Rebuilding CnC-Mode [Or Ren for that matter]

[yosh56]

I just kind of want to start a mostly theoretical discussion about what would/could be done differently in rebuilding CnC-Mode (Or Ren in general) from the ground up. Maybe it'll manifest into something physical later, or maybe this will just be another one of those discussions that goes for too many pages and never has any ideas see the light of day. Who knows. Anyway, me personally: 

 

Base Defense: I'd start by not having proximity mines be the primary mode of base defense. It's weird to say the least. Giving buildings their own, weak, automated defense systems (ala the OldRen campaign) with cameras/alarms/ceiling turrets would be ideal in replacing that guy doing figure 8s in his Humvee whilst staring at the mine count. 

This in affect, would help reduce some of the tedium of base defense, as well as make it easier to defend during low population matches. 

Infantry: I'd wholly drop the time-to-kill for infantry, but only by reducing the asinine differences between head-shot damage and body shot damage that is just expected by Ren vets, but turns off the majority of new players (It's virtually always the 1st complaint). I'd never take head-damage out, but I'd kill off any differences higher than 3x damage (sans sniper rifles). 2x damage, sure, but head-shots should be more of a high-skill thing, not an outright requirement. 

I'd also probably nerf the acceleration on sprint, and add back rolling (like was 'supposed' to be in both OldRen and RenX at a point). Think something akin to SW: Battlefront 2 (2018)'s infantry system.

Differentiate infantry classes more with full loadouts, as opposed to just one weapon swap and a little health. The biggest issue I had with Reborn/A Path Beyond is how restricted infantry felt. The classes were maybe a little faster, or tougher, but aside from that most just had one weapon... which started feeling EXTREMELY boring to fire when you ran across something you couldn't fight at all. Varied? Yes. Entertaining for more than 10 minutes? No. I think RenX/OldRen did better at this, with at least throwing the timed C4 on units, and X adding in abilities. I'd definitely add more abilities/'nade types, and just things to keep characters from feeling like one-tricks. 

Vehicles:  At most, vehicles seem like the one thing CnC-Mode's fine on. Maybe add directional armour to add more tactical appeal to it, but that's about as far as I'd go. 

The worst thing I can think of about vehicles, is that they suffer the same syndrome as APB/Reborn's infantry, with feeling a bit too much like one-tricks, and only having singular weapons. Would likely have more multi-weapon units, or vehicle abilities to make it feel like you're doing more than being a left-click champion. 

Repairs: Break it down to ONE repair gun class, and place its repair rate right between the current normal and advanced repair gun's speeds. Then make a worse one that's buy-able by any class, but more on that later.

Buy-able weapons: Definitely think there's a place for these, but only things such as beacons/mines(AT and the like), and maybe some other fancy gadgets (like repair tools) 

Veterancy: Would definitely like to go from 3 vet levels to something like 10, just for the progressive feel. 

Game Modes: Assuming infantry combat is made more engaging for everyone, I think Ren(X) could pull off more game modes that centre around infantry warfare. Control points/Black Hand vs. GDI SF/etc.  

 

----

 

There's probably more, but I should probably stop typing for now and go to work. Just wanted to get the discussion rolling. Deez boards lookin' dead, yo. 

 

 

[Canucck]

Marathon or AOW? Before you start with changing fundamentals you should have a clear picture of how you want the game to progress over time. eg Which vehicles/inf/strats should be effective or ineffective at different times as the game progresses?

Right now with marathon you get some weirdness in the first ~5min, then the game basically stays the same for the next 1-3h, and that shit is pretty boring (It feels something like the early game is 0-3min, mid game 4-7min, late game 7+ min). If you're going to start from the ground up, start with a timed match so you can have expectations you can work around imo.

 

Would also make some rule like mutators have to be dev approved until you have X number of regularly active servers when/if you start making major changes

Edited June 22, 2018 by Canucck

[yosh56]

3 minutes ago, Canucck said:

Marathon or AOW? Before you start with changing fundamentals you should have a clear picture of how you want the game to progress over time. eg Which vehicles/inf/strats should be effective or ineffective at different times as the game progresses?

Right now with marathon you get some weirdness in the first ~5min, then the game basically stays the same for the next 1-3h, and that shit is pretty boring (It feels something like the early game is 0-3min, mid game 4-7min, late game 7+ min). If you're going to start from the ground up, start with a timed match so you can have expectations you can work around imo.

Funny enough, that was going to be one of my next points, but I didn't have time to add it, and still currently don't in detail. 

I honestly think minor secondary objectives like tech buildings keep the neutral game more interesting. AOW by default had a secondary objective, which is one reason it had more fun moments, but honestly since marathon's started averaging 30m-1hr I haven't felt the neutral game was THAT bad till it hits a true stalemate when you're locked in your base (Nod on Under is a good example). 

So for specifically CnC-Mode: Secondary objectives that act as a natural time limit. I think maps with tiberium/silo control being used as a "score" would fit fine, as it would still fit into map control, but base destruction still has its place as a primary objective. 

Every other mode can also have a natural time limit, or a real one. 

Probably more on that later. 

[LavaDr4gon]

If I had the ability to completely build the game from the ground up I would start with making it similar to Planet Side 2.  Each territory would have a tiberium field with each faction having one base.  You would build outposts to get the tib fields and build bases to secure them.  But that's to big of a project and boring and the end of the game.

So to improve the CnC mode we could start with the infantry.  

1 hour ago, yosh56 said:

think RenX/OldRen did better at this, with at least throwing the timed C4 on units, and X adding in abilities

We could add more X abilities to some classes to give them more variety.  Think of Red Alert 3 of how every unit had another ability to change there utility.  We could do something similar with changing the firemode of some weapons to dropping support beacons.

Similarly for the buyable weapons, what if we made each class have the ability to upgrade their gun.  I guess this ties in with tech upgrades but instead you can purchase for a few more credits to upgrade your gun.  A good example would be a 500 sniper spending 500 more to get a ramjet rifle.

1 hour ago, yosh56 said:

Repairs: Break it down to ONE repair gun class, and place its repair rate right between the current normal and advanced repair gun's speeds. Then make a worse one that's buy-able by any class, but more on that later.

Repairs are fine, I just don't like the hotwire/tech importance in the game.  I want my commando to do the infiltration, not one of the engineers.  Engineers capture buildings, not destroy them unless you have some bold plan of changing that.

 

Unit upgrades have been discussed before but should be brought up again as a thought.  Railguns, AP ammo, composite armor, the little bonuses to increase the infantry values as the game progresses.

 

Another thing I personally want is base construction.  I know, I know, to hard with coding and animations.  I just want to bring it up so you can imagine having a building rise up in front of you like the good old rts.

 

Finally, this idea is just for RenX and not just the mode: Customization.  I don't mean mods but actual unit customization gained through playtime like other modern shooters.  If we want players to stay they need to feel like they are playing to gain something.  An idea would be badges, emblems, or something that your infantry/vehicle will display to show what clan your part of or how experienced you are.

 

 

[Canucck]

It's not just that there are stalemates, it's that they start only a few minutes into the game. I'd try something more drastic in order to slow down progression a bit without making the gameplay actually feel slower.

 

You could get rid of stat power creep from veterancy, and instead use it to unlock different tiers of inf/vehicles/equipment. Something like Recruit gets free/t1 inf and vehicles, veteran t2 inf/vehicles + airstrikes, elite t3 inf/vehicles + nukes.

You could change building death penalties, where they can be "revived" after some time consuming process but still apply penalties afterwards, and not count towards the win condition (so killing buildings that haven't died yet is still the priority, buildings that have died already don't need to be killed again to win). Penalties for revived buildings would be something like... Vehicles from a revived WF would take 2-3x longer to spawn and start at half hp, halved pp/ref penalties when revived, revived BaseD or BaseD using revived power only shoot spotted targets, etc.

You could start with buildings still under construction, with different buildings starting out at various stages of effectiveness and coming online at different times in the early game.

I don't like the power creep from veterancy atm, I think that's a big part of your TTK point. But if you're going to add more abilities I'd start with party abilities. Things like having Gunner/LCG add 25armor to nearby friendlies. Have certain vehicles/inf either gain a bonus or have a penalty for grouping, etc.

