Abilty to buy back destroyed building

[Madkill40]

I concur with @j0g32

[TomUjain]

I strongly disagree with J0g32, but totally understand where he is coming from. Yes, we shouldn't covercomplicate this and I 100% agree that if this is to be done it should

1) Be as simple as possible

2) Be fair to both the winning and the losing team (as I said in my last post)

But with those two things in mind I believe a system in place to get hold of higher tier units (through any of the systems spoken about in this thread) will do wonders for the community, if done correctly. How many games have you been in where both teams only have x building left? How many games have you been in that drag on, and on, and on? The amount of times I've heard people complain, moan, quit -- I lost count, but in the 1000s of games i've played these games do crop up a lot, these 'stalemates'

They are not fun.

If a team loses the strip to bad luck within the first 5 mins of gameplay -- then fight like lions for the next hour, why shouldn't they be rewarded a chance to get back their strip? It gives the team 'hope' a 'goal' an 'insentive' -- teamwork, and motivation; which is what Ren-X is all about and I struggle to see how having this system in place will ulter that. Who wants to be trapped in their base for 3+ hours defending the hand of nod from mammys? Both teams struggling to push and pull? Because this happens a lot. I was in a game last night with Ryz (for example) that dragged on, and on - they hand no strip or ref, we hand no bar -- it meant I was the ONLY hottie for the whole 2+ hour slug fest, forcing me to remine and camp the whole game, is that fun? And this happens all the time - why not add in a system, where players can 'earn' back the right to play as a hottie or tech? Why not have the option to reward teamwork with buy back options? Who wants to constantly charge tier 3 units with marksman? Because I don't.

I agree, this has to be done right - it has to be fair, but it also has to be done, period - a 'buy back' system, in any form will do wonders for this game and the community.

Edited January 29, 2018 by TomUjain

[j0g32]

 

I understand your frustation of matches that drag on with limited options for too long, @TomUjain.

But again, I dont see how this justifies a team getting their destroyed building back as the only option?

Please, try to look at the implications for both teams...

We have the surrender mechanic in place that any team can trigger if they feel unable to win this match anymore and want to start fresh. After all its just a game. This feature was also altered from immediate win, to 5 min countdown with veterancy bonus, because it was abused: as soon as 1 building was lost, the team would give up, making each match very unsatisfactory even to the winning team.

 

Your main concern seems to be that you cannot use higher tier units. How could we not address that whith the existing "limited reinforcement" mechanics we already have in place?

I could imagine that apart from 1k infantry classes, and vehicles such as mammoth, stealth tank, and aircraft; all other units could still be bought (tbd).

Though, with a higher personal (?) cool down timer, and higher price; e.g. you could theoretically still buy Hotwire, but only 5 minutes after you die with that class or every 10 minutes or so. And as I suggested before, this could also be combined with the team-goal of achiving a certain amount of VP to unlock such a feature to begin with (or just parts of it, e.g. 15000 Team VP to unlock med tanks, which could then cost 1200 and have 10 minute timer to repurchase.

 

Additionally, mystery crates contain classes and vehicles, so securing them is another option.

Finally, map design is crucial for C&C mode, and might also be blamed for some of the aforementioned  gameplay shortcomings.

 

Buying back a building does not make sense to me; unless you have a proper resource based economy where repairing and constructing buildings both COST tiberium credits. That's why I linked the topic about RTS mode (which I still think could be a lot of fun, but would require a dedicated gamemode)

Hope that helps.

[TomUjain]

7 hours ago, j0g32 said:

I could imagine that apart from 1k infantry classes, and vehicles such as mammoth, stealth tank, and aircraft; all other units could still be bought (tbd).

Though, with a higher personal (?) cool down timer, and higher price; e.g. you could theoretically still buy Hotwire, but only 5 minutes after you die with that class or every 10 minutes or so. And as I suggested before, this could also be combined with the team-goal of achiving a certain amount of VP to unlock such a feature to begin with (or just parts of it, e.g. 15000 Team VP to unlock med tanks, which could then cost 1200 and have 10 minute timer to repurchase.

This would work. As I touched upon in my last few posts I understand, wholeheartedly the importance of balance and not sticking up the middle finger to a team that manages to take down a building, by having it brought back fully 10 mins later, I don't want that - no body wants that.

