Add Recon Bikes To All Maps

[DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr]

Thanks to all these new players I've been able to binge games, match after match; I've been playing a lot recently. I'd say the gameplay is well balanced and every unit is useful. We had some great matches on those tiberian sun maps with the expanded vehicle roster.

I see the Attack Cycle has been taken out and replaced by the much less over powered Recon Bike. I finally got a chance to use the Recon Bike for a good chunk of time, and it's definitely not over powered. How could it be? It's a niche unit with paper armor. It's difficult to drive at first but once you get the hang of it it's really fun, and it's useful - you can race to the front line with a technician and help out the tanks and artillery, can chase down retreating mammoth tanks and finish them off, can flank their position and run over the engineers repairing, can lay down some decent fire power on tanks and buildings.

But it's in no way a game changer, as some people wrongly thought. It's not like if they're added then GDI is suddenly going to get wrecked every time. It's just another part of Nod's arsenal, with a LOT of people being puzzled over it's absence. It's an iconic unit for Nod that makes playing as Nod more fun.

So lets bring it back into the fold.

Edited July 9, 2020 by DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr

[dtdesign]

The Recon Bike is very strange due to its high velocity combined with its extreme maneuverability, doing a sharp 90 degree is like what, 9g on the driver? It causes homing missiles to be unable to hit it at all, relying on projectile weapons to deal significant damage.

Regular missiles already have issues properly tracking a buggy, but the recon bike is much worse than that. Everything about it feels strange in some way, it's a complete outlier when compared to all other vehicles in the game.

I guess a more sensible turn rate would be enough to put it in line, on the plus side making it easier for inexperienced players to drive. Oh and also it is way too cheap in regards to its early game power, it can easily 1v1 any MRLS due to the laughable homing rockets. GDI needs some kind of compensation, otherwise this will favor Nod heavily.

The maps that implement the purchasable recon bike have been designed with it in mind. Just think of Crashsite with its Titan/Wolverine available in the abandoned WF, the whole map was designed to work well with them. Slapping these or other vehicles on other maps can really break the balance of these maps. Lets face it, most maps in RenX are basically abandoned and contain the same flaws for many years, randomly adding new vehicles without adjusting these maps has the potential of breaking them. And you can't easily roll back that changes without a massive uproar, because you would be taking things away from players.

[Tytonium]

The newest recon bike is an abomination. A sexy looking one at that, but its like that one horrible lecherous woman you know. Sure she is pretty, but her personality is rotten to its core and she manipulates everyone around her to be miserable. She's just an irredeemably terrible person and you get real tired of all these recon bikes driving around sucking your soul out.

Now the original attack cycle, there's a woman. Might not be as pretty as the aforementioned  walking pile of loathsome hate above, but she has a really good personality. She seems to genuinely care about YOU and all the others around her. There's no manipulation or an attempt to make you miserable going on whatsoever. No, she wants everyone to be happy. That's the kind of girl I would take.

Unfortunately though Renegade X is like real life in the fact that the large majority of people tend to be like the newly added recon bike, and nowadays its a rare sight to see that beautiful and stunning attack cycle. Man I sure do miss her often. But when we do cross paths once in a blue moon, it's something spectacular.

[Tommy]

I added those to all NvN maps but the thing there is: Both teams can buy them. In a normal GDI vs Nod setup they can be too powerful in early game due to their rockets dealing the same damage as stealth tanks do

[DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr]

19 hours ago, dtdesign said:

The Recon Bike is very strange due to its high velocity combined with its extreme maneuverability, doing a sharp 90 degree is like what, 9g on the driver? It causes homing missiles to be unable to hit it at all, relying on projectile weapons to deal significant damage.

It does VERY sharp turns when not accelerating. It is pretty insane, so the devs might want to tone the turn speed down a bit. But who ever is driving that bike making those sharp turns on you is unable to fire off clean shots, he's in full retreat. As soon as you corner a bike, he's dead. They are not hard to counter, they are hard to use.

19 hours ago, dtdesign said:

Regular missiles already have issues properly tracking a buggy, but the recon bike is much worse than that. Everything about it feels strange in some way, it's a complete outlier when compared to all other vehicles in the game.

Practice makes perfect. Obviously a bike at max speed cutting around a corner is going to be difficult to hit. But once you do hit it it's basically dead. It's the weakest unit in the game. Don't rely on the tracking, lead your shots better next time so you actually hit it.

My advice when driving a bike: don't hold down the left/right direction key for too long. Otherwise you'll spin too far into your turn and completely mess up your aim. If the bike was in all the maps, we'd get to practice using it every match, not just occasionally. Then you can get better and figure out all the nuances to it.

19 hours ago, dtdesign said:

Oh and also it is way too cheap in regards to its early game power, it can easily 1v1 any MRLS due to the laughable homing rockets. GDI needs some kind of compensation, otherwise this will favor Nod heavily.

On one of the maps at least, the bike is indeed very cheap - $250. It's supposed to be $500, so that's a map issue, not a unit issue. Also, If you're worried about early rushes, we could boost the price to $800. The bike should be more of a novelty, not a go-to strategy, so I'd say either make it less effective or increase it's cost.

