases for competitive players).

[Maj0RS]

IMO there should not be made any changes regarding engi/hotwire/tech except removing alternative weapons. It would change the whole game if changes are made. I assume that you guys who are against current settings are playing only in +30 player servers? I´d like to suggest you to try smaller servers. For example max. 20 players.

[Dellta_34]

Engies are pretty imba I agree,but I would rather have them nerfed just a tiny bit and the other free classes buffed by a quite bit,than have engies nerfed to the ground.

So here are some suggestions:

1)Remove tiberium weapons or atleast remove them from engineers class.It's silly how most of the 500$ classes have weaker weapons than a 225$ tiberium pistol that stays with you not only after you die,but after the round is over and the next one begins!(I believe it's a bug)

2)Buff the other combat classes:

-Increase rifle/shotgun trooper health to 150,and buff their dmg by 10-15%.

-Inrease dmg of grenadier/flame trooper against vehicles by about 50% or even more(thus making them somewhat of a free AV class,which is still much weaker than a gunner/rocket trooper/sydney).

-Rocket trooper needs MAJOR dmg buff,I know I was talking just about free classes here,but I gotta mention how shit this class is right now and how much it really needs some buff.

3)Make it so that engineers cant repair a vehicle/structure that has taken dmg in the last 5 seconds.

This should REALLY help not only with nerfing engi,but preventing those 20+ mins super boring spam fest of engineers endlessly repairing a building and while you spam it...

[R315r4z0r]

I don't think that the original argument here is thought out all the way. Of course they sound OP based on how you describe them here. It's like saying super weapon beacons are OP because they can one shot kill any structure. But the fact that engineer classes pretty much suck at defending themselves, compared to other classes anyway, it makes them vulnerable to other said classes.

Yeah you can fill an APC up with hotwires/techs and that can destroy multiple structures. But the enemy can just use their MBTs to squash that rush in its tracks. Sydney/Raveshaw as well as Gunner/LCG are good at taking down enemy vehicles. Gunner and the LCG (but more so gunner) are also good at attacking structures externally.

I do not think that engineer classes are OP because they are quite frankly easy to beat. You just need some awareness and a dedicated defense. I sneak into the enemy's base all the time and destroy buildings. But the thing is, it's no major feat because no one is ever in their base paying attention. Everyone wants to leave and make things blow up. That doesn't make the hotwire/technician OP, it just makes the defending team incompetent. You can't complain that the winning team is OP when the losing team isn't even trying to do anything to fight back.

Players need to defend. And they defend by using the other classes in the roster.

Now, I'll grant you that the engineer classes are the go-to class for just doing idle stuff either around the base or in vehicles. It would be nice if it was a bit more diverse. But I wouldn't go as far as to say they are OP. They are just more adaptable than most other classes.

[HaTe]

I don't think that the original argument here is thought out all the way. Of course they sound OP based on how you describe them here. It's like saying super weapon beacons are OP because they can one shot kill any structure. But the fact that engineer classes pretty much suck at defending themselves, compared to other classes anyway, it makes them vulnerable to other said classes.

Yeah you can fill an APC up with hotwires/techs and that can destroy multiple structures. But the enemy can just use their MBTs to squash that rush in its tracks. Sydney/Raveshaw as well as Gunner/LCG are good at taking down enemy vehicles. Gunner and the LCG (but more so gunner) are also good at attacking structures externally.

I do not think that engineer classes are OP because they are quite frankly easy to beat. You just need some awareness and a dedicated defense. I sneak into the enemy's base all the time and destroy buildings. But the thing is, it's no major feat because no one is ever in their base paying attention. Everyone wants to leave and make things blow up. That doesn't make the hotwire/technician OP, it just makes the defending team incompetent. You can't complain that the winning team is OP when the losing team isn't even trying to do anything to fight back.

Players need to defend. And they defend by using the other classes in the roster.

Now, I'll grant you that the engineer classes are the go-to class for just doing idle stuff either around the base or in vehicles. It would be nice if it was a bit more diverse. But I wouldn't go as far as to say they are OP. They are just more adaptable than most other classes.

Based on shat you just said, I recommend reading my post about a possible edit. It seems that you are in an agreement with me, and not with the topic starter.

[xgamer888]

there are no classes capable of effectively dealing with buildings on their own.

Found it. There's your problem.

As much of a bad ass as you wish you could be, alas, this is a multiplayer game.

This was also the case in original renegade.

