Of Exploits, Balance and Logical Implementation

[yosh56]

Right, so if it's not obvious, I'm usually not one to talk about adding things to the game. Generally it's all about taking current mechanics and looking at how we can use what we already have to re-balance or add to the experience that is Renegade X.

This is one of those exceptions.

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If anyone ever played both CnC 3 and the Kane's Wrath expansion, you may remember the Hammerhead from GDI that was added in the expansion. I bring up the Hammerhead as it is a great example of turning creative player tactics/exploitation into a balanced part of a game.

As a brief history lesson: The Hammerhead is a helicopter unit that GDI could purchase. It could carry 1 squad of infantry, and that infantry unit/squad could fire out of the Hammerhead even while it was flying. The main reason this unit came into being, is that in vanilla CnC3, APCs already had the ability to carry infantry and allow them to fire from inside. Couple this with the airlift ability (which called in a carry-all to pick up vehicles) and GDI players quickly found out that you could have flying squads of troopers with Railguns and rockets that didn't have to reload like regular aircraft. It was pretty cost inefficient though (800 for an APC+300 for the airlift then whatever infantry). However, as cost inefficient as it was, it could still be used effectively if your enemy didn't see it coming, and they weren't prepared to deal with something that wasn't necessarily supposed to be part of the game. The Carryall also had complete crap for health, as it wasn't a fighting unit.

Fast-forward to the expansion, and the Hammerhead was one of the only units added to the expansion that actually had its shit together and didn't seem like a unit that was just "thrown in" where one didn't belong. It was something born of an exploit that players knew well and since we'd been exposed to something similar we'd already established how balanced it could be. Flying APCs could have been patched out at any time, but honestly it was something cool that players didn't feel was too bad, but was imbalanced (with Carryall health being too low to be effective). With that in mind, when the Hammerhead was created, it mimicked the price of the tactic, but was just made a bit more expensive so that a decent amount of health, and a standard weapon, could be added to the unit. In the end, the Hammerhead is probably one of the only units that didn't receive much flak at its addition. It had a few unit upgrades that had to be looked into, but overall it was a successful addition because it was something 'new' that had merely come from something players already knew, understood, and already used. It was just tweaked to help fill in some necessary gaps.

Morale of the text-wall: I think some items get added without much concern for what players want/already try to do in-game. For this you have to look at what bugs are exploited, and what intended-but-kind-of-not tactics are being used. If it seems like the tactic is popular but pretty imbalanced, it might make a decent gameplay mechanic if some things were just tweaked about it.

To point out examples that are already in a Renegade X.

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Flaming vehicles are making a bit of a comeback, and honestly they're just as annoying as they were in OldRen. Not only are they annoying, they're imbalanced as hell, which is why they were so loathed to the point of dropping the ban-hammer in many servers.

Now look at flaming vehicles in the sense of what they DO actually add to they game.

-They make the Buggy relevant late game at the expense of the Buggy itself.

-They give Nod an odd and sneaky tactic to counter out-of-position, or jumbled up GDI armour. It also fits in with their terrorist vibes (Hell, Tiberian Dawn introduced us to Nod with them crashing a plane into a building).

-People seem to like suicide-bombing in games. If it seems like a troll tactic, it draws some laughs.

The issue with how they operate now:

-For 300 credits you can blow up an 800 credit Med (even with a limit of 4)

-All of the damage is focused right on to whomever you decide to ram

-The cheap cost of this tactic means it is very easy for one player to create another flaming vehicle after one has been destroyed.

So, are flaming vehicles currently imbalanced: yes; as a Med you can not kill a buggy fast enough without that Buggy being completely adamant on trying to cross the entire field in a straight line in plain sight of you. So flaming vehicles in their current state are technically an overpowered exploit, but they have perfect potential to be 'added' to the game as something balanced that the community has seen before and proven to actually add a bit of something to the game.

As a suggestion for flaming vehicles, I'd look into a buyable remote explosive item for Nod that would stick to vehicles (and if possible, NOT infantry) as a replacement for just tossing copious amounts of C4 onto a vehicle.

Adding a buyable explosive item that actually costs +-500 and did significant(but not game breaking) splash damage to vehicles would be right up Nod's alley. Kill off some (if not all) of the -vehicle- splash damage from remote C4, and now flaming vehicles are a built-in mechanic with some form of balance, as opposed to a game-breaking exploit. It would make the buggy relevant in late-game as a blockade breaking unit (e.g on Field) but while also costing much more to give it the additional functionality. Making it AOE as opposed to just one focused blast means you could justify it not having enough punch to kill a unit of equal value, but it would undoubtedly be able to damage entire armour columns if it was allowed to get too close.

