Pre-4.03 Balance Mutators! [Updated]

[Handepsilon]

I'm gonna have to agree with HaTe. It takes skills and good framerate to snipe, you know, unless they move straightforwardly or just stand still, which is almost never the case. I do much better as Soldier, Shotgunner, Officer, or McFarland when it comes to infantry fight, mainly because they need less precise aiming to actually kill people (Even kill more Engis as Soldier than as anything else)

[Canucck]

I 100% whole heartedly disagree with the very last one on this list. This is why this games community will plummet because of all of the drastic changes just to "balance" the game and keep babies happy.

Babies? It takes barely any skill to be an efficient sniper.

Sit in the back and use your histcan insta-gib weapon to kill dudes that can only win by running away.

Yeah, because all but a handful of people left playing this game run around like idiots... straight lines, standing still, jumping during 1v1's, scoping on anything but sniper, pay no attention to anything around them, and just really weird shit in general.

Problem is never the players, always the game

[Radeon3]

How very naive of you. Sniping takes a lot of skill, and for you to not realize that is either ignorance or negligence, and I'm not entirely sure we want the game "balanced" towards either of those.

Well said HaTe, I felt the same when you stated almost the same on the nerf the infiltrators matter:

If I don't solo kill a building per hour of play with a tech/hotty with sidearms, I get surprised. That's how easy it is to do even solo.

This is starting to be a "I hate the X unit capabilities, let's nerf it" topic so I'd like to know the the top snipers' opinion on the matter, maybe they agree on that this improves the general gameplay and calm down the others because if they can live with the changes, anybody can.

[RoundShades]

I am not one. But from what I seen they can. Including since they nerfed it to 75 when I suggested 80, then down further to 60 because it is too easy to chain bodyshots for kills instead of headshot.

Then again, I feel anything above 50 and especially with 150 headshots, would be effective at countersniping and trying to cover the silo and thin engis and stuff. Now tunnels, it is getting iffy unless you are good, but its a 500 sniper, neither of those things should allow it to accel at tunnels all things considered.

I am also not terrific but can still effectively use it at what it was meant for. Not tunnels, but again, shouldn't. I can kill engis and other snipers with it, although other snipers just retreat more often, but following up with bodyshot chains after a headshot is fairly effective AND the enemy at least gets a warning to start freaking out instead of "Died = Sadface/Rage"...

[AirNomad]

its not balancing the game. plain and simple. its a nerf. nothing more. ill live with whatever changes are made to the game, its just a shame because the game will continue to become stale. See you in B5!

[yosh56]

So, Bro, if we're going big to post updates don't leave out info. The 500 also had its rate of fire increased. Again, I just.pushed it to actually be a progression between the Marksman and the Ramjet. One hit kills already feel out of place as hell in such an arcade shooter, but at least not introducing them till tier 3 (sans rocket soldier) makes tier 3 infantry have a significant advantage, and not have to feel in threat of just sporadically dying to an option that costs half of what they do when they walk out the door.

Hell, you didn't even mention the magazine size x.x.

P.s. sniping basically takes.twitch reflexes in Ren...that's about.it. You don't really have that much to account for with a hitscan,100% accurate weapon. It really was one of the most complained about things in the game.

P.PS. If you can actually aim the 500 should still be just as annoying in your hands, but probably less so when fighting someone 10ft in front of you.

[Canucck]

- AddedByYosh: 500 Snipers now do 75 damage with 2x headshot multiplier. Offers high damage across the map and down tunnels, but a 1k upgrade is required for instant lethality now.

Neither did you?

[yosh56]

- AddedByYosh: 500 Snipers now do 75 damage with 2x headshot multiplier. Offers high damage across the map and down tunnels, but a 1k upgrade is required for instant lethality now.

Neither did you?

That's not my post, or copied from a post of mine, as the headshot multiplier for the 75 damage variant wasn1.75.

Not my post, and not my.words.

[Canucck]

- AddedByYosh: 500 Snipers now do 75 damage with 2x headshot multiplier. Offers high damage across the map and down tunnels, but a 1k upgrade is required for instant lethality now.