[Xtractor]

Would make the stealth tech available to each factions somehow and might have it timed and mb for all units

[Agent]

Mines are one of the least noob-friendly and clunky mechanics I think I've seen in any game, hands down. Personal limits are one thing, but if you're setting team-wide limits on weapon usage then you've done something horribly wrong. They should be a personal weapon to be used at the user's discretion, without risk of hindering the team. It's the same as if ammo were shared between all snipers on the team; it's ridiculous.

Arbitrary time limits work great in many game modes, but not C&C. The objective is to destroy the enemy base -- not out-wait the enemy. Non-time limit secondary objectives are necessary, even if they're time related. One example might be to have finite Tiberium resources, and whoever has the most when it's all gone wins -- then you could even add in tertiary objectives like destroying the enemy's stockpile.

Buildings shouldn't both serve as critical components to weaponry/economy (vehicles, advanced weapons, income, cost) as well as be irrecoverable. There's no reason for them to not be recoverable in some capacity that's also easy for the average player to quickly comprehend.

Commander-like mechanics should be avoided at all costs in any sort of rebuild from scratch. They're a band-aid on fundamental issues with the gamemode at its core, and it diverges the gameplay for commanders and non-commanders. That's not to say they're unnecessary in Renegade X -- they're just not the optimal solution to our problems.

Time to kill is way too high unless you're aiming for the head, but it also helps give the game a classic arcadey shooter feel. The general direction and feel of the game definitely matters for this one.

We also need more game modes -- not just C&C mode. I'd love to see walker assault (MMKII?), control points (silos?), even deathmatch if the TTK were reduced. This also requires considering separation of concerns when implementing the actual game modes code wise. Current we just dump everything into Rx_Game, without having any intermediate layer of abstraction over UTGame. In general, the code base could be way cleaner and less complex.

There's also just too many duplicate classes. We don't need 4 infantry classes on each team who's primary purpose is anti-tank. Vehicles don't have quite the same problem, though the APC/Humvee do have some overlap (not nearly as much as before though, where the APC completely superseded Humvees).

Stealth is an unnecessary mechanic; people are plenty sneaky without it, and it just makes people run around uselessly.

[LavaDr4gon]

1 hour ago, Agent said:

We also need more game modes -- not just C&C mode. I'd love to see walker assault (MMKII?), control points (silos?), even deathmatch if the TTK were reduced.

I hope for an escort map.  Someone can make an MCV where you have to defend it till it reaches the checkpoint.

1 hour ago, Agent said:

There's also just too many duplicate classes. We don't need 4 infantry classes on each team who's primary purpose is anti-tank.

The problem with this is that we deal will tier levels.  We need a free infantry class that can deal with tanks all the way to the 3rd tier level.

[swaffelen]

1. You need integrated voice chat.
2. Eliminate the need for prox mines using automated internal building defenses (ceiling turrets?) like in the oldren campaign. Destroying a ceiling turret should trigger an alarm, and the turret should be a purchasable re-build item. 
3. More tech levels so that the available units after building destruction can change.

[Redarmy]

6 hours ago, yosh56 said:

Repairs: Break it down to ONE repair gun class, and place its repair rate right between the current normal and advanced repair gun's speeds. Then make a worse one that's buy-able by any class, but more on that later. 

Please don't do that unless it's also planned to reduce tank dps. While there is a stupidly big difference between adv engineer and reg engineer repair rates, I'd just rather see Engineers get a buff to their repair rate to bring it closer. Engineer repairs are practically useless and adv engineer repairs are at a good spot in the field.

Alternatively for Engineers, and other classes, on the subject of adding purchasable weapons. Let classes purchase weapons within their roles as upgrades effectively, that can still be used for when hon/bar goes down. So if bar goes down, Engineer can purchase an advanced repair gun, but they'd still be worse than hotties in speed, armor, less c4, etc. A Nod Rocket Soldier could purchase an LCG, but you know, doesn't have that fucking badass Mantank armor. Officers can go down the sniper path. MacFarland can get Patch's Tactical Rifle or the Mobius Volt Auto Rifle. Chem trooper can get the SBH Laser Rifle or the Doza Tib Auto Rifle (Which I must say, I really want to see chems with the tib auto rifle now). Keeping the weapon upgrade within roles should prevent any huge surprises really.

[Guest]

Ill touch on the veh armour and vet.

I personally dont think vehicles should have different armour plating for more/less damage protection..

And the vet to 10 maybe would be a nice touch if done correctly. With recruit having "star" levels and so on.

[limsup]

7 hours ago, yosh56 said:

Base Defense: I'd start by not having proximity mines be the primary mode of base defense. It's weird to say the least. Giving buildings their own, weak, automated defense systems (ala the OldRen campaign) with cameras/alarms/ceiling turrets would be ideal in replacing that guy doing figure 8s in his Humvee whilst staring at the mine count. 

This in affect, would help reduce some of the tedium of base defense, as well as make it easier to defend during low population matches. 

YES! Mining is difficult for new players, and more often than not, instead of showing them how to mine, their team scolds them harshly and mine bans them. This is a long-standing issue.  @TheDeadlyWolf has been utilizing Ceiling Guns on his map, Hourglass, and they work very well (plus their placement/damage can be tweaked further on-demand).

7 hours ago, yosh56 said:

I'd wholly drop the time-to-kill for infantry, but only by reducing the asinine differences between head-shot damage and body shot damage that is just expected by Ren vets, but turns off the majority of new players (It's virtually always the 1st complaint).

The whole "I kill you in 1 shot" method frustrates just about anyone. Sure, more expensive / higher veterancy infantries should kill enemies faster, but not *that* fast (with the possible exception of Sniper Rifle or Ramjet Rifle).

7 hours ago, yosh56 said:

Buy-able weapons: Definitely think there's a place for these, but only things such as beacons/mines(AT and the like), and maybe some other fancy gadgets (like repair tools) 

 

EMP grenades perhaps?

7 hours ago, yosh56 said:

 Veterancy: Would definitely like to go from 3 vet levels to something like 10, just for the progressive feel. 

 

That could potentially have severe implications (like what'd you do when you join a server as a recruit, then run into a level 9000 Level 10 @poi  )

 

3 hours ago, Agent said:

I'd love to see walker assault (MMKII?), control points (silos?), even deathmatch if the TTK were reduced.

That would be awesome! Many people would love to see a game mode which features the MkII - since it would be too difficult to field it in the current C&C mode...

[yosh56]

Veterancy with 10 levels would still follow the same rules as veterancy with three levels. That being new joins would start with an average. Would also not be as extreme as three levels in terms of advantages per level. 

Walker Assault honestly sounds like it was made for Tiberian Sun. I said that shit since the day EAs Battlefront 1 opened for beta. 

Actually, objective modes in general might be nice. Even multi-objective maps.

[Eagle XI]

Allowing EMP grenade to become purchasable has severe implications, as currently its about escorting one slow moving heavy dude to disarm the minefield in a building. Imagine if SBH could simply take EMP nades, what an disaster that'd be.

Mines should decay when placed in a building or outright unallowed inside buildings.

There are unused concepts for original Ren about player deployable turrets and consumable items. The turret could be an purchasable for Engineer/Tech that when placed results in an AI controlled, simplified weaponry sentry gun. The consumables would be several potion type items, one that restores stamina on use, one that accelarates health regen, an one use personal resupply box, temporary invis gadget (for GDI), tiberium protection suit(for GDI), tiberium infusion(for Nod, youll move faster but suffer health degeneration until die), etc.

Damage does not scale that well versus repairs actually, inspecially noticeable during vehicle combat whereas in infantry battles its far less of an problem. One would think the medium and light tanks to have secondary weaponry for use versus infantry.

GDI artillery is inferior to Nod counterpart because of that when it comes to attacking buildings. Where the Nod arty fires one chunk of damage the GDI mrls has it divided into multiple projectiles.

We can experiment with adding superheavy infantry classes that are available in limited quantity and have to be authorized by the commander to purchase one as they are finite. The superheavies are basically walking tanks, they can even get EMP'd as if being cyborgs. They would be based on the X-0 Powersuit for GDI and the unused heavy Stealth Suit concept for Tiberian Dawn.

Its way more fun to play as Nod, GDI could use some new interesting stuff as they lack too much compared to Nod.

Edited June 22, 2018 by Eagle XI

[Moat]

This all sounds amazing, it is like creating the perfect game. But it also sounds that it would be much more difficult for new players. I expect that one day the developers want to be more focused on expanding the player base. So I think you must keep the difficulty level in mind. 