I care about enriching the gameplay, and making sessions as fun and as enticing as possible - I do not care about convience, that is not why I started this thread. What you have said above is basically all I want - the option for a losing team to 'fight back' which is difficult to do when you are down to your hand of nod and forced to fight off waves of mammys with rocketers (as one example) these games can drag on, and on, as you well know. The surrender vote is not always a saving grace, and more often than not - it is anti-climatic and 7 times out of 10 -- most people (outside of PUG) reject it, leading to games that do drag. This has gotten so bad on some matches that the ADMIN of several servers has forcefully changed the map. This is not something we want to be encouraging, or showing new players.

Currently, the system we have in place promotes; camping and fear -- to expand on this point, if I want to go out on the field but am currently the last techie (and this happens a lot to many players) then you are pigeon holed into remining and base healing -- for the whole game (as one example) the same can be said for the last med tank or light tank. The argument for crates can be used for tanks, but that is luck, not skill or teamwork, which is what we want to enhance. Yes we get ABCs and buggies -- so why not a basic light or med as well? I fail to see how having the option to buy back a hottie / techie  (which you can't get from boxes anyway) / tier 2 units / tier 1 tanks would be a bad thing - if anything, leaving things as they are is a bad thing.

What you have said here, is what I want in a nut shell -- as it was touched upon, we do not want a building to come back without a HEAVY cost; but having the ability to buy a hotwire for say 1k? and 5 min cooldown works, as does buying a light tank for 2k with 5 min cooldown. The whole purpose of this, is to give the losing team more tools (though heavily over priced or difficult to get) to give them some chance of fighting back. I stand by my guns, and firmly believe that having a system in place like that will heavily improve not only gameplay but also take a lot of pressure off of 'last tier units' / tanks' -- help promote teamwork and reduce camping out of fear of losing that unit.

 

Edited January 30, 2018 by TomUjain

[NodSaibot]

21 minutes ago, TomUjain said:

ADMIN of several servers has forcefully changed the map

Not only admins, by the way

[Eagle XI]

The pace of battle is the root of the problem. When the base falls, can be witnessed how it crumbles either like domino, one building after the other or its a mass destruction with every structure melting at once before the might of the attacker's all-in. Seldomly does an stealth action or an early game rush suceed to take out one building at a time.

The design of maps with most having only one vehicle entrance to bases, with insufficient infantry flanking points that can be easily shutdown only does amplify the issue.

[NodSaibot]

8 hours ago, j0g32 said:

 

Not trying to be rude, but how much do you actually play? Unless you smurf, I don't recall seeing you

[Guest once upon the time]

Its a very interesting discussion, but why should be buildings possible to rebuy?

I think its a good point that higher Tiers are possible to buy after destroying Hon or Bar but with a higher price. 

For vehicles exists a Airdrop.

Yes, sometimes it could be frustrating when you  lose a building, but thats a part of the game. There are a lot of reasons why a team lost a building.

 What does ppl should do when they join in a game and only one building is alive? 

I know i will be not making friends but it looks like you talk the complete time about the Marathon Modus, and this could often ending in camping.

So when ppl don't like it ,it could be a option to realive AOW with time limit. 

regards 

Silent

[TomUjain]

" as soon as 1 building was lost, the team would give up" --

^ This is my whole point, why are they giving up? If people are 'abusing' an option to end it -- then alarm bells should be ringing (hence this whole topic) Should 'tradition' come above gameplay? It wasn't healthy that players abused the surrender feature, but by 'locking it out' all you are doing is masking the fustration, instead of 'fine tuning' what could make this game better. More evidence to support this is the amount of people that rage quit when a building is lost (can be as high as 40% on 60+ games)@j0g32

 

 

The building doesn't have to 'come back' it can stay dead, the core issue here (as touched upon by SilentKnight above) is player engagement.  The solid argument against this seems to be focused on upsetting the winning team, which I agree! If I managed to take out a building on my own, and it suddenly 'popped back up' that would be extremely demoralising. Which is why ideas (like the zombie building idea, or the removal of HP from other buildings idea was put forward)

I think we can all meet half-way.