Neither did you?

That's not my post, or copied from a post of mine, as the headshot multiplier for the 75 damage variant wasn1.75.

Not my post, and not my.words.

Disowning this bad idea already...

[Canucck]

- Added Infantry Splash Self Damage for all infantry weapons

This makes you kill yourself if there is C4 on any position that you can mouse over in 3rd person, or blocking the face in 1st person

[RoundShades]

That's not my post, or copied from a post of mine, as the headshot multiplier for the 75 damage variant wasn1.75.

Not my post, and not my.words.

It wasn't your words. It was from my post. And yes, I did not mention mag size or rof increase, but I will add it, and I thought it was implied-ish(?). I did mention chain bodyshots earlier.

I don't know why they are quoting you. And, I don't know why they aren't playing the darn patch themselves which it would be fairly obvious when they look down at their clipsize and see 7. All it shows, is that SOMEONE didn't give the changes a try *rolls eyes*

Had to change 75 dmg -> 60 dmg anyway.

[Canucck]

That's not my post, or copied from a post of mine, as the headshot multiplier for the 75 damage variant wasn1.75.

Not my post, and not my.words.

It wasn't your words. It was from my post. And yes, I did not mention mag size or rof increase, but I will add it, and I thought it was implied-ish(?). I did mention chain bodyshots earlier.

I don't know why they are quoting you. And, I don't know why they aren't playing the darn patch themselves which it would be fairly obvious when they look down at their clipsize and see 7. All it shows, is that SOMEONE didn't give the changes a try *rolls eyes*

Had to change 75 dmg -> 60 dmg anyway.

Why'd you bother posting about it all if everyone is going to find it ingame eventually anyway?

[Handepsilon]

So like.... you'd rather be kept blind and be forced to take time to check what has changed and then scream about who had the atrocity to rebalance your game?

I think it's here so peeps can voice their opinion about the balance now and then it can be modified as necessary

emphasis 'as necessary'

[RoundShades]

So like.... you'd rather be kept blind and be forced to take time to check what has changed and then scream about who had the atrocity to rebalance your game?

I think it's here so peeps can voice their opinion about the balance now and then it can be modified as necessary

emphasis 'as necessary'

Sadly, someone came in here screaming blindly, about a change we didn't make, a "not-change" if you will, about something in vanilla that... I guess they just noticed? (Artillery does 4.4% to structures)

Really, it is just keeping in the loop about what servers are doing to test balance prior to 4.03. You can discuss it, and I can make honest mistakes about half the details in translation between text and game, but that's why we are here.

It is outstanding how much support Snipers have on both sides. Some people want them completely removed, some people want them legacy 100/200 damage. I can't see doing either of those, but in this case I could almost accept "if both sides are unhappy, then we have reached an agreement". ONLY because both sides are unhappy but both are still entirely more willing to play than they were before, the antisnipers not wanting to avoid the game for instant deaths, and the snipers having more than enough skill to collect kills still.

[yosh56]

- Added Infantry Splash Self Damage for all infantry weapons

This makes you kill yourself if there is C4 on any position that you can mouse over in 3rd person, or blocking the face in 1st person

Actually it's been like this since beta 1/2. I and an old TMX member noticed it was back when, and it's pretty well knownothing.

Disowning this bad idea already...

I didn't disown anything...not even remotely. I was just.pointing out that the message everyone got was not from me, and some of the information was wrong. Try again.

---

Bro, the rate of fire change.wouldn't be as obvious since it is a 1 shot weapon.

[HaTe]

Sniping is all about timing

[Ap2000]

This is starting to be a "I hate the X unit capabilities, let's nerf it" topic so I'd like to know the the top snipers' opinion on the matter, maybe they agree on that this improves the general gameplay and calm down the others because if they can live with the changes, anybody can.

I can absolutely live with how snipers are now (even without the mutator changes), but that won't make me think highly of them.

I even said earlier in this thread that "I am very well aware that not having snipers is something only a part of the active community would be interested in".