So for 800 credits (300 for Buggy+500 for suicide package) say it did 200-300 damage depending on how close the target was. 1 by itself could be a nuisance to GDI armour clumps, while Nod would need to shell out 2400 total to create a coordinated force capable of actually killing off a Medium tank column that just mindlessly clumped together. That's assuming that GDI would all be so close together that it would even be effective. It also would require A LOT to be effective vs. Mammoths.

As for range of effect, a simple Med-tank's radius around where the package is set would be sufficient without being overcompensating.

On a final note for a bomb strapped to vehicles, I'd say making the suicide package ALWAYS damage/kill whatever object it is attached to would save people from simply tossing 2 or 3 on a friend's Buggy then detonating them without the Buggy actually being sacrificed.

With that, flaming vehicles suddenly go from an annoying, extremely overly cost-effective way to wtfpwn any vehicle (save for a Mammoth) you want single-handedly without needing any real help from your team, let alone needing to make any significant investment, to actually requiring a significant cash investment and not being able to decimate alone.

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Now, I think I made it clear that flaming vehicles as a mechanic belong on Nod. It fits them, and if balanced correctly they allow some faction differentiation, which in truth is one of the greatest traits Renegade offers over most other shooters.

Sticking to the theme of glitches, bugs and exploits that actually showcase some interesting possibilities when balanced, we have the infernal vehicle physics present in Renegade X. Sure, vehicles take a bit of getting used to in general, but likely the biggest exploit known about vehicle physics right now is that many vehicles can just run underneath vehicles and continue to fire without being at risk of retaliation from the vehicle they are beneath.

It's been discussed before, and Im sure most people probably know where this one's going.

If we're not going to find how to completely fix vehicles running beneath Mammoth tanks, then GDI's Mammoth should have a damage zone on its undercarriage. This zone should pertain to ONLY the very underside of a Mammoth, not a front ramming zone or anything of the sort.

From a balancing point of view, right now a Nod APC, a light tank, a Stealth tank can all run beneath Mammoths and defeat them easily. While some vehicles can get beneath Medium tanks, it is much easier for a Med to roll off of a Stealth tank or a Light tank and continue fighting. A Mammoth's huge body and slow movement makes it nigh impossible to toss yourself off of any vehicle wedged beneath it.

Cue having a damage-zone beneath the Mammoth. If any vehicle finds itself beneath a Mammoth, it should still be able to fire and work it's way out through driving, however there would be a STEEP penalty for remaining beneath a Mammoth. In terms of damage, the equivalent of both Flamethrowers on a flame-tank. This means that a full health Stank would have just over 3 seconds of time to live if they decided running under the front of a Mammoth was a good idea. An APC and Light tank could last for just under 5 seconds.

At this amount of damage, accidentally running beneath a Mammoth wouldn't completely screw you over, however you would be taking FAR more damage underneath it as opposed to if you just played like a sane person and got hit by its cannons.

Balance-wise this doesn't break the Mammoth, though it adds some extra functionality to it. It would allow it to be slightly more fearsome when pushing forward, and no longer would it have a glaring physics based downfall, but rather a physics-based advantage. Being the heaviest vehicle (aside from the Harvester) it wouldn't exactly be mind-bogglingly broken to newcomers to see a Mammoth run over small vehicles either. They're too slow to do it constantly, which more or less makes it balance itself.

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While letting Nod have a balanced version of flaming vehicles aids them against GDI's main strength of being dominant in the field (or so we're told), that doesn't leave GDI with anything to add towards Nod's main advantage of having stealthed units.

Cue what we already know: Patch and Mobius are the ultimate SBH hunters due to their burn damage after they hit. This keeps stealth units highlighted for the sole fact that the burn damage lasts a second or two. While this is a part of the game, I do not believe Mobius and Patch were ever originally thought of to be made into anti-stealth characters.

Burn damage is not exactly an exploit, or a glitch, but SBHs highlighting well after being hit is an already exploited side-effect. Making this a mechanic that can truly work in GDI's favour could aid even the bad GDI teams in stealth-detection, without necessarily going overboard.

As for how to use this, I can think of several implementations.

1. Make Patch's weapon and specifically Mobius' Volt rifle do half of their current burn damage, but for twice as long.

Now that Nod's SBHs actually flash like they're supposed to, having them tagged and flashing for a full 2-4 seconds makes it far more imperative that they not be caught. As of now it takes pretty minimal effort to flee with sprint as an SBH and completely lose your attackers, unless they're very good at keeping up with you.

On a balance scale, SBH's would still be able to sneak easier than any other infantry, but once they were caught it would be significantly harder to escape from one of the above infantry, as they would be visible to other players for a longer amount of time.

