My balance thoughts

[vleessjuu]

So here's some ideas I've been having over the last few days I've played RenX. Most of these are basically resurfacing thoughts I also had during the old Renegade days, but back then there was basically no point in really discussing them. Anyway, consider these to be mere suggestions to take into consideration and nothing more.

1. Vehicles. Personally, I think that the vehicles should be diversified a bit more in their roles. If you think back to the original CnC games, tanks were always the vehicles to deal with other vehicles and buildings, but not infantry. In Renegade, though, all infantry is extremely vulnerable to tank fire do to their significant splash and high RoF. On the flip side, artilleries/mrls are very powerful vs tanks, even though their role should be, IMO, primarily to suppress infantry and kill buildings from afar, just like in the old CnC.
   Furthermore, tank vs tank combat is sort of boring because it's pretty difficult to dodge shots and because the high RoF of tanks means that you have no real time to weave in-and-out of LoS to make the most out of your cover.
   Suggestions:
   - MRLS/arties get more splash radius, but less damage vs heavy armor. MRLS might need a little of something else to boost their anti-infantry role, though I'm ok with MRLS being slightly more focused on killing vehicles and arties being better at dealing with infantry.
   - Tanks get to be a bit faster (except for the Mammoth). Infantry can sprint now and tanks now feel rather slow by comparison (well, they're still faster, but not much). Only the Mammoth and arties/MRLS should be truly slow, all other vehicles should be able to convincingly outpace infantry.
   - Tanks get less splash: killing infantry with a tank should be a skillshot (direct hit) rather than just shooting the ground. Or you run them over/avoid them (which should be easier with the speed buff). The splash on Mammoth stingers remains unaffected, though.
   - Tanks get higher firepower, but lower RoF (keeping dps equal). This is mostly to make tank combat more about positioning and ambushing rather than just a slugfest. This also makes tanks more viable vs mrls/arties, since they can more effectively hide from them and take potshots. It also makes skillshots vs infantry more rewarding, yet harder to get. I don't really want to go in the direction of directional armor (like many modern games with tanks do) since it doesn't really feel like CnC (CnC 3 did it, but ok).
   - Finally, the last change will affect Mammoths a lot, since it will be much easier to chip them down safely. To compensate for that, I suggest an extra armor tier specifically for Mammoths (let's call it "very heavy armor"). This armor is equal to heavy armor for base defenses and infantry weapons, but very heavy armor takes less damage from all vehicles, making the Mammoth more formidable in vehicle combat and making them a valuable repair target.
   
2. Infantry. The vehicle changes will already affect infantry quite significantly, so I don't want to touch them too much. The tank changes ensure that infantry have to worry less about getting chipped down by tank spam so they can ignore them more easily and focus on what they really want to do. However, there are a few things I want to suggest:
   -Make engineers less potent as suicide terrorists. It's almost silly how incredibly effective these guys are at base defense by just running at something and tossing remote C4. I have no problem with engies setting up remote traps to guard a building, but inside a building they are incredible at dealing with attacking infantry and it hardly takes any skill. Just throw C4s and refill constantly. To address this, just give remote C4 a ~2 sec set time before it can be detonated. Engis have to be less fearful of getting blown up by tanks due to the reduced splash I suggested, so this change wouldn't affect their anti-vehicle role much, but it would make them much less potent at blowing up infantry. Shotgunners should have the role of sweeping buildings, not engies, if you ask me.
   -Put a cooldown on refills at terminals. Just a small one, like 5-10 seconds.
   -Finally, I think it would be cool for infantry to have some sort of sustain in the field to deal with their limited ammo supply. One example could be a deployable item that you can buy at the terminal (so a third option after beacon and airstrike) that gives infantry the ability to resupply ammo (not health). The deployable should have a limited life time (30-60 seconds or so) and should be destroyable by the enemy team. If this is to OP, there is the option to make this item only available to engies/techs.

[SFJake]

Seems like most changes are flavor changes that would change the Renegade flavor for very little.

I've won countless tank fights by being the super driver and using cover properly. I've survived properly behind covers with a single unassisted tanks and driving off MRLs or artillery alike. I also have no issue against them with infantry, since the splash damage doesn't go against obstacles unlike the old renegade which is actually a HUGE nerf. Only the artillery is hard to deal with, but thats in line with what you said.

So personally, I don't agree with every single vehicle suggestions at all.