[RoundShades]

I am only curious if you are more willing to live with them since 500s no longer 1 hit kill headshot, and ramjets no longer 1 hit kill bodyshots. Has life not been easier? Even I think it has tbh.

Looking back, the effective value of those units were 1k and 1500 in Renegade, compared to their peers anyway. Especially dat fire rate...

[HaTe]

The primary reason they were OP in Renegade was because of wall hugging. No free-aim (though I still would like an edited free-aim, but understand that it won't be done at this point) is the main reason behind that.

The people who use snipers very effectively are the same ones that would wreck you in a 1v1 with any other gun too, most likely. It's just they are the most efficient with the sniper. Sniper is a high-risk, high-reward option. High risk because it takes a lot of skill and you're screwed unless you have a lot of skill when you're in the open. Missing a shot is far more consequential than missing a shot with other guns. High reward because if you're skilled enough, you can kill an enemy whilst taking little to no damage. You have to pretty much remain in cover in Renegade X while sniping though, and there are several extra things that are designed to kill that specifically in the game. Grenades, airstrikes, sprint, etc. It's honestly significantly harder to snipe in Renegade X than Renegade is the point.

However, I would be lying if I said that I feel like scoping is ideal right now. I really wish there was a "holding breath to remain steady while scoped" system in Renegade, like in many modern FPS's. People sitting there scoped waiting for you to round the corner and being able to kill easily like that are annoying, regardless of the twitch muscles and reactions in play. But that's just a little thing I suppose.

[Canucck]

high-risk, high-reward option. High risk because it takes a lot of skill and you're screwed unless you have a lot of skill when you're in the open. Missing a shot is far more consequential than missing a shot with other guns. High reward because if you're skilled enough, you can kill an enemy whilst taking little to no damage.

Sounds great, why are you changing it?

Also BroTranq you need to take a class on detecting internet sarcasm or something. Stop arguing over who said what and who was right/wrong/whatever and just post the damn numbers...

[HaTe]

I'm not. It was never included in any private discussion. Anything being added to change the sniper is purely the work of individuals. The only exception was the slight increased damage to light armoured vehicles to compensate for the reduced damage for the rocket launcher, which was my proposal in the first place.

Edit: Just found a private post regarding the matter. Didn't see it until now because I was away for a the better half of a week and just skimmed through most things. I don't see why it would be discussed in private before public though, considering this is a matter that has high controversy and was always going to. That wasn't my call though. Also not sure why a mutator changing it was added so early into the discussion and before most people could provide their input, but again, not my call. I'm not the one coding.

Here's the only numbers that I could accurately find posted there for the 500 sniper change:

ROF of .5

Damage of 75

Headshot multiplier of 1.75x

[Canucck]

Thanks, but those seem off from what's in the OP and what has been talked about here.

The last few pages of this thread make it seem like you have a serious lack of direction in that group. You're doing too much too fast and are going to start compounding problems, making a huge headache for yourselves that you probably won't even feel like sorting out.

So like.... you'd rather be kept blind and be forced to take time to check what has changed and then scream about who had the atrocity to rebalance your game?

I think it's here so peeps can voice their opinion about the balance now and then it can be modified as necessary

emphasis 'as necessary'

Sadly, someone came in here screaming blindly, about a change we didn't make, a "not-change" if you will, about something in vanilla that... I guess they just noticed? (Artillery does 4.4% to structures)

Looked like you were talking about the sniper changes already being ingame, my bad.

[HaTe]

I just think that a few certain individuals are taking it upon themselves to test things out and get the ball rolling before adequate discussion has taken place on the matter. I personally am okay with that as long as they aren't immediately applying the mutator to a public populated server. It seems as if that may be the case though (a public-half populated server most of the time I believe though, as it is first tested in the NA server).