Another thing, what about that you can only buy a mammoth or mobius when you are above level 5. Not to high, just for the fun otherwise some people will never get the change to use all the characters.

[Xeon Wraith]

Base Defense: Getting rid of the current mining system seems like a pretty decent starting point. Exact implementation and balance of it probably deserves it's own thread to discuss though.

Infantry: Not going to comment much about infantry but if you're thinking of adding new abilities,  I'd suggest going more weapon/gadget based stuff - as opposed to 'press X to gain Y buff'. Mostly to avoid combat becoming a rainbow-coloured vomit of abilities.

Vehicles: After Planetside, I'm not really a fan of the directional armour. It encourages holding orientations to reduce the damage from shots instead of trying to dodge them. The times when you do flank a enemy it turns into a point blank brawl to prevent enemies from re-orientating. I don't imagine this'll translate well to RenX's vehicle physics. Besides, RenX already has field repairs to encourage flanking maneuvers.

Vehicle balance seem generally fine. APCs kinda suffer from being used only in the very early and very late game for infantry rushs though. Could probably do with a anti-armour buff, particularly for GDI for a early game tank option to hold field.

It'd be kinda cool if you could sorta side-grade vehicles with augmented weaponry. Like additional specialisation for vehicles. Light tanks for example could get a burst fire cannon in exchange for armour and passenger slot to specialise it into total hit-and-run.

Repairs: Any change to the repair rates is going seriously effect tank flow in general. Dunno exactly how it'll change. Might result in a heavier focus on having more field repairs to sustain a push. Might result in a shift to spamming rushs instead of taking field control (don't need sustain if you just all push in at once I guess). I'd be careful with it.

Buy-able weapons: Like some have already mentioned, character/role specific buy-able weapons seems like a pretty good direction to take this in that wouldn't throw infantry balance completely out the window.

Veterancy: Only issue with additional levels is the symbols & naming. It needs to be clear how much of a advantage or disadvantage a player against another rank.

Game Modes: One idea that I've been mulling over is the idea of a King-of-the-Hill styled map with a superweapon tech building and regular base destruction. Current tech buildings provide relatively small advantages and aren't that heavily contested mid-game. A tech building that can permanently damage or outright kill a building after some duration of capture would give something very significant to fight over and hold.

Such a tech building would probably need to be on some long path that makes pushing the enemy base difficult though. That way there'll be a decent opportunity cost which the opposing team can exploit.

Edited June 22, 2018 by Xeon Wraith
Even more words

[yosh56]

54 minutes ago, Xeon Wraith said:

Getting rid of the current mining system seems like a pretty decent starting point. Exact implementation and balance of it probably deserves it's own thread to discuss though.

Not going to comment much about infantry but if you're thinking of adding new abilities,  I'd suggest going more weapon/gadget based stuff - as opposed to 'press X to gain Y buff'. Mostly to avoid combat becoming a rainbow-coloured vomit of abilities.

After Planetside, I'm not really a fan of the directional armour. It encourages holding orientations to reduce the damage from shots instead of trying to dodge them. The times when you do flank a enemy it turns into a point blank brawl to prevent enemies from re-orientating. I don't imagine this'll translate well to RenX's vehicle physics.

@Mining : Yeah, it's.... an interactive system, but really really really weird. I like it on some account

@ ... lol;

 when's the last time you touched anything less than a 50.cal ? 

@DirectionalArmour: Iffy. You can still dodge, ala MagRiders, as vehicles are generally faster in RenX than Planetside.  

1 hour ago, Eagle XI said:

Its way more fun to play as Nod, GDI could use some new interesting stuff as they lack too much compared to Nod.

That honestly is just kinda... sticking to OldRen. That was the 1st CnC in a nutshell. Nod were the cool people. GDI were the Generic Dudes Incorporated. TS sorta started making them a little bit cooler, and CnC3 made them a lot less boring (without going as off the wall as TS) .

6 hours ago, Kaunas said:

I personally dont think vehicles should have different armour plating for more/less damage protection..

And the vet to 10 maybe would be a nice touch if done correctly. With recruit having "star" levels and so on.

Vehicle armour's iffy. Like I said, I don't have much of a problem with how vehicle combat is now, especially on larger maps where you have terrain advantages and such. 

It's pretty easy to just get drunk one night and come up with ten names for veterancy levels. Pfft. 

[Wrench]

Very good idea, everything about it!!!

id like to support somehow, but dont know how

also removing mines with ceiling turrets and all the alarm systems would make it way more interesting and alive, in my opinion

[testman]

Black Dawn Campaign: Allow us to play Black Dawn in co-op.

With server limit of maybe 10 max but otherwise with the current Renegade X engine and configuration.

Custom Campaign: Whatever campaign maps community makes.

Basically Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory / Enemy Territory: Quake Wars gameplay, but in Renegade X.
Well W:ET could be inspiration only for infantry-only gameplay while ET:QW is more fitting for infantry+vehicles+air.

Actually, all the funky scripted things I have seen in RenX (Like EMP cannon on Arctic Stronghold) make me believe that this kind of thing could already be implemented. O fug now I will have to go explore SDK to see if I can learn quickly enough to get some prototype thing together.

And also I still have a dream about base construction mechanics, but it is nothing more than a dream.
 

[limsup]

1 hour ago, Eagle XI said:

escorting one slow moving heavy dude to disarm the minefield in a building

Like Sydney or Raveshaw? Plus it has been done in the past...

Spoiler

 

 

[vandal33]

Base Defense:  Does this new building defense mechanic completely deters technicians from infiltrating? I kinda like it if they can still blow buildings up alone when players are solely relying on their defensive tools.

Infantry/Buy-able weapons :  While I agree with reducing the TTK as headshots are supposed to be bonus, not a necessity, I hope the ability to buy weapons won't be annoying like when technicians have tiberium auto rifles. Only special equipment like grenades and beacons are purchasable is nice. But I like how each infantry is specialized at something, like the AT classes have AT mines, EMP grenades, flak armor and powerful anti-armor weapon. Personally, I'm not into purchasable repair tools as repairing is a special ability and should be something only a special class could. I like if players are forced to work as a team and mix their group with different kinds of characters, not being all-rounders.

I'm aware it would limit a player's usefulness in the field, but that's what teammates are for. It wouldn't be as boring as Red Alert Path Beyond and TS Reborn, since those games even restrict C4 and pistols to most classes and Renegade X has more features.  The idea is to make it more RTS-like but even in RTS basic infantry are only limited to rifles, rocket soldiers and engineer/infiltration classes would die easily to even basic infantry (but they are lucky enough to get a pistol, they are completely defenseless in RTS games, forcing you to rely on other combatants to escort them).

Vehicles: I like the idea of more weapons for vehicles and different armor points (Path Beyond has this). The "who's-better-at-holding-left-click" thing is getting boring.

Repairs: Currently, the repair units seem fine: one basic engineer that is available anytime and an advanced version so those who want to become repairmen can spend something to upgrade on.

Game modes: The problem is other people doesn't really seem to like infantry warfare, since they used to complain about that Valley map (I like that map).

[yosh56]

Note on base construction, since it's been brought up twice: It's not limited by coding/scripting. It's more just that large objects being dynamically lit in the UDK are automatically going to be a very large FPS drop. It's why buildings are already kind of just fancy terrain that's baked into the map. 

[testman]

Add dropdown menu to settings:
- I have GTX1080s in SLI and I like shadows in everything
- I am using Raspberry Pi as GPU and I don't really care if shadows appear as they should

[yosh56]

4 minutes ago, vandal33 said:

Game modes: The problem is other people doesn't really seem to like infantry warfare, since they used to complain about that Valley map (I like that map).

 

4 minutes ago, vandal33 said:

While I agree with reducing the TTK as headshots are supposed to be bonus, not a necessity.....

Point. Infantry combat really did start coming down to who was better at headshots... which came down to snipers dominating a weee bit on Valley. If you sucked at infantry you were really really really not having any fun on that map. 

[Eagle XI]

4 hours ago, limsup said:

Like Sydney or Raveshaw? Plus it has been done in the past...

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

The one of the two reasons im advocating to nerf the movement of Sydney/Raveshaw.

 

To limit tank combat can try introducing heatbar with heat generated per shot, this change will highest probably render them too underpowered when facing against infantry however.