Get friends and apc rush as shotgunners. You will own once you do it a few times.

tl;dr: Working as intended.

[TP|himselfXD]

Yuck yuck yuck... These suggestions would ruin the game for me completely. Techies/hotwires need to be left untouched!

[XD_ERROR_XD]

If i bought myself a hotwire with a tiberium autorifle with the sole purpose of destroying an enemy building, and i would die, means i wasted 600 credits and got nothing in return. How long would i have to actually wait to get that money back? 3-5 minutes. How many tries would it take for an average person to pull this off? A lot. You simply don't have the money to repeat the process over and over. And if you get spotted while in the enemy base, an autorifle is sadly not going to save you. Not even a volt rifle would.

If i bought the same stuff in order to repair vehicles, what do i get return? Splash damage constantly chipping away my health, and maybe die a slow death. Would a defensive weapon help me in such a situation? Nope. If your tank dies, you die. 600 credits wasted.

If i bought the same stuff again in order to repair a building... What the hell do i need myself a carbine for? Just repair the building, not shoot it with your brand new sidearm!

An engineer is only good at what it's supposed to do, as explained by my wall of text above. A better side-arm is not going to help you sneaking into a base, because what you need is stealth. A better side-arm is not going to help you while healing an ally because he's the one with weapons capable of decimating infantry and/or vehicles, not you. If you let him die, you're powerless.

The only moment where it would be useful is while you're still on your way to something/someone. As you want to be able to safely arrive at your preferred position. From there on your allies will take over the shooting.

And if you're really that much of a lone wolf (like me)... I wish you the best of luck... You'll need it. So do I.

[TigerXtrm]

I agree that purchasable weapons makes engi's and Hotwire's way to strong. There's a reason they only had a sidearm in the original. In fact I'd do away with purchasable weapons all together, especially if the Tib. Auto Rifle remains as overpowered as it currently is.

[Taramafor]

I agree, that the tech/hotwire is too powerful since they can buy the additional weapons. My two suggestions:

1. You loose extra weapons after you die (keeping them across rounds seems like a bug anyway)

2. Engis/Techs/Hotwire can only upgrade their weapon to the heavy pistol or the carabine, but I think keeping them to pistol is somehow more fitting

Agreed. Maybe the carbine, but no way should they get tib rifle.

Edited March 8, 2014 by Guest

[H.D. Lovecraft]

There is something about this topic that makes me cringe. Techs are not OP, they get wiped by most other classes. The sidearm thing is irrelevant. Other classes can have sidearms, and don't forget the fact that they persist is a bug. Not every engie is going to have tib auto rifle. Once it's back to pistols will see who the real men are. Honestly it just sounds like much ado about nothing.

[Crab]

And if you get spotted while in the enemy base, an autorifle is sadly not going to save you. Not even a volt rifle would.

I agree that it's expensive to buy every time, but being able to kill even one infantry that spots you gives you valuable time for your timed c4 to go off. If we're 30 minutes into the game and I have 6000 credits to spare, I would take that risk.

If i bought the same stuff in order to repair vehicles, what do i get return? Splash damage constantly chipping away my health, and maybe die a slow death. Would a defensive weapon help me in such a situation? Nope.

If I was buying a vehicle, I would also buy a heavy pistol. It's cheap and does damage to vehicles. I might be able to damage that vehicle a bit more before I die or while I flee.

If i bought the same stuff again in order to repair a building... What the hell do i need myself a carbine for? Just repair the building, not shoot it with your brand new sidearm!

Are we playing the same game? A sidearm is amazing to have when you're going to be repairing buildings/be on general defense for more than a few minutes. When there's no base defenses and a building is being bombarded by tanks, infantry are going to want to get through those doors to kill some engineers. You (and your engineer buddies) have a far better chance at killing the intruder with a weapon other than your pistol if they're smart enough to keep you out of remote c4 distance.

When patrolling the base as a hotwire for SBH, the carbine is my #1 weapon of choice. I feel like I am on equal footing when I engage one in combat. So much for being a weakling.

A better side-arm is not going to help you while healing an ally because he's the one with weapons capable of decimating infantry and/or vehicles, not you. If you let him die, you're powerless.

In 'field-medic' situations I would also take along a costly secondary weapon. When nobody needs healing it gives me a chance to help deal out some damage or get some kills on infantry or light armor.

In addition, its pretty hard to keep my beam on a hurt teammate that's jumping around and trying to dodge incoming shots if we're in a wide open area with no cover. I could either be useless and try to heal him for a few points of health, or use a fancy weapon to help kill the guy shooting at him and then heal him.