...And that is to expand on the 'options' given after a building is lost e.g. with the addition of a ABC and basic buggy you also get a tier 1 tank. These credit costs are just examples -- (Light at 1200) and Med at (1800?) as an example, in addition to the cooldown currently present for the ABC and buggy. In regards to the Bar / Hand -- Hotties and Techies for 1k each, with a cooldown; and a sniper for 2k (basic one) again, with 5m cooldown. we have ABCs for anti-inventry, why do we not have a basic anti-tank unit as well?

Now when a game starts, it can end in many different ways - a steamroll, or a gradual death -- but no one, and I mean no one wants to be pinned to their base for 2+ hours with 12 snipers picking you off, with NO chance to atleast try and counter. It is kind of like giving rusty daggers to one team, while the other team gets chainguns. Now is this fair? Yes! The team lost the buildings, they have to pay the price for the lose of said buildings. I agree, but is fustration and base camping the type of attitude we want to promote? Is this the message we want to send to new players? Is this what you want to join into?

No.

It isn't healthy for the community, or 'fun' -- true, not all games pan out like that; but it happens -- more often then not. Instead of shrugging and saying 'thats the way it is, they lost the building' -- I instead want to focus on compromise, for both sides. I want a losing team to still have basic options to contribute in all fields, half this work has already been done (with rockets, ABCs etc...) so why not round it off?

My reasoning behind having the above options is this:

• It gives a defending team more tools to push back - but not the 'best' tools aka Stanks, flamers / Mammys -- but tools and goals to work towards when base locking happens with lost buildings.
• It rewards teamwork, opens up more rushes and plans - but punishes (with cooldown / credits) players who are careless.
• No longer will remaining hotties / techies be forced into base camping the whole game; the argument here is: but they shouldn't be able to remine, my counter is 95% of the time there is atleast one tech / hottie when the bar / hand is destoryed and 95% of the time that player is then railroaded into base defence -- not what we want to be promoting.
• Team can get atleast some 'basic' sniper support, for a heavy cost and cooldown.

Why this is fair to both sides

• Very high credit cost and cooldown to buy back only the basic light / med - team can not afford to 'churn them out'
• Hotties and techies will have a cooldown and credit increase (just like tanks) but both sides will be able to mine and change roles.
• The sniper will have a cooldown and is only the basic unit (1.5k credits?) meaning the player can not afford to spam the unit.

Now, we have had some very good (and fair) options posted here that would all work, including the one I spoke about now -- team VP was also a good idea where you get x amount of buy times for x amount of team VP earned -- this rewards a team for making pushes and strides, not punish them. I understand the argument made against this; but the goal here is gameplay and fun -- these two features should be the focus here; that goes to both the winning and losing side. I will end on this note: No body wants to be in a hopeless game. Not even the people who are opposing this idea, for sure lose features / abitlies when a building is destoryed -- but what we shouldn't lose, is the chance to play.

There is a big difference between crippling a team completely (even though it is their fault for losing said buildings) and crippling a team completely - but atleast giving them the chance to get back in on the fight. One of these options leads to those games we all dread, the other may just take that edge off - I still stand by the argument that having some form of 'buy back' option will do great things for everyone. Bottomline: We can't prevent a slugfest 3+ game -- but we can atleast make it more fun for both sides.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 30, 2018 by TomUjain

[j0g32]

I am not disagreeing with you @TomUjain, quite the contrary. 

When I discovered original Renegade (playing the C&C RTS games before), some odd 10 years ago, I just fell in love with those very RTS elements wrapped in a FPS game, and that's what I still love about the game concept.

However, mixing and balancing these elements is very difficult, and I don't know any game which has ever mastered the balance, if at all than at least as good as Renegade (X).

Additionally, certain gameplay mechanics have lead to the adoption of a rigid "gameplay philosophy", e.g. "defending the base equals mining" - but that's not necessarily the main point here.

All I was trying to say earlier is that striking a good balance within an established gameplay mechanic framework is tricky. I agree that C&C mode has its flaws, but you attempt to fix one, and another one arises...

• Where would you draw the line between units that are still available with timer and increased cost, and those that become unavailable? How do you justify that choice? Every player may have their own opinion/preferences. 
• If you reduce the penalty of losing a building, you also decrease the impact of strategic play! A team may deliberately focus on destroying the enemy HoN/Bar to make infiltrating the base easier (in the longer run).