Can open an whole 3. column of classes expanding the roster instead scattering any new gun ideas as purchasables or attempting to tackle them on already existing and fine working classes. The demolition man idea is neat, but Mcfarland do has his uses even as the niche he is. I thought of adding an RA3 Peacekeeper like unit to GDI class lineup, with riot shield, shotgun and flashbang nade at 3. column row 1 with demoman being at colum 3 row 2.

There is also an idea of a wizard-like class, mutant Disciple for Nod who will like Yuri's Disciple in RA2 use mind bullets, probably with stamina as ammo and no guns at all, that either gains one more 'spell'(extra firing modes for his only weapon, the mind) per veterancy level or each 'spell' is an seperate weapon.

Vehicle Abilities and Upgrades based on veterancy progression: Think like Buggy can EMP coil like in CC3 at heroic, upgrades weapon to laser at elite, sprint moved to veteran with improved efficiency.

Edited June 22, 2018 by Eagle XI

[ex_member]

...

Edited September 22, 2018 by ex_member

[Axesor]

I rly like ideas of most of u guys. Iam surprised.

I ll add my perspective of view. I want to see RenX more RTS like, make more complex changes towards RTS feeling.

Starting with rebalancing of every unit to changing game mechanics.

Infantry: 

• Remove c4 from most of the characters, while increasing their hard damage (anti building, anti tank damage). Keep timed c4 for engineers and adv. engineers only. Every weapon does good damage to master panel now.
• decrease TTK the way Yosh suggested it. Make it so head shot is rewarding skill, but is not complete necessary. I see HS multiplier being 1.25x or 1.5x
• no unit can 1 shot kill paid character
• rework/rebalance every character/characters weapon to make them even more specialized and make them OP in what they do, while making them weak in other ways, but still able to defend themselves with secondary weapon.

Infantry is not very cost effective compared to vehicles, add:

• armor regeneration. Starts after 8s of not taking any damage, smooth 15%/s regen.
• infinite ammo.

Team-wide veterancy: to unlock characters, items to buy, and vehicles

Buildings: 

• No longer actively repairable. Building now repair its armor automaticaly with acceptable rate, no matter if its still taking damage. Keep armor same, but increase its health 5x or even more. Everybody need to play offensive now to defend and win. I imagine this like there will be big red arrow and big red dot on the map of the attacker saying  "BUILDING IS UNDER ATTACK, ALL UNITS OUT OR YOU WILL FREAKIN DIE!!!".
• promixity mines are no longer primary building defence. Add damaging rechargeable lazors (3 in doors, 2 in windows) connected to control panel lying on the wall outside of the building, that can be hacked with repair thingie, and fixed with friendly repair thingie.
• promixity mines are destroyable with weapons now. No more team limit

Vehicles: Only 1 repair gun/tool at the time is able to repair vehicles. Adv. rep. gun has higher priority than repair gun. Repair gun has higher priority than repair tool. No more headshot multiplier for tanks with explosive projectiles.

No airstrike time limit: People will spend their money eventualy so there is no need for time limit.

Summarizing it all, I want to encourage players to play more agressively, since its the most enjoyable part of the game. Not watching mines, not repairing... playing offensive it is

Edited June 23, 2018 by Axesor

[roweboat]

I like a lot of the ideas brought forward here.

I think without getting into too many details, broad goals/guidelines should be set up.

What makes Renegade X (Renegade/C&C Mode) different than other games? What keeps it unique and appealing?

Obviously, any kind of rebuild can't be done overnight, so the question becomes, what should be the focus? (beyond bugs etc.)

Should the game's focus to be an RTS or an FPS first? 

 

Should a true RTS-style commander mode be implemented? (where the commander can issue commands, attacks from the overview map, but using a fog of war to not make the powers too overreaching)

Should more base-building type freedom be implemented? (rebuild destroyed buildings, build walls, commander building repair powers)

--Yosh mentioned it being a limit of FPS drop. Could there be a clever way to code it so this is minimized or eliminated?--

I know someone mentioned it, but put a greater importance on Tiberium gathering. Make it a more scarce asset. Once gathered its gone (add Tiberium trees). Put a higher focus on teams needing to work together to pool resources. 

 

If the focus is to be more on the Shooter aspects,

Should class types be reduced? Less free classes? Re-enable buyable weapons/ammo (mines, grenades)?

 *if sticking to C&C formula, most units were ridiculously ineffective solo (except commando/Tanya). What if only timed/remote c4 were truly effective against MCTs? Example: No more running into a base solo or even as a group of Sydneys/Ravashaws to destroy a building... they are Anti-tank, not anti-building. Make all guns ineffective to MCTs.*

 

Anyways just a few off the cuff thoughts/ideas. Sometimes my ideas suck. sometimes they are good. time will tell =D

 

Edit: I'm also 100% for laser door defenses over mines. Yes, of course, I understand fully how mines work... been playing this game nearly since its inception, but it is a goofy system.

 

Edited June 23, 2018 by roweboat

[NodSaibot]

6 minutes ago, roweboat said:

rebuild destroyed buildings, build walls, commander building repair powers)

--Yosh mentioned it being a limit of FPS drop. Could there be a clever way to code it so this is minimized or eliminated?--

Spawning in objects that weren't rendered with the map causes FPS drops. Mines, vehicles... etc. It's kind of unavoidable unless you remove all textures from it and just make it black. I think there may be a way to just turn off dominant lighting or w/e from it so it doesn't cast shadows, but I'm not really sure.

[roweboat]

1 minute ago, taishō said:

Spawning in objects that weren't rendered with the map causes FPS drops. Mines, vehicles... etc. It's kind of unavoidable unless you remove all textures from it and just make it black. I think there may be a way to just turn off dominant lighting or w/e from it so it doesn't cast shadows, but I'm not really sure.

Like I always say, if there's a will, there's a way

[[B]Veyron]

what if this game was made into a side scroller? 
 

 

[TK0104]

22 hours ago, Veyron said:

what if this game was made into a side scroller?

#NotMyCNC

[DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr]

INFINITE AMMO and change the GDI EVA voice to something not so annoying. lol

[ex_member]

...

Edited September 22, 2018 by ex_member

[JoeBrogan7]

Am I the only one who actually likes the mining system? 

Granted, I get that it's counter intuitive for new players, and is a big source of angst for vets to see new players overmining and whatnot.

I'll just throw this out there: perhaps a sort of hybrid between the current mining system and turret system that yosh mentioned. Weak automated turrets in every building as the primary base defense. But advanced engineers can still place prox mines, but with a personal limit rather than a team limit (let's say each adv engineer can place only 2 mines or something...). And the mines disappear if you switch character classes, which would prevent players from buying an adv engineer, placing their mines, and then switching to a different character from that point on.

So every building would have a base level of protection from the turrets, but you'd still be able to throw a few mines in important buildings (but very few, because it would take too many adv engineers to properly mine even 2 buildings.

An added benefit is players could still mine building ramps,  protecting the top of buildings, where (I'm assuming) turrets won't be able to shoot.

Edit: It would also encourage a little more variability in matches, since there would no longer be a "right" or "wrong" way to use your personal mines, and we might see some creative ideas for mines in the field or even in the enemy's base.

Edited June 26, 2018 by ps212

[DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr]

@dr.schott   Infinite ammo ain't no joke it would be awesome, vanilla Renegade has infinite ammo in all its servers now, you can stay in the field indefinitely with infinite ammo, no need to retreat, just hold your position and stem the tide. The GDI EVA IS a joke, it's just so annoying. Its a legit complaint, I gotta tune her out, turn off the EVA volume. The EVA is the reason why I never wanna play GDI. I always add "lol" to the EVA complaint because I know I'm being petty, but it affects the immersion nonetheless. Like seriously. There's a quick fix for that - use the original Renegade GDI EVA announcements. 

in contrast, the Nod EVA voice is waaaay cooler than the original Renegade one.

[vandal33]

Agree with what PS212 said. Don't remove mines (Proximity C4) if there is a new base defense being implemented, make them personal limit so players can still place them wherever they want. I'm not sure if they were meant to be door-only defense in Renegade, but obviously this game made it to be so you can't just place them willy-nilly because a team will be in a disadvantage if they don't use mines defensively. With a (possible) new defense system, proximity C4s should be allowed to be used freely and not hamper interior defense if used anyway people want. People can still lay mines in buildings for added defense at the cost of being stuck in that Adv Engineer class as mines disappear if your character dies or change...