2. Make Patch's weapon burn slightly longer, but re-purpose Mobius' current secondary fire to be a stealth-checking wave of static that does virtually no damage, but burns.

In terms of the secondary being sort of an electrical 'fan', this merely simulates what players already do with Mobius. We sweep bases with a tier 3 unit, and instead of needing to nerf stealth even harder, or add items that will almost nullify the point of being stealthed, we can have a unit that was purposed by players to be anti-stealth actually fit the role better with minor changes.

To explain the secondary in some depth, I had in mind taking out the ridiculous lightning barrage that honestly hasn't made sense since day one, and instead replacing it with a fan-shaped electrical pulse that didn't have a massive range (say twice the max range you're actually supposed to see stealth, maybe a bit more) and had a significantly reduced rate of fire(say once per 2-3 seconds to make it hard to just spam). Its combination of moderate range and cone of effect would allow you to 'ping' areas for SBHs, rather than mindlessly run in circles to firing at everything. Stealth soldiers that were hit would "burn" for several seconds, (say 2 or 3), but in terms of damage from the burning it would be minimal to non-existent.

Looking from a balance point of view, SBHs are a tier 2 unit that isn't as much of a nuisance at tier 2 as it is at tier 3 (nukes). Logically, as Nod's main advantage increases with tier, GDI's countering abilities deserve to increase as well. At tier 3 gameplay, SBHs can single-handedly decimate buildings, and it doesn't seem too off the wall for GDI to have slightly better options for contending with them later in the game. Considering Mobius' burn effect was already exploited for its effectiveness, it doesn't seem far fetched to just make it his built-in secondary purpose.

3. Add in a GDI-only item that is a pulse scanner which works like the aforementioned secondary fire on Mobius.

Since the devs seem adamant on adding items, why not have A) something faction-specific like the proposed suicide package on Nod, and B) Let them be items that help address issues but still require some form of skill and intelligence to use? (I'm looking at you EMP nades and AT mines)

The addition of a portable scanner for GDI aids in detecting stealth at the expense of not having a secondary weapon. This means Hotwires would either have to use remote C4 or throw proximity mines to actually kill SBHs. The scanning item would allow infantry with actual weapons to find SBHs, then adequately dispatch them, though they would have to switch off of their scanning item and back to their main weapon.

The scanner itself would be like Id suggested for Mobius' secondary: a fan-like projectile that "burned" for little or no damage and traveled about twice(or a fraction more) the length of the actual stealth-reveal distance. It would allow you to 'ping' SBH hotspots, and punish single SBHs by having them revealed through 'burning' for several seconds. Groups of SBHs could still scatter and possibly evade.

Balance-wise, SBHs would simply have to be more aware of where they were standing, as while GDI couldn't see them on the canyon-wall behind their Powerplant, an infantry unit could theoretically step out and scan the wall at any moment from just outside the PP door. While they would 'burn' for awhile and be revealed, it doesn't mean that a group of them couldn't just scatter and go back to full stealth in seconds. This would also need to be a fairly expensive item, along the lines of 500+, as it increases GDI's ability to counter a tier 2/3 unit greatly. It would also be too powerful for more than a few defensive players to have one.

I'm aware the idea for a motion-scanner is present, but I feel like the last thing we need is more fire-and-forget in Renegade X. Defence is supposed to be both active and passive, and stealth searching should be active if you ask me.

There are a few more, but they sort of overlap with what already has been said. Just to name a few:

Nod specifically gains a suicide vest. AOE, only about 100-200 damage. Costs 500 as it has the potential to clear the tunnels with just 2 users participating, so spamming them would be too expensive. This spawns off of flaming infantry if it wasn't obvious.

Destroyable wall segments on the sides of the walls on Walls. We had the exploits of driving up the sides on Walls in beta 1 and 2. Adding destroyable segments that create ramps on both sides when broken allows more options for vehicles than simply having to run in the front. Making the destroyable segments very robust means that it would be difficult to open these paths however.

Just to counter Nod's vest idea, GDI could gain a flak-vest that increases explosion resistance. This also feels more field-control-esque with being able to tank splash damage. Again, this isn't an exploit based issue.

Give both sides mine-resistant items/classes. We already exploit walking through mines slowly, and using walls and everything else to make them less of a total hinderance, we may as well add an item (tier 2 cost of about 4-500) that allows explosion resistance, and more importantly reduction of mine damage. If it was locked to particular classes, that would be even better, as it wouldn't make SBHs and engineers even more powerful.

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Right, that sums of the majority of ideas we could make out of the exploits already present in Renegade X. Again, exploits aren't all necessarily bad, and sometimes the best ideas can be made if we just change them from exploits, to actual mechanics.