If you're going to nerf engineer C4, just nerf the damage to infantry a bit. But really I have no problem with the way they are. Shotguners are already better, they just require a bit more aim. So maybe just make the splash damage from C4 against infantry more precise?

There was a "supply" item or something seen in an old private beta video that was never actually implemented. I love the idea of being to help your team resupply its ammo in some way. It would simply be another simple form of team assistance.

[vleessjuu]

If you disagree about the vehicle changes: fair enough. I agree that it's partially a flavor change, but my motivation is also to get closer to the old CnC feel. Like I said: these are things I already kinda disliked about the original Ren, so I decided to just throw it out and see what others think. I also think that the new sprinting ability to infantry made some vehicles too slow by comparison (and personally I think that speed should be one of their primary advantages), so that's basically a reaction to the new changes.

About the splash: I still think it is problematic on some maps with big chokepoints (Field being the prime offender). Having the long range units constantly splash the choke is bad enough and I don't think the tanks should contribute as well. This problem could also be addressed by simply redesigning the maps, of course, but I really think something needs to be done to deal with this (what I think is a) rather serious issue.

About the engineer C4s: my point is not that shotgunners are/should better building sweepers; it's that that engineers shouldn't be at all. For a free class, engies already fulfill enough roles as it is: they repair stuff, they can camp doorways, they are good building killers and they can blow up vehicles from up close. Cleaning a building should not be their job IMO, that's what other combat classes are for. Besides, the new pistol is awesome in Ren X and engies are no slouch in a close range gunfight either. Nerfing their C4 damage/splash vs infantry would hamper their camping ability a bit (which is not necessary, IMO), while my nerf will only affect their direct manfighting ability. And they can still land a skillshot by sticking the C4 right on top of someone and killing them that way.

[Tarvin]

I think it would be a mistake to nerf vehicles vs. infantry. The reason being is that anti-vehicle infantry can make use of terrain and tear apart an unsupported tank without help from anyone else. In a one on one match there is also a definite and regular pause between every shot so in a one on one battle infantry can gauge when it is safe to dodge out of cover and shoot.

The power of a tank vs. infantry is the only thing that keeps it from being an absolute slaughter.

[vleessjuu]

I think it would be a mistake to nerf vehicles vs. infantry. The reason being is that anti-vehicle infantry can make use of terrain and tear apart an unsupported tank without help from anyone else. In a one on one match there is also a definite and regular pause between every shot so in a one on one battle infantry can gauge when it is safe to dodge out of cover and shoot.

The power of a tank vs. infantry is the only thing that keeps it from being an absolute slaughter.

I see what you mean, but I don't think the splash damage on tanks is what makes them effective: it's their survivability IMO. Pretty much only the Volt rifle deals enough dps to legitimately catch out a tank and destroy it quickly, everything else is only enough to scare a tank back at best (and that's honestly the main job of anti-vehicle infantry). This is why attacking an all infantry team is so tedious: infantry is great at defense, but has no real way to go on a counteroffensive against vehicles.

I don't think that reducing the tank's splash would make them much more vulnerable to infantry (especially because of the proposed speed buff to tanks) since they're still very survivable and because the long range units can bombard chokes and cover more effectively. The refill cooldown plays into that as well, since it makes infantry less powerful at defense, but the reduced splash would give them some more room to go on the offensive instead. Also: reducing the effectiveness of tanks vs infantry would free up a niche for the APC as crowd controller, which I think wouldn't be a bad thing.

[Tarvin]

The other day I came across a ft rush just leaving the Nod base. I ate one down to half health and did decent damage to three others before they moved around a corner. It didn't take long to achieve this. Gunner has the range to keep far enough back to where he's hard to hit while still dealing damage. This was while I was on the offensive and tearing into tanks and arties still sitting on the airstrip.

Later in that same match I was going around as Sydney and was easily dealing substantial damage to vehicles while dodging around features on the island map. I think only one of the times that I went out and wrecked havoc on their tanks was it a tank that killed me. Even then that was because of splash damage. It's only because I can kill enemy infantry easier that I went back to Gunner instead of Sydney for tank killing.

When the focus of a map becomes tank on tank I've seen long stretches of battles go on without APCs going about. The changes you suggest about splash and nerfing tanks would force people to try to coordinate enough to keep an APC covering each area a tank battle is going on or infantry would tear everything apart. Even then not even an APC, or other anti-infantry focused vehicles can last well when ambushed by more than one anti-tank infantry which would leave vehicles helpless.