 

[NodSaibot]

Speaking of infinite ammo... the map that comes to mind that would be really changed by it is Walls. A handful of infantry could basically hold the top forever and gunners/rocket soldiers could blast buildings indefinitely. Granted that already happens with vehicles, but it's harder to go all the way up there and kill the gunners/rocket soldiers, as they can hide in the little rooms up there.  That would really be my only concern with infinite ammo. I'm down for trying it out this week/weekend.

Infinite ammo mutators already exist, just nobody uses them anymore.

[limsup]

37 minutes ago, taishō said:

Infinite ammo mutators already exist, just nobody uses them anymore.

Snipers and people utilizing Sydney/Raveshaw in a CQC manner would love that! So would Mendozas (or any class wielding a powerful weapon with comparatively small magazine size).

[NodSaibot]

It wouldn't really change much of that aspect, to be honest. The only reason I ever refill is for health

[OWA]

On 6/21/2018 at 11:35 PM, yosh56 said:

Differentiate infantry classes more with full loadouts, as opposed to just one weapon swap and a little health. The biggest issue I had with Reborn/A Path Beyond is how restricted infantry felt. The classes were maybe a little faster, or tougher, but aside from that most just had one weapon... which started feeling EXTREMELY boring to fire when you ran across something you couldn't fight at all. Varied? Yes. Entertaining for more than 10 minutes? No. I think RenX/OldRen did better at this, with at least throwing the timed C4 on units, and X adding in abilities. I'd definitely add more abilities/'nade types, and just things to keep characters from feeling like one-tricks. 

Vehicles:  At most, vehicles seem like the one thing CnC-Mode's fine on. Maybe add directional armour to add more tactical appeal to it, but that's about as far as I'd go. 

The worst thing I can think of about vehicles, is that they suffer the same syndrome as APB/Reborn's infantry, with feeling a bit too much like one-tricks, and only having singular weapons. Would likely have more multi-weapon units, or vehicle abilities to make it feel like you're doing more than being a left-click champion. 

 

On 6/22/2018 at 2:50 PM, vandal33 said:

I'm aware it would limit a player's usefulness in the field, but that's what teammates are for. It wouldn't be as boring as Red Alert Path Beyond and TS Reborn, since those games even restrict C4 and pistols to most classes and Renegade X has more features.  The idea is to make it more RTS-like but even in RTS basic infantry are only limited to rifles, rocket soldiers and engineer/infiltration classes would die easily to even basic infantry (but they are lucky enough to get a pistol, they are completely defenseless in RTS games, forcing you to rely on other combatants to escort them).

Vehicles: I like the idea of more weapons for vehicles and different armor points (Path Beyond has this). The "who's-better-at-holding-left-click" thing is getting boring.

This discussion looks fun.

@yosh56 It's all very well saying that something is "boring", but if you can't say why it's "boring" other than the fact that certain Infantry match-ups vs Tanks are unfavourable for the Infantry then you may as well be stating the obvious; that's the way the game is inherently designed, with counters in mind.

It's not an unknown point that basic infantry don't do well against tanks. They didn't do well in Renegade, they still don't do well in Renegade X (even with C4) and they don't do well in other games in the FPS genre; for example, try taking on a tank in Battlefield using a class that isn't the Engineer and you're going to have a bad time.

I can see that the idea of "more variety = better" sounds good in theory, but that isn't always the case. More variety adds more complexity to the game, which in turn drives up the skill ceiling and makes the game harder to grasp for newer players. It's very important that when you are considering to add something to an established game ecosystem that you introduce features that have strong reasoning behind their inclusion.

On the subject of APB though, I think the main difference here is that APB isn't trying to be Renegade, whereas Renegade X IS. Obviously you're going to enjoy Renegade X more if you prefer Renegade, but the fact of the matter is the choices made in APB are made in order to give infantry clearly defined roles that have strengths and weaknesses, which makes team composition a LOT more important in rushes and such.

In Renegade X, there's not much consequence for picking a single type of infantry class and rolling with it, because:

• Every infantry has C4, which means they can combat vehicles to a certain extent and attack structures effectively (this is true with Renegade as well).
• Every infantry has the option to buy a repair gun, which really de-values the role of the Engineer classes.
• Every infantry has the option to buy additional weapons, which conversely powers up Engineer classes and allows them to do fill in the gameplay roles of other classes (which, in-turn, de-values other classes).

It's almost as if there's an active discouragement in infantry unit diversity because the intention is to let all of the classes buy weapons to fill most of the gameplay roles, apart from more specialist units such as Snipers, the SBH, Anti-Tank specialists and the more expensive versions of them. There are no truly specialist infantry classes in RenX (like the Spy or Thief), who can do unique interesting gameplay things that place them outside of the arbitrary roles of: "Anti-Infantry", "Anti-Tank", "Generalist" or "Engineer". Every character class has a gun that is good at shooting a certain type of thing (which is inherited from Renegade) and the buy-able weapons blur the lines across those four basic class categories even more. Basically, if you make everyone special, then nobody is special.

@vandal33 I'm not sure what you mean when you say "Renegade X has more features". In terms of vehicles, APB has a LOT more. Granted Renegade X just introduced that commander view feature which seems cool, but I couldn't get it to work properly last time I played, so I can't form an opinion on it. It's very hard to say that one game has more features than another without establishing a baseline of what a feature is and then counting them up. Though both games have a good amount of features, I'd say.

@yosh56, @vandal33 More weapons for vehicles won't change the fact that several of Renegade X's maps are box canyons with no real space to truly manoeuvre your vehicles into cover. APB has 1 type of weapon for most of it's vehicles, but the maps are large enough so that vehicle positioning becomes a lot more important than sitting in a tight lane/chokepoint firing your weapon repeatedly whilst your personal army of Hotwires backs you up (see: Mesa, Walls, Field, Under, Hourglass/Whiteout). I'd be really interested to see how Renegade X plays out on a map that is designed more like an APB map, with less of a focus on lanes/chokepoints and more on open spaces. That would be the true way to test your theory on whether vehicle need more weapons or not.

tl;dr - Variety is the spice of life, but it's not always the answer.

Edited June 26, 2018 by One Winged Angel

[NodSaibot]

41 minutes ago, One Winged Angel said:

 

You can not buy any guns besides repair tools now

[OWA]

Just now, taishō said:

You can not buy any guns besides repair tools now

Then I haven't played this game properly since that got patched out, or just didn't notice it. Apologies.

I guess that makes my point about weapons a pretty moot one, though my point about the fact that repair guns still being buy-able de-values the Engineer classes still stands. 

[limsup]

1 hour ago, One Winged Angel said:

I guess that makes my point about weapons a pretty moot one, though my point about the fact that repair guns still being buy-able de-values the Engineer classes still stands. 

 

Please consider that Repair Tools have a limited pool of ammunition, have a shorter range, recharging delay and slow recharge time along with a 1 point per second heal/disarm rate (Repair Gun has a 2 points/sec rate, while the Advanced Repair Gun has a 4 points/sec rate). It also costs $200 while an Advanced Engineer costs $350.

[NodSaibot]

The repair tool has a 10% decrease of heal amount compared to the default repair gun. As well as a 12.5% speed decrease on proxies.

[yosh56]

Quote

...mines...

Original topic is literally about rebuilding CnC-Mode... less so just Ren(X) or whatnot. Still, if proximity mines weren't the primary method of base defense, there's nothing saying they wouldn't exist at all. 

WELP, forum ate my original post, sooooooo abbreviated (and slightly aggravated) version here we go. 

10 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

 It's all very well saying that something is "boring", but if you can't say why it's "boring" other than the fact that certain Infantry match-ups vs Tanks are unfavourable for the Infantry then you may as well be stating the obvious; that's the way the game is inherently designed, with counters in mind.

Nobody was saying just not being able to fight tanks is boring. The 'boring' comes inherently from choosing a class and only having one gun that's good at this one thing. Reborn, and APB to a slightly lesser extent, basically created left-click champions for infantry. It adds to the repetitive feeling of playing the heavily restricted classes themselves. 

10 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

It's not an unknown point that basic infantry don't do well against tanks. They didn't do well in Renegade, they still don't do well in Renegade X (even with C4) and they don't do well in other games in the FPS genre; for example, try taking on a tank in Battlefield using a class that isn't the Engineer and you're going to have a bad time.