Please, keep in mind that Game Development is (or should be) an iterative process: often you don't get things right on the first shot, even if the intentions are good - that's why I brought up the example of the surrender mechanics.

 

My bottom line is that, yes there is definitely room for improvement, but as this thread already shows, the interaction of all the gameplay elements makes it difficult to pin down the "main flaw" and "single best fix".

For example, I still believe that map design could alleviate many of the problems, e.g. add more defensive sweet spots to reduce the reliance of defence on mines. Add more paths and base entrances, to allow locked in teams to circumvent a siege, or conversely flank a line of defence, etc.

We should think about available options, i.e. true strategic alternatives that players can choose from. Next time you find yourself frustrated, maybe take a note of what you would have liked (or were trying) to do, and why you could not achieve it.

 

In either case, extending the unit roster (and how) when the corresponding production facility is destroyed is something we could look into and experiment with.

[TomUjain]

The map design is a wonderful idea J0g32, and I totally agree it would smooth out gameplay 10 fold, my fear though is the sheer amount of work involved with such a task. In general though I find most maps (e.g. walls) to be fairly balanced, but for sure we have several older maps that could do with a few 'tweaks'

I don't think the roster should be expanded on that much, if anything only a hotwire / tech should be added to remedy the problem. As with the addition of tier 1 tanks, sniper spam becomes less of an issue.  I agree that the lose of a building should come with a cost, and that cost should remain very heavy but equally it should be possible to get atleast some form of offence back, touching all fields of view.

with the addition of ABCs, it would also be nice to add a Tier 1 tank with a huge price increase. Heck, I could be totally wrong about this, and as you said it is very difficult to find that balance but I am glad it is something you are willing to look into, at the very least.

I do not see any harm in having the ability to buy back lights / meds from the wf with a 5m cooldown and huge price hike. My argument here is that this already happens: In the form of crate farming anyway, but I agree minimal changes should take place -- but there is a good chance that these small chances to a the roaster will help root out a lot of these problems seen in games.

In Summary

• Add Hotwire / Tech (1,000 credits) (5 minute cooldown)
• Add Light / Med (40% increase) (5 minute cooldown)

And that is it, with the addition of ABCs and tier 1 tanks the 'rock-paper-scissors' aspect remains pretty well rounded and fair, crippling the team enough to worry, but not enough that they can't cover all fields of combat.

But....I could be wrong, then again so could you - but all I ask is you consider and atleast try / test, because you never know what good (or bad) could come from this, if you do put these ideas through testing and conclude it was all a waste of time, then I can be happy with that result - knowing you atleast looked into it. My suggestion would be to have a server run this form of C&C with a small mod to expand on the roster (like above) and see how the community / gameplay is effected.

Edited January 31, 2018 by TomUjain

[nanodeth]

Make buildings allowed to be rebuilt depending on the time elapsed and allow T2 units to be built when unit buildings are down to prevent ragequit on start and end game.

For instance... When PP is destroyed at 2:00, then at 4:00 the burning clears but the smokes aren't, which means it can be rebuilt by repairs, but it can still be damaged and will remain inactive until it's fully repaired at 100% shield & hull then also the smoke clears. But if it's destroyed again at 10:00, rebuilding can be done at 20:00, and so on...

And allow T2 units to be built (Gunner, Patch, Deadeye, Hotwire, SBH, LCG, BHS, Tech, LTank, Arty, MedTank, MLRS), but they should have pickup time (for T2 infantry, same pickup time as T1 tanks; and for T2 tanks, 2x the pickup time of T1 tanks) and 3x the price.

Edited March 10, 2018 by nanodeth

[winterfox]

One of the modded map servers allow you to only rebuild turrets which was pretty neat! Perhaps allowing the commander to place and build additional light defences would be possible? 

[Fffreak9999]

This can get out of hand easily without other restrictions, such as placement and cost.

AGN's rebuilding turrets and towers are one possibility but consideration needs to be given as to the balance adjustments and the power between Turrets and Guard Towers.

[Madkill40]

On 3/13/2018 at 11:38 PM, WinterFox said:

One of the modded map servers allow you to only rebuild turrets which was pretty neat! Perhaps allowing the commander to place and build additional light defences would be possible? 

Or perhaps integrate* the purchasable turrets mutator into a map... Hmm...

Edited March 20, 2018 by Madkill40