These secondary weapons are very powerful and add an enormous amount of versatility to characters. I will be using them nearly every time I buy an advanced engineer character.

[Taramafor]

The sidearm thing is irrelevant. Other classes can have sidearms

So if everyone had an auto lock rocket launcher that homes in on targets and kills in one hit, that wouldn't matter? It's already a known fact that the tib rifle is much better to the AR, let alone the carbine (I'm hoping HOLDING a silo will provide access to the tib rifle in future to balance this out. People would fight over the silo then).

Even if not for the bug, it would still make an engineer a very good class. I think that would be a price most people would be willing to pay.

[Sojourner]

Did you play Renegade (normal), Drury? Just curious.

[goztow]

Imo theee is a simple fix. Do not allow engineering classes to get automated rifles (exgept for the side arm which sucks heavely anyway). Rhe tiberium rifle on techs is what is OP for the moment. They even rip stanks to pieces!

Someone postef this before and is quite right. The tech silo should unlock a character and not a weapon.

[TheGroundsKeeper]

The only problem with the engineers is that you can buy absurd good sidearms to them. hotties and tecs with fleshettes are da bomb.

And i agree that this is an issue, in the old ren they kinda needed a escort. now the best escort is more engineers with flechettes.

same goes with ramjet snipers, with the new insane sidearms they are too good in close combat.

Other than the sidearm issue, i dont think there is anything wrong with the engineers/supersized engineers.

Edited March 8, 2014 by Guest

[goztow]

Listen to this man!

[Taramafor]

And i agree that this is an issue, in the old ren they kinda needed a escort. now the best escort is more engineers with flechettes.

Therein lies the problem. Engineers needed an escort in ANY C&C game. To have them turn into weapons of mass destruction simply kills the C&C spirit.

[Drury]

There is something about this topic that makes me cringe. Techs are not OP, they get wiped by most other classes. The sidearm thing is irrelevant. Other classes can have sidearms, and don't forget the fact that they persist is a bug. Not every engie is going to have tib auto rifle. Once it's back to pistols will see who the real men are. Honestly it just sounds like much ado about nothing.

Problem isn't with how powerful they are, problem is that they can do much more than any other class.

Oversaturated, not overpowered.

50% of time you go engineer, 50% you take another class.

[goztow]

Personally I am much closer to 80 pct engee or tech because I am usually in a tank.

[XD_ERROR_XD]

If you bought a sakura, what would you have spended those $€¥£1000,-- (let's just say credits, yah? ) on? A ramjet rifle? Or 150 additional health? Yet a sakura is never going to earn her money back by shooting infantry. Do you know how long it takes until you sniped 1000 credits worth of cash?

Don't remove tiberium weapons from the side-arm list. Only make them more expensive. And please reduce the silo credit rate from 1.5 to 1 credit per second.... I'm still ending up on profits in a match like field with the silo, and i rambo a lot ingame in order to get something going.

[Methanoid]

@OP, good read, deffo +1 and agree with the whole Engineer/Every1 else situation, also your "medic" idea could just as easily become a "Support Trooper" someone who can heal and drop ammo packs (for rifles/etc but no replen of explosives) and generally be "the middle man" when it comes to firepower/health.

Fully agree that there needs to be a bigger difference between classes than just their starting weapon and health values, engineers/etc ofc have their role, the black hand has his gimmick/reason to be....stealth, everyone else also needs some form of defining difference or reason to exist otherwise their all just regular soldiers that have different weapons.

[OfficerMeatbeef]

Problem isn't with how powerful they are, problem is that they can do much more than any other class.

Oversaturated, not overpowered.

50% of time you go engineer, 50% you take another class.

They can (or should, at least) do much more than other classes except for the essential part of being effective in actual combat, which is certainly at least 50% of the entire game, but I think it could be argued to be even more. Right now, this is not the case, because of the persistent purchased sidearm bug. The only reason engineers are being viable in combat at all is due to that secondary weapon capability, and we really can't judge if that is broken or not yet because it is broken in another way, due to the bug.

They have anti-vehicle capability with their explosives, sure, but any other class with reasonable anti-vehicle capability can do it better and safer, without needing to get directly next to the vehicle. They have anti-building capability, but they need escorts to actually get in there. Their only offensive role should be removing enemy mines and taking down buildings.