Battlefield/Planetside both have options for other classes to at least damage/harass enemy tanks(C4 on Recon/Light classes especially). And even without those, the classes themselves have multiple weapons/gadgets so you're not just this one guy with this one gun walking around left clicking at stuff. You have alternative methods of supporting your allies/killing enemies. In Reborn/APB, they both feel like they're actively trying to punish you for playing certain classes. 

 

10 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

I can see that the idea of "more variety = better" sounds good in theory, but that isn't always the case. More variety adds more complexity to the game, which in turn drives up the skill ceiling and makes the game harder to grasp for newer players.

Most people are actually fairly easily able to grasp having more than one weapon, to be fair. It's the one thing even new players to Ren can figure out in about 5 seconds. C4 explodes, the pistol is last resort. Then it's just a matter figuring out the main weapons. At most, RenX adds in grenades, but most people know what a frag grenade does, and it doesn't take much effort to figure out what an EMP/Smoke grenade does. The biggest learning curves are the game mechanics of CnC-Mode itself. 

Also, nobody's talking about adding variety for variety's sake. It's variety for the sake that Renegade and co. were never built with much customization in mind. Therefore, what's statically there needs to be varied for the sake of entertainment value. Obviously it should also be balanced/incorporated with regard to game mechanics. 

10 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

In Renegade X, there's not much consequence for picking a single type of infantry class and rolling with it, because:

• Every infantry has C4, which means they can combat vehicles to a certain extent and attack structures effectively (this is true with Renegade as well).
• Every infantry has the option to buy a repair gun, which really de-values the role of the Engineer classes.
• Every infantry has the option to buy additional weapons, which conversely powers up Engineer classes and allows them to do fill in the gameplay roles of other classes (which, in-turn, de-values other classes).

About the only classes with little consequences for playing are PICs/Ravs and to a far lesser extent, LCGs. Everyone else has obvious flaws. 

+ C4 is only good if you get close, and most tanks don't just let infantry walk up to them. Also no infantry that isn't Anti-tank/an Engineer can easily deal with mines in a timely manner enough manner to just be a threat to a building after about the 1st 2 minutes of the game. C4 also is pretty easy to just... disarm. 

+ The repair tool is so freakishly inferior to the Repair Gun that it does nothing to really step on Engineers toes, let alone Technicians. Nobody is sustaining building/field repairs with a rep-tool. It's there to be bought as an add on for a character so that you're not just SOL and completely punished for wanting to play something else. 

+ That hasn't been a thing in like 2 years, as it ACTUALLY made it pointless to be pretty much anything but an Engineer and a Carbine. 

10 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

It's almost as if there's an active discouragement in infantry unit diversity because the intention is to let all of the classes buy weapons to fill most of the gameplay roles, apart from more specialist units such as Snipers, the SBH, Anti-Tank specialists and the more expensive versions of them.

Quite the contrary, since most units still are still MOSTLY good at one thing, they have their purposes, plus a few extra abilities to support their allies/cover their gaps a bit. None really can completely overlap other unit's roles however. About the only units that really start disappearing from the battlefield late game are free infantry. 

10 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

There are no truly specialist infantry classes in RenX (like the Spy or Thief), who can do unique interesting gameplay things that place them outside of the arbitrary roles of: "Anti-Infantry", "Anti-Tank", "Generalist" or "Engineer". 

..... So I'm glad you brought up the Spy and Thief. They're the epitome of 'a unit with a gimmick'. Playing a Spy or Thief loses its entertainment value rapidly, as they're both pretty much one-trick ponies with no real combat effectiveness on top of their extremely niche abilities. At best, they're annoying for the other team. At worst, they're useless, especially spies if the enemy team has semi-observant people. 

10 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "Renegade X has more features". In terms of vehicles, APB has a LOT more.

Having more vehicles doesn't really give the game more 'features'. I'm actually glad vandal brought it up. I don't know if he's played APB lately, but I just played it like a week or 2 ago, and I'll say it doesn't 'feel' like it has many features. It just feels like it has 'stuff'. You've got giant ants with AI... but they aren't really being used in a way that adds to the game, aside from making people vote to skip maps. 

There's sprinting now, which feels funny on W3D, but at least it feels like an addition. Aside from that, the infantry still feel pretty boring and one-trick. Vehicles have... enough alternate fires to feel interesting and be considered feature rich I guess. 

Other than that, I really didn't get much of a feature rich 'feeling' from anything. 

Ren-X wears more of its features on the outside, and many impact gameplay enough to not come off as novelties. The addition of buffs/nerfs for vehicles and infantry are obvious enough. Commanders are mostly well received and can have major impacts on the flow of a game as it gives the people who are willing to listen a central point of authority. 

Infantry are probably the biggest contributors however, to the game 'feeling' more feature rich, as their additions are more support features, I.E EMP/Frag grenades, which are used often, and can have enough of an impact to not feel like useless additions, or that they're completely taking away from the game.

10 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

I'd be really interested to see how Renegade X plays out on a map that is designed more like an APB map, with less of a focus on lanes/chokepoints and more on open spaces.

Aside from the sudden overpowering nature of Stealth tanks, see Outpost/Eyes and to a lesser extent, Arctic Stronghold. 

I don't disagree entirely, however Stealth tanks make making fully open maps a terrible idea for Ren/RenX.

I won't lie though... I got bored of fighting vehicles, then crawling back to service depots all the way back to base. Weirdly enough, this was originally why I liked APB 'more' than Ren... and now is the total opposite. It's just a lot less annoying to not have to always go back to base, and repairs have enough counters in RenX that they don't feel nearly as annoying as they did in Ren. That, and people use more infantry in RenX, so not everybody and their mother is a Hotwire on the field.

10 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

Obviously you're going to enjoy Renegade X more if you prefer Renegade

I literally stopped playing Renegade completely to play APB.........  What? 

15 hours ago, taishō said:

Speaking of infinite ammo... the map that comes to mind that would be really changed by it is Walls.

Even without infinite ammo, a Chinook taxiing people onto the plat makes this pretty annoying. More of a map issue at that point.

 

On 6/24/2018 at 12:47 AM, roweboat said:

Should a true RTS-style commander mode be implemented? (where the commander can issue commands, attacks from the overview map, but using a fog of war to not make the powers too overreaching)

^ I still ponder if people understand that this is significantly less entertaining after awhile than it sounds. It might be do able, but then you start running into the imbalance of RTS/FPS elements. I'm personally all for focusing on the FPS element first, as it's what 9/10 people on the team are going to have to be doing during the game. 

[OWA]

6 hours ago, yosh56 said:

Nobody was saying just not being able to fight tanks is boring. The 'boring' comes inherently from choosing a class and only having one gun that's good at this one thing. Reborn, and APB to a slightly lesser extent, basically created left-click champions for infantry. It adds to the repetitive feeling of playing the heavily restricted classes themselves. 

I don't necessarily think that's boring, though if you look at it, there are more classes in APB and Reborn with multiple weapons than there are ones with singular weapons. Keeping weapons exclusive to classes allows for less blurring of the lines when it comes to defining the roles that infantry have in the game. Being a "Left-Click Champion" pretty much describes the large majority of FPS games. The other variable is how much you need to use the mouse wheel or number keys to cycle through your arsenal of left-click champion weaponry.

6 hours ago, yosh56 said:

Battlefield/Planetside both have options for other classes to at least damage/harass enemy tanks(C4 on Recon/Light classes especially). And even without those, the classes themselves have multiple weapons/gadgets so you're not just this one guy with this one gun walking around left clicking at stuff. You have alternative methods of supporting your allies/killing enemies. In Reborn/APB, they both feel like they're actively trying to punish you for playing certain classes. 

 

In both of those games, there are only four or five character classes, which makes the weapon and gadget spread important to those characters. In APB, those roles get distributed across a larger number of infantry classes, a bit more like Team Fortress 2 was before hats were introduced. There's not much that can be done to prevent a Rifle Infantry from playing out it's intended role, as more weapons would add un-needed complexity, make their role more homogeneous when compared to other characters, alter the balance in potentially unintended ways and also be pointless in some cases. i.e. Rifle Soldiers have unlimited ammo, so why would they ever need to use a Pistol?

You can damage lighter vehicles quite well in APB using a basic Rifle Infantry. Just don't expect to be taking on a Mammoth Tank and coming out on top.