I just think that it's important that we take the public's opinion into consideration, and so something like changing the sniper should always first be discussed in-depth publicly first. If there is controversy, it needs to be addressed at the very least. I think that's where we are failing right now. I agree that we need to take our time with this and discuss it more thoroughly before taking action. I'm just one person in the group though, and it seems like yosh is doing much of mutator changes at this point, and bro is doing a bit too. Perhaps the 4 of us can make a PM group to discuss this matter further though, as we don't need it spiraling too much.

[Canucck]

Hold the phone, you don't have your own private forum? You need to do some prodding if not

[RypeL]

Canucck, the "official" Pre Patch Balance Mutator that was made based on CD feedback didnt contain any changes to the snipers as this wasent fully discussed till the end their yet. As said above the sniper changes were added by individuals on their own. We embrace and support people doing their own mutators with example code etc. The community has to take over and balance has to come natural. If TMX decides to change the balance on their server it is their call. And im sure right now its mainly for trying out different things and their idea is to help out, not to annoy. So pls be a bit more positive about it.

Hold the phone, you don't have your own private forum? You need to do some prodding if not

The CD´s have a private forum.

[Canucck]

If the game had even 100s of people online at a time it'd be fine, but that is a seriously fucking massive change that will affect every aspect of gameplay, and it will be tested publically on what might as well be considered your official server...

I misunderstood Bro and thought he said it was already live, which would impact pretty much everyone that tries to the play game. One person inflicting a change like that on a whim has huge potential to just fuck everything up

[RypeL]

Because the game doesent have 100s of people you cant just fill a testing server. Thats why, sadly, there probably isent much of an alternative then to test it on the main server.

...on what might as well be considered your official server...

We tried official servers before but they were never popular. TMX and EKT got popular exactly cause of their own modifications and community wich keeps those servers alive.

[Canucck]

Point wasn't to not test the changes publically, but not to make changes that drastically alter gameplay immediately. More gradual, more mix of data vs opinion, more thought/discussion

[RypeL]

Point wasn't to not test the changes publically, but not to make changes that drastically alter gameplay immediately. More gradual, more mix of data vs opinion, more thought/discussion

Again: As beeing said the sniper changes you are referring to where done by TMX. And if you have a problem with something TMX does you should talk to the TMX guys about it.

[RoundShades]

Point wasn't to not test the changes publically, but not to make changes that drastically alter gameplay immediately. More gradual, more mix of data vs opinion, more thought/discussion

Just to be certain, are you in favor of old sniper, new sniper, or are you simply against the way the changes were made? Because to be fair, I HAVE been posting them here to show what is being tested. I have even made visible seperation as to what was changed so far and what was recently added.

So far, only the sniper is this controversial, which was predicted and I could screenshot timestamp discussion where we discussed how controversial it would be. It was only tried anyway, because it was obvious that the 500 was a 900 class and the 1k class is a 1k class only because it adds marginal light/heavy armor damage and some remote c4. As discussion on here has shown, a lot of people hate snipers in general because they are the only class that 1 hit kills any other class despite cost, especially for the cost of 500 and at any range near or far.

Ask for the shotgun shorter range, chaingun nerf, gunner rocket launcher adjustment, and rocket soldier nerf and slight lock on leniency tweak after the nerf, nobody even questions whether life was better before or after them. Clearly, it was better after the changes. I would personally like to say the same with the 500 sniper change, but it is debateable. Seems a lot of people do like to be given some sort of gradual damage before randomly dying. Sort of like "what if beacons didn't have a warning and just went off"?

[HaTe]

Perhaps the 4 of us can make a PM group to discuss this matter further though, as we don't need it spiraling too much.

[yosh56]

Im confused and only have a phone with Internet right now, so somebody clarify. Is the mutator with the sniper change running on the EU or just the Name Server? I'm pretty sure I specifically told everyone I was testing with on the NA server that it should stay on the NA server, not to mention I haven't even been capable of updating that mutator for like over a week now. The last one I think that was up still.has different values for the sniper than what's even posted here. I had no intention of actually making the sniper change public (e.g on the eu server) until I made a public topic about it.... Its own topic.