Feel free to add anything I may have missed. Just remember what we're focusing on here. Glitches, exploits and bugs that could possibly be balanced mechanics with some thought.

[RoundShades]

The first example, an explosive... You should just make it a "buggy", that looks like a buggy, but the airstrip has 2 variants, a 800 version and a 300 version. The 800 verison blows up as it's "fire" weapon and does the flaming buggy damage.

I say that, because an explosive, that force destroys the vehicle attached, will go on a teammates stealth tank, flame tank, light tank, artillery, or apache, ANYTIME I am having a bad day or my team sucks and is losing for me. Just because I can. Just because I am a vermin piecacrap lowlife troll. Not really, but you see where I am going with this.

Anyway, neat idea. Again though guys, I really thing this will be "balanced" when it is limited with 2 remotes a player personal remote c4 limit. Placing more than 2 dissapears. This way, you can sucker punch a tank but not outright instakill one. That forces it to retreat, or can kill it if you hit it with a punch-combo AKA 2-3 guys in flaming buggies. It becomes a cheap cost tactic, 600-900 amongst 3 people, and effective.

I can only see 3 people c4ing the same buggy as being a problem. And I offer no solution to that, other than it is a nerf still, as at least it takes 2-3 people coordinating the same plan at the same time to work, instead of just 1.

P.S.: Instead of 2 buggies, make the suicide explosive vehicle a recon bike

[yosh56]

The first example, an explosive... You should just make it a "buggy", that looks like a buggy, but the airstrip has 2 variants, a 800 version and a 300 version. The 800 verison blows up as it's "fire" weapon and does the flaming buggy damage.

I say that, because an explosive, that force destroys the vehicle attached, will go on a teammates stealth tank, flame tank, light tank, artillery, or apache, ANYTIME I am having a bad day or my team sucks and is losing for me. Just because I can. Just because I am a vermin piecacrap lowlife troll. Not really, but you see where I am going with this.

Anyway, neat idea. Again though guys, I really thing this will be "balanced" when it is limited with 2 remotes a player personal remote c4 limit. Placing more than 2 dissapears. This way, you can sucker punch a tank but not outright instakill one. That forces it to retreat, or can kill it if you hit it with a punch-combo AKA 2-3 guys in flaming buggies. It becomes a cheap cost tactic, 600-900 amongst 3 people, and effective.

I can only see 3 people c4ing the same buggy as being a problem. And I offer no solution to that, other than it is a nerf still, as at least it takes 2-3 people coordinating the same plan at the same time to work, instead of just 1.

P.S.: Instead of 2 buggies, make the suicide explosive vehicle a recon bike

We have a vote kick option for a reason, and I've got a ban-hammer the moment anyone abuses anything. There's lots of trolling in many games, and frankly it's easier to troll with spamming proximity mines than it is to troll with something you have to pay for over and over.

Also, it isn't confirmed that you'll only be able to plant 2 remotes. Thought about making it a separate vehicle, and while it could work, it'd also require even less effort than having to add to the unit. Kind of relies on it needing to be a bit time consuming to prepare to avoid things like donating to suicide rush Harvesters, or just buying suicide units when the enemy is in your base.

[RoundShades]

Suicide units are a good choice for when an enemy is inside the base.

Rushing harvesters is better with infantry who's timed c4 already kill in 1 try, while theoretically the harvester has more health than a suicide buggy theoretically offers.

A vote kick works right now on flaming buggies so why care about this at all if you can just moderate it at all times (although it sounds like somebody is tired of moderating it so they are asking for a fix, so why add another abusive weapon that you then have to moderate just as serverely)

Lastly, if it isn't a limit of 2, why would it be a limit of 3? That would mean, you can intentionally plant a remote, refill, and plant the other 2. Why should you ever get 3 for a weapon with a limit of 2? 2 is 2. Just limit it to 2. If 3, why not just make the player carry 3 rofl.

[yosh56]

Need 3 remotes to have a patrolling APC be destroyable when necessary, but that's about it.

Also trolling is different from exploiting something overpowered. Flaming vehicles will get you kicked, but isn't serious enough to make us ban or kick someone without at least a warning. It's a part of the game, so it's expected that people will eventually catch on and half of them don't even know what a flaming vehicle is. Give them a warning that the tactic isn't allowed and then it's punishable.

Outright team-hampering is a different story. Then you KNOW you're doing it on purpose from the beginning (unless it's a noob mining, then they get a warning). There's things you should just know are going to get you kicked, and flaming vehicles isn't exactly obvious for new people. Some servers may even allow it.