6 hours ago, yosh56 said:

Most people are actually fairly easily able to grasp having more than one weapon, to be fair. It's the one thing even new players to Ren can figure out in about 5 seconds. C4 explodes, the pistol is last resort. Then it's just a matter figuring out the main weapons. At most, RenX adds in grenades, but most people know what a frag grenade does, and it doesn't take much effort to figure out what an EMP/Smoke grenade does. The biggest learning curves are the game mechanics of CnC-Mode itself. 

 

That's not what we have observed. We actually see new players struggling with units that have multiple weapons, such as the Rocket Soldier and Volkov. The issue of homogenisation has always been a discussion point in our community because we don't want our games to be "just Renegade again but with a different aesthetic". If you gave infantry Grenades in APB for example, that would devalue the Grenadier. 

Adding new weapons also throws the balance off and with APB it's in a fairly good spot right now. The numbers don't lie: https://www.w3dhub.com/ranks/apb/#/mapstats

6 hours ago, yosh56 said:

About the only classes with little consequences for playing are PICs/Ravs and to a far lesser extent, LCGs. Everyone else has obvious flaws. 

+ C4 is only good if you get close, and most tanks don't just let infantry walk up to them. Also no infantry that isn't Anti-tank/an Engineer can easily deal with mines in a timely manner enough manner to just be a threat to a building after about the 1st 2 minutes of the game. C4 also is pretty easy to just... disarm. 

+ The repair tool is so freakishly inferior to the Repair Gun that it does nothing to really step on Engineers toes, let alone Technicians. Nobody is sustaining building/field repairs with a rep-tool. It's there to be bought as an add on for a character so that you're not just SOL and completely punished for wanting to play something else. 

+ That hasn't been a thing in like 2 years, as it ACTUALLY made it pointless to be pretty much anything but an Engineer and a Carbine. 

Quite the contrary, since most units still are still MOSTLY good at one thing, they have their purposes, plus a few extra abilities to support their allies/cover their gaps a bit. None really can completely overlap other unit's roles however. About the only units that really start disappearing from the battlefield late game are free infantry. 

These are fair points. These elements seem to work well for Renegade X, though it would be interesting to see IF they translated to games like APB and Reborn. Although C4 has a Renegade stigma hanging over it and with it being harder to disarm in APB, I don't see that being a particularly good fit.

I'm not entirely convinced on your last point. You have units like Gunner and the Rocket Soldier Officer which are really just the same basic unit but with certain stat differences. The same goes for Havoc and Deadeye, though both of these examples are inherited from Renegade, where the same rang true. Aside from Engineers who have a unique role in the game, the other infantry can easily be grouped into around 4-5 key roles with the only real deciding factors being "what role do I need to fill" and "do I have enough credits for the best character that fits my chosen role". i.e. If someone has enough leftover credits for Gunner, what makes the Rocket Soldier Officer a viable alternative? 

6 hours ago, yosh56 said:

..... So I'm glad you brought up the Spy and Thief. They're the epitome of 'a unit with a gimmick'. Playing a Spy or Thief loses its entertainment value rapidly, as they're both pretty much one-trick ponies with no real combat effectiveness on top of their extremely niche abilities. At best, they're annoying for the other team. At worst, they're useless, especially spies if the enemy team has semi-observant people. 

I have to agree but also disagree here. You're right about the Thief, since all he has to do is get to the Refinery and stand in the right place to steal the money; that's a one-trick pony.

I think you're a bit wrong about the Spy though. The Spy has a few different layers of gameplay that make him one of the most intriguing units to play. You can play the spy in a subversive way to chat the enemy team and provide them with false info. His disguise allows him to sneak past base defences, which makes him the best unit for hijacking enemy vehicles, his ability to turn off the power and radar in the enemy base allows for excellent synergy with base rushes. A Spy played correctly at the right time can win games and the fact that he has hardly any combat effectiveness isn't a factor when doing so.

At best, a Spy can steal a Demo Truck and kill a building, that's a lot more than simply being "annoying for the other team".

6 hours ago, yosh56 said:

Having more vehicles doesn't really give the game more 'features'. I'm actually glad vandal brought it up. I don't know if he's played APB lately, but I just played it like a week or 2 ago, and I'll say it doesn't 'feel' like it has many features. It just feels like it has 'stuff'. You've got giant ants with AI... but they aren't really being used in a way that adds to the game, aside from making people vote to skip maps. 

There's sprinting now, which feels funny on W3D, but at least it feels like an addition. Aside from that, the infantry still feel pretty boring and one-trick. Vehicles have... enough alternate fires to feel interesting and be considered feature rich I guess. 

Other than that, I really didn't get much of a feature rich 'feeling' from anything. 

I mean when your vehicles do interesting things like lay mines, self-destruct, jam the radar and create shroud bubbles, I think that counts as more features. There's also naval units and fixed-wing aircraft which expand the engagement options. I'd have to agree with you that the Ants aren't being used in the best way just yet though.

See above for infantry stuff. I disagree with your generalisation that the infantry are "one-trick", when most of them are actually multi-role. e.g. Sergeants/Starshinas are actually really good vs buildings.

The only vehicles with alternate fires are the Mammoth Tank and V2 Launcher, so I'm not sure what you're referring to there.

As I said in my previous post, it really boils down to what you define as a "feature".

6 hours ago, yosh56 said:

Ren-X wears more of its features on the outside, and many impact gameplay enough to not come off as novelties. The addition of buffs/nerfs for vehicles and infantry are obvious enough. Commanders are mostly well received and can have major impacts on the flow of a game as it gives the people who are willing to listen a central point of authority. 

Infantry are probably the biggest contributors however, to the game 'feeling' more feature rich, as their additions are more support features, I.E EMP/Frag grenades, which are used often, and can have enough of an impact to not feel like useless additions, or that they're completely taking away from the game.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "Ren-X wears more of its features on the outside". Could you elaborate please?

Aren't buffs and nerfs just part of the balancing process, or are you talking about a gameplay system that has been introduced? I haven't tried the Commander stuff properly yet, but it sounds like a pretty good set of controls that help focus the action during pub games.

I'm not sure I agree there, due to things I've previously mentioned like certain infantry being largely similar but at different prices. Rocket Soldier Officer = Discount Gunner etc.

6 hours ago, yosh56 said:

Aside from the sudden overpowering nature of Stealth tanks, see Outpost/Eyes and to a lesser extent, Arctic Stronghold. 

I don't disagree entirely, however Stealth tanks make making fully open maps a terrible idea for Ren/RenX.

I won't lie though... I got bored of fighting vehicles, then crawling back to service depots all the way back to base. Weirdly enough, this was originally why I liked APB 'more' than Ren... and now is the total opposite. It's just a lot less annoying to not have to always go back to base, and repairs have enough counters in RenX that they don't feel nearly as annoying as they did in Ren. That, and people use more infantry in RenX, so not everybody and their mother is a Hotwire on the field.

To be honest, one of the major reasons that I personally don't play Renegade X that much is because I feel that the map design stifles the vehicle combat by restricting the movement to lanes and chokepoints. This was also Renegade's problem though, so it's inherited. We have Phase Tanks in APB and the open map design isn't a problem, though the balance of these units is tailored to their role with the map size in mind.

Your point about service depots is only true if you play as the Soviets or on low tech maps (which are generally small, so returning to base isn't really much of an inconvenience). As the Allies you have the Mechanic which allows you to make repairs in the field. Tank combat in APB carries a lot more consequence because players are inherently less likely to have an engineer class following them to mitigate any damage from fights at range. There's also a lot more room to manoeuvre on the maps which allows for a larger array of movement-based tactics to be utilised. Flanking is the obvious example.

6 hours ago, yosh56 said:

I literally stopped playing Renegade completely to play APB.........  What? 

My statement was more general. If a person enjoyed Renegade a lot, it's logical to say they will probably enjoy Renegade X a bit more than APB. Though saying that, there are still a bunch of people playing the original Renegade, so there's clearly enough difference to create diverse opinions.

[yosh56]

2 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

Being a "Left-Click Champion" pretty much describes the large majority of FPS games.

Eh, not really. Most offer grenades/sidearms/support functions for classes. 

2 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

i.e. Rifle Soldiers have unlimited ammo, so why would they ever need to use a Pistol?

To finish people off when the rifle is reloading? Seems like a pretty basic answer, and lends itself to slightly more intuitive infantry combat if when you have at least one extra weapon. Not like everyone needs 5. 