This all literally stemmed from me not having Internet for an entire week x.x

[RoundShades]

Well, to be fair, TmX North America and Constructive Tyranny, but really CT can do whatever they feel like. It isn't like it's impossible to get a mutator from one server to use it on another. Literally just join the server and pull it from the cache and rename it, after finding it via date-modified.

Last I checked, they also tried the server with disabled sniper classes. Which I am not sure if they enabled and launched, or what the status of it is yet. Haven't heard any feedback on it yet though.

Also, Yosh, can nobody edit the mutator but you? You have been doing it up till now, but if you are away from internet for the week, you can address just about anyone to add values for you to existing things, almost anyone is capable of doing it. I could change the damage to 60 and headshot multiplier to 2.5 myself right now if you asked.

[yosh56]

Image just bring my laptop to some place with WiFi this weekend, so hopefully I can have a little chat with some people about this mutator. I'm still pretty sure I made it clear that the sniper change was Something I washout toying with, and didn't want as part of the actual mutator that fixed Gunner/Officer/Shotty. Those changes were all pretty okay, but still I wasn't ready to completely release that mutator. I'll upload the last actual rendition this weekend, as well as one with the 500 unchanged.

I just left it up on the NA server since like nobody but testers plays it anymore

We totally stopped moving people to the na server at certain times, so I figured infant really going to run into it. I also didn't think someone was going to go copy it to a more 'official' server =/ Ahem...not pointing fingers or anything.

[RoundShades]

I am lost at who you would point fingers at. Anyone is capable of copying it, and I am not sure if Constructive Tyranny is considered more or less an official server to you.

[yosh56]

I am lost at who you would point fingers at. Anyone is capable of copying it, and I am not sure if Constructive Tyranny is considered more or less an official server to you.

Really not worth discussing right now. It's already done.

[RoundShades]

Okay, I have, with a lot of Agent/Hande/RypeL's help, made a Stealth Tank mutator. It halfs the spread of the missiles via it's exceedingly complex formula, and the ROF was 1.5 (+0.15 between missile shots) so I lowered it to 1.3 to match the Med ROF.

So, what is everyone's opinion on that? Really, these are both practically fixes more than balance, since the spread was too wide, and the ROF was not calculated according to old ren as the delay between missiles wasn't calculated with the ROF.

[HaTe]

Okay, I have, with a lot of Agent/Hande/RypeL's help, made a Stealth Tank mutator. It halfs the spread of the missiles via it's exceedingly complex formula, and the ROF was 1.5 (+0.15 between missile shots) so I lowered it to 1.3 to match the Med ROF.

So, what is everyone's opinion on that? Really, these are both practically fixes more than balance, since the spread was too wide, and the ROF was not calculated according to old ren as the delay between missiles wasn't calculated with the ROF.

In my hand timings I got the medium tank having a 1.5 second reload on average?

[RoundShades]

Okay, I have, with a lot of Agent/Hande/RypeL's help, made a Stealth Tank mutator. It halfs the spread of the missiles via it's exceedingly complex formula, and the ROF was 1.5 (+0.15 between missile shots) so I lowered it to 1.3 to match the Med ROF.

So, what is everyone's opinion on that? Really, these are both practically fixes more than balance, since the spread was too wide, and the ROF was not calculated according to old ren as the delay between missiles wasn't calculated with the ROF.

In my hand timings I got the medium tank having a 1.5 second reload on average?

Closest to achieve with even numbers. I could move around fire delay from the missiles, or make reload an hundredths place number. But I felt it was close enough and had no marginal benefit as 0.5 gives you 1 extra shot every... 30 shots?

[HaTe]

Okay, I have, with a lot of Agent/Hande/RypeL's help, made a Stealth Tank mutator. It halfs the spread of the missiles via it's exceedingly complex formula, and the ROF was 1.5 (+0.15 between missile shots) so I lowered it to 1.3 to match the Med ROF.

So, what is everyone's opinion on that? Really, these are both practically fixes more than balance, since the spread was too wide, and the ROF was not calculated according to old ren as the delay between missiles wasn't calculated with the ROF.