[RoundShades]

Actually, I thought it would be neat to repair just armor on infantry instead of health. That breaks original renegade unfortunately, at least mostly, but it does make sense that welding onto an infantry repairs armor not health.

Another balance idea on repair, is that vehicles close to death repair at the current rate, and vehicles near full health repair at half rate. That way, it is slower to get a vehicle all the way back to full health, and faster to survive-repair a vehicle.

Another balance idea is a really-weak repair gun being available as a secondary weapon. Then more classes will have access to repair, at the cost of better stronger secondary weapons, as well as their primary.

A last balance idea, is to increase the cost of high-end secondary weapons. Make carbines 400 and tiberian weapons 600. This will make more of a difference when you stop getting "free secondaries forever" when you buy one and remain in that server.

Consider these. They all actually make things interesting for "engi class overuse".

[Methanoid]

Problem isn't with how powerful they are, problem is that they can do much more than any other class.

Oversaturated, not overpowered.

50% of time you go engineer, 50% you take another class.

They can (or should, at least) do much more than other classes except for the essential part of being effective in actual combat, which is certainly at least 50% of the entire game, but I think it could be argued to be even more. Right now, this is not the case, because of the persistent purchased sidearm bug. The only reason engineers are being viable in combat at all is due to that secondary weapon capability, and we really can't judge if that is broken or not yet because it is broken in another way, due to the bug.

They have anti-vehicle capability with their explosives, sure, but any other class with reasonable anti-vehicle capability can do it better and safer, without needing to get directly next to the vehicle. They have anti-building capability, but they need escorts to actually get in there. Their only offensive role should be removing enemy mines and taking down buildings.

id guess its a bug considering it seems to persist through to new matches on new maps, instantly getting a weapon on map start that should only be avail once u have a neutral tiberium silo does seem a bit wrong.

[Fultre]

Build walls around your conyards. Problem solved.

Hahahahaha, true C&C gamer right here!

[Methanoid]

Build walls around your conyards. Problem solved.

Hahahahaha, true C&C gamer right here!

Dune 2 ¬ ¬

[SOVEREIGN_]

in my opinion the sidearm keeping is actually the biggest issue here, i cant see how people can ignore this.

the tiberium auto rifle is a spammable midrange weapon that will do 25 damage + 5x7 poison damage. any basic class is destroyed by just 3 hits, because you get 105 poison damage ignoring your armor (that would be only 25 anyway). but it fires slow and is avoidable.

the flechette has one of the highest headshot dps (380 compared to 400 of volt rifle) and good aimers can kill any class. its gives the hotties a smaller volt rifle. for225$. forever.

the carbine makes it absolute nonsense to go as soldier with AR, because its stronger, just less ammo (basics/cheap classes usually drop in the first magazine anyway). engi with carbine can kill on their own and have bombs...but carbines are mostly bought when there is no silo or they cant manage to get it.

but: the problem are not the weapons itself imo, its just that we keep them all the time. you pay 225 for your flechette and can compete with any class, even win 2 on 1 fights. even on maps without silo! until your game crashes! both tiberium guns btw also do decent damage to heavy armor.

i definatly will pay the 150/225 to my hotwire most of the times, especially the flechette is an extreme buff for hotties with aim compared to the pistol. but dont forget, this setup will cost 500/575 on every death with the next patch, so we should wait how it works out when we actually have to decide on every respawn to invest for a sidearm or not. for defensive hotties its a no-brainer as wont die much and usually stack up a ton of $, but offensive suiciding hotties will have to pay more and cannot start with big weapons right at the start of map

if your ref is gone, you will think a lot about buying a sidearm on every death. as i write that i see how the crippled defender is nerfed right now =/

if i would have to suggest something: its lame to keep them for next map, an flechette/auto engi rush at the very beginning can be very hard to defend.

but i like to keep the sidearm for the rest of the round. maybe this feature should be kept in the game, but adjust the cost a bit (maybe like hp 250, carbine 500, both tibs 1000).

tl;dr---

(tiberium) sidearms are strong, the issue imo is keeping them forever. lets wait for the patch how it will work out, when we lose them on every death making it more expensive and cant keep tib guns to next map and being instant rushed by multiple tib guns and having them even on maps without silo. engis seem op because they can destroy basics/cheap units easily with auto rifle and flechette can compete to any class.

[Drury]

Yes, we ignore this specific issue because it's about to get fixed. There's no point in discussing it anymore.

However, there are more issues that can't be solved so easily. Design issues, not simple bugs.