2 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

Keeping weapons exclusive to classes allows for less blurring of the lines when it comes to defining the roles that infantry have in the game.

It's perfectly possible to blur lines slightly without ever making other classes obsolete. 

 

2 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

We actually see new players struggling with units that have multiple weapons, such as the Rocket Soldier and Volkov.

These take all of 30 seconds to figure out, and give you something to learn beyond just being a left-click champion. 

2 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

The other variable is how much you need to use the mouse wheel or number keys to cycle through your arsenal of left-click champion weaponry.

You shouldn't make it a NEED to cycle through weapons constantly, but making a class more varied gives players something to learn how to use, as well as offers at least some form of skill separation and nuances. E.g, in Ren(X) throwing your timed C4 randomly before you die should be reflex, as you just may get a kill with it later.  

2 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

If you gave infantry Grenades in APB for example, that would devalue the Grenadier. 

Considering they wouldn't have infinite grenades, and you can make the grenades behave differently, it wouldn't devalue the Grenadier much at all. 

 

2 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

I'm not entirely convinced on your last point. You have units like Gunner and the Rocket Soldier Officer which are really just the same basic unit but with certain stat differences.

Err... Not really. 

Rocket soldiers have lock-on where Gunners don't, and can be used for peaking corners. Gunners have a better sidearm for fighting infantry + higher building kill potential + EMPs which make it feel like a totally different unit. Officers as well have more going for them with a far better weapon and smoke to cover units from base defenses. 

Snipers are about the only things that are kind of just 'better' versions of each other, and even then 500's reign supreme when sniping on large maps as they're harder to trace. 

2 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

Aren't buffs and nerfs just part of the balancing process, or are you talking about a gameplay system that has been introduced?

Talking about actual temporary stat boosts in-game. 

2 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "Ren-X wears more of its features on the outside". Could you elaborate please?

They're a lot more easily noticeable and impactful on gameplay. 

2 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

We have Phase Tanks in APB and the open map design isn't a problem, though the balance of these units is tailored to their role with the map size in mind.

I dunno.. I still haven't seen a truly well coordinated Phase Tank rush of more than 10. Pretty sure if we had a PUG in APB we could break the game very very easily with its map designs

 

2 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

think you're a bit wrong about the Spy though. The Spy has a few different layers of gameplay that make him one of the most intriguing units to play.

Every experience I remember is just looking at people trying to be spies and very easily picking them out. Also it turns into more waiting around and being a -1 player for your own team, much like people play SBHs in Ren... though at least SBHs have a decent weapon and disrupt the field when used correctly. 

------

I actually don't mind chokepoints so long as the fields themselves are open.  

  

 

[vandal33]

22 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "Renegade X has more features". In terms of vehicles, APB has a LOT more. Granted Renegade X just introduced that commander view feature which seems cool, but I couldn't get it to work properly last time I played, so I can't form an opinion on it. It's very hard to say that one game has more features than another without establishing a baseline of what a feature is and then counting them up. Though both games have a good amount of features, I'd say.

I do agree with you about infantry units shouldn't have too much abilities as it devalues other classes and that I'm against purchasable mines, repair guns, etc. If people are getting bored with their character being stuck to one specialization, they can still have fun with the purchasable airstrike (it's single-use and doesn't devalue other classes, so im fine with airstrikes), become the commander and lead, hunt down the commander-spotted targets to get extra CP, or still be useful by spotting enemies/crates with the "spotting" feature. That's why I said RenX has more features, to point out that people can still have fun with these "extra features" without giving them too much abilities that devalues other characters. 

Talking about Red Alert Path Beyond a little bit: Regarding the point about some infantry classes have no sidearms, I'm aware the Rifle Soldier doesn't need one as his weapon have infinite ammo but it's not just about that, it's also about making it more interesting/appealing. The Riflemen for example is a simple balanced class that comes with a rifle and doesn't need a handgun. We can increase its reloading time so the handgun becomes useful and buff other aspects to rebalance it out. I know it's unnecessary (and extra work) as the character is already balanced and adding a handgun to balance the reloading speed nerf will only makes things more complicated to players, but this complexity is what makes it more interesting. I find being forced to switch to a sidearm is more interesting than simply do nothing and wait for your gun to reload. (I'm not suggesting this change for APB, just wanna make a point).

22 hours ago, One Winged Angel said:

APB isn't trying to be Renegade, whereas Renegade X IS. Obviously you're going to enjoy Renegade X more if you prefer Renegade, but the fact of the matter is the choices made in APB are made in order to give infantry clearly defined roles that have strengths and weaknesses, which makes team composition a LOT more important in rushes and such.

This is exactly what I wanted to talk about in this thread. Going back to topic about how we want to rebuild Renegade X, do we want to make changes while making it still look like Renegade, or change it without trying to be Renegade? Changing the game without trying to be renegade for example :

• removing some of the existing characters, vehicles or buildings,
• adding new weapons/classes/vehicles/buildings that's not even relevant to C&C 
• remove tiberium harvesting, replace income collection with something else
• replace the GDI and Nod factions with something else (example: McDonald's vs KFC)

[Madkill40]

I think all the other 'classes' besides the free infantry tiers and Tier 1 infantry could be more Pick'n'build your own class/loadout.

Infantry

Take the stats of each infantry class such as (Gunner, LCG, BHS, Hotwire, Technician, Mobius, Raveshaw etc.) but this only allows the player to pick a character model with pre-set stats, on top of this the player can choose from an arsenal of weapons at each factions disposal. (For Nod; Chaingun, LazerCG, Lazer Rifle, Flamethrower etc & for GDI; GDIs weapons with names I don't remember etc.)

Upon selection of class based on the set stats starts the price anywhere between 150 credits to 500 credits, each choice of equipment 1 Primary, and up to 4 secondary's increased the overall loadout.

Example 1: You could select the 'Gunner' class stats, base price 300 credits, with Repair Gun (Hotwire's Rep gun) adds 200 credits. 500 credits for a tougher engineer but not much else to that engineer.

Example 2: You select the 'Mobius', base price 350 credits, with Patch's gun adding 150 credits, sub-machine gun sidearm adds 100 credits, 600 credits all together. 

How the game calculates the final price I am not entirely sure of the math on that one, (probably something to do with the highest multipliers with some magical excel formula, idk) but the cost of different load-outs would be key to balancing such a varied system. 

For Nod the SBH would become Tier 1 infantry for obvious undesirable load-out reasons, or just be incredibly expensive for players wanting to Railgun n Stealth. (Scoping with sniper rifle should remove stealth, just sayin')

Veterancy

With this in mind, just to add onto Yosh's 10-step Vet program with 10 levels of veterancy, this could introduce an more XCOM style of 'promotion' where the player can select an specific buff more in-line with what they're wanting to achieve with their own character customization(s), outside of the initial boost in stats per rank'up. Each option for promotion either remains linear with the same 3 options per rank'up regardless of class, or, is completely randomized per-game and rank'up to avoid the dreaded "1337 1oadou7". Randomized would be ace, so long as duplicate buffs weren't possible. Each buff either increasing a multiplier attack/def/speed, reducing hip-fire spread, as well as vehicle-specific buffs.

Vehicles

Vehicles as one-trick units are nice, but vehicles with X-abilities would be interesting too. Med tank which can deploy an smoke bomb, APCs with some kind of napalm/tib bomb, aircraft with potentially different weapon loadouts (so some players could fly bomber-equipped craft specifically for taking out heavier vehicles or a large group of small vehicles) 
I suppose if vehicles in RenX had a simpler load-out of the Empire's mod's vehicle load-outs, where- So like Planetside 2 load-out simplicity actually.

Gameplay

I've frequently dreamed up an capture-the-base type of map where one team holds off against the other team but one of the teams' bases cannot be destroyed so it is down to the defending team to keep their base alive for as long as possible, if the defending team holds out long enough then they either win or are enabled access to destroy the other teams' base with a lot of ease.

Additionally/Alternatively, a game-mode where players can pick where they spawn but bases are more sporadic by being spread out, teams each start with one small base with an Barracks/HON each and must capture 2 other bases to gain access to the rest of their tech-tree. With smaller outposts dotted about the map so capturing base nodes isn't as easy. (Which is one of Unreal Tournament's team-based modes, base capturing) Destroying buildings only pushes them past the point where they are disabled instead of dead forever, however disabling the buildings increases the rate in which control nodes can be captured. 

 

I think I just want RenegadeSideX2