In my hand timings I got the medium tank having a 1.5 second reload on average?

Closest to achieve with even numbers. I could move around fire delay from the missiles, or make reload an hundredths place number. But I felt it was close enough and had no marginal benefit as 0.5 gives you 1 extra shot every... 30 shots?

You're looking at it from the wrong perspective. Look at it from time it takes to kill a specific unit. Even a 0.2 second reload change when the damage is that high is very significant.

Again, just my hand timings so they could be wrong, but I did do ~10+ tests and took the average for each vehicle, so I'm fairly certain it is accurate.

[yosh56]

Med is 1.5 in code.

A point 1 or 2 difference in rate of fire is actually pretty significant when you're talking numbers this low.

[RoundShades]

Med is 1.5 in code.

A point 1 or 2 difference in rate of fire is actually pretty significant when you're talking numbers this low.

It is a .05 difference, or mathematically a 3.3% increase in DPS, but I will keep that in mind. I will likely do 1.4 and reduce the fire delay between each individual missile to .1. That way, it is exactly 1.5.

The code plays better if the stank is spawned by modified purchase system instead of swapped at spawn. You said you still have that code and can put a modified stank into it?

Also, currently the lifespan of a STank projectile is 1.5, so how would people feel about it being increased to 2? That allows it to fire from pretty great distances, but not across map still. About half of field. If anything, slightly buffs it's anti air, which Nod does need more of.

[Handepsilon]

Request to be put in the mutator : Smart Proxy - Mines that detects friendly buildings and remove ones that are NOT around them if exists.

Currently it can detect the position and remove oldest ones outside the base. Safe to say it works well, but I need to run final test before I can publish it

[Ap2000]

Request to be put in the mutator : Smart Proxy - Mines that detects friendly buildings and remove ones that are NOT around them if exists.

Currently it can detect the position and remove oldest ones outside the base. Safe to say it works well, but I need to run final test before I can publish it

I'm not sure how you mean that exactly, but you want to make mining impossible if the mines aren't in an entrance?

[Handepsilon]

well, guess you're in luck then, turns out it didn't work well, so scratch the idea. haha

[RoundShades]

well, guess you're in luck then, turns out it didn't work well, so scratch the idea. haha

If it woulda, we would have considered it. As long as it prioritizes the ones furthest from base, and preferably also ones that are within detonation range of other ones as then mines will thin out evenly between doors rather than completely unmining one door (also lets you remine easier)

In case you can fix it to do the latter instead.

EDIT: Also, I have a mutator that fixes the Stealth Tank by making the missiles straighter, adding some range , and the ROF of a med tank. This should make them play nicer with field tanks, work better as AA, and not blunder away so much of it's damage when ambushing tanks. Not as strong as the flamer health and damage wise, but better in different uses such as AA and assisting tanks.

Just waiting for someone who usually puts mutators on the test server to contact me. Right now it is a standalone mutator, it had issues when combining it with the rest of the balance mutator.

[Skeeze]

Could you guys please add version numbers to the mutators?

I can't make out when you updated the mutator or which updates were made at which time.

I'm also wondering what happens when I would update the mutator and people would try to play new demo files with the old version mutator.

I think it won't work? That'd be another reason to add version numbers to it

[RoundShades]

Yes, they can make a single numerical change to the names for now on. Next big update will be a dev patch from what I understand though.

Except for an ekt stank adjustment they should be testing out next server restart from what they requested of me. Any server can try it, from testing it hasn't crashed anything yet. But it is separate from the balance mutator, it is its own purchase system changing one. I will post the link here tomorrow and any questions can be addressed to goku.

Stank Mutator Download Link: http://www.filedropper.com/stankmod

I have just been informed the name is needed to load to a server (I knew that but didn't occur to offer the name). The name you use is "StankMod.StankMutator"

Stank changes in mutator:

- slight range buff

- rof buffed to meds 1.5 including delay between missiles (1.4 + 0.1)

- missile spread formula reduced to fire straighter and closer together. Still very minor widening effect.