As for GDI having a counter to the bike? Well anything that counters the buggy also counters the bike, more or less, especially anti tank mines and EMP grenades. So GDI doesn't really need a new unit specifically for countering the bike. And I don't want GDI getting their own bike; the bike is Nod's toy, not GDI's. Keep it lore friendly.

If GDI really wants a new unit, I'd suggest the rocket hum-vee. A self explanatory unit - functions like a hum-vee, fires homing rockets like the bike. It's a light load for the dev team; just take the already existing hum-vee model and swap out it's machine gun with a rocket launcher. Price it at $550; just like how the hum-vee is 50 dollars more expensive than the buggy, the rocket hum-vee is 50 dollars more expensive than the Recon Bike.

19 hours ago, dtdesign said:

The maps that implement the purchasable recon bike have been designed with it in mind. Just think of Crashsite with its Titan/Wolverine available in the abandoned WF, the whole map was designed to work well with them. Slapping these or other vehicles on other maps can really break the balance of these maps. Lets face it, most maps in RenX are basically abandoned and contain the same flaws for many years, randomly adding new vehicles without adjusting these maps has the potential of breaking them. And you can't easily roll back that changes without a massive uproar, because you would be taking things away from players.

I'm 90 percent sure that the stock maps would play out more or less the same if Bikes were added for Nod. Bikes are basically faster smaller buggies with no passengers. We've already tested them in the original Renegade with the original maps, and it worked out fine.

Implementing the recon bike in Renegade X shouldn't be too demanding on the dev's part, and if it has to be rolled back it's not the end of the world, since the bike still exists in those other maps.

In Renegade X there's a build limit for all vehicles, so in any game, unless the entire GDI team is asleep, GDI should be able to fight off any minor bike spam allowed to occur out of the small vehicle pool limited to 11 vehicles.

16 hours ago, Tytonium said:

The newest recon bike is an abomination. A sexy looking one at that, but its like that one horrible lecherous woman you know. Sure she is pretty, but her personality is rotten to its core and she manipulates everyone around her to be miserable. She's just an irredeemably terrible person and you get real tired of all these recon bikes driving around sucking your soul out.

Now the original attack cycle, there's a woman. Might not be as pretty as the aforementioned  walking pile of loathsome hate above, but she has a really good personality. She seems to genuinely care about YOU and all the others around her. There's no manipulation or an attempt to make you miserable going on whatsoever. No, she wants everyone to be happy. That's the kind of girl I would take.

Unfortunately though Renegade X is like real life in the fact that the large majority of people tend to be like the newly added recon bike, and nowadays its a rare sight to see that beautiful and stunning attack cycle. Man I sure do miss her often. But when we do cross paths once in a blue moon, it's something spectacular.

lol yeah the Attack Cycle was epic. It was like an MLRS on speed. But the Recon Bike is more balanced. She is in no way an abomination. Those personality traits of hers you speak of are only a reflection of your own personal interactions with her; she doesn't treat everyone the same way she treats you.

However, there's always room for improvement. First and foremost, she gotta lay off the crack. That's what makes her act so crazy, FYI. But it also makes her a demon in the sack - after toking a huge crack blast she can deepthroat like nobody's business. But that's a story for another time.

8 hours ago, Cynthia said:

I added those to all NvN maps but the thing there is: Both teams can buy them. In a normal GDI vs Nod setup they can be too powerful in early game due to their rockets dealing the same damage as stealth tanks do

You can change their damage dealing.

My idea is an experiment with the North American server, since there's plenty of fresh meat over there willing to try out new things. Implement the bikes for Nod into all maps priced at $800. Or price it at $500 but lower it's weapon damage so it's not as powerful as the stealth tank's. Lower the rate-of-fire I'd say. With either change comes less incentive for players to buy the bike over the stealth tank/STANK. Also, bikes are definitely no replacement for light tanks and artillery, so I doubt players would change their build habits much.

If the bike is implemented properly, and it will be, players on both teams would barely notice it's addition, because there are no obtuse changes to the meta game - matches still play out relatively the same as they did before without the bikes. The bike is just one more toy for the C&C sandbox, a toy that was always supposed to be in that sandbox.

I don't imagine a bike rush in Renegade X would be much worse than a rocket officer rush, and like always, most players will find ways to counter it. In fact  they've already found out how to counter it, thanks to their past dealings with the buggies - anything that counters a buggy counters a bike. There is no learning curve for destroying bikes, just driving them.

Also, if GDI wants a new toy, maybe find someone who wants to model a hum-vee with a rocket launcher, so that you can offer GDI a similar unit to the bike in the form of a rocket hum-vee.  We did the same in OG Renegade. 

Remember the Recon Bike was actually in Renegade multiplayer. It was cut out at the last minute because the programers ran out of development time, so the physics for the bike were never coded right. Hence why players only saw the bike once in the campaign, and it was in a cutscene FFS. lol, you couldn't even drive the bike! That was such a let down.

But years later, with massive improvements from modders like the tiberian technologies group, some servers re-implemented the recon bike, with it's physics fixed up and it's damage output and health balanced. Then they put in a TOW rocket hum-vee for GDI, which was similarily playtested and balanced out.

As far as I could tell adding in those two units worked out just fine, for we had some great matches, on the original maps too. It was a blast. They were implemented properly, so both teams barely noticed their additions. Games still came down to the same tried-and-true strategies.

Edited July 9, 2020 by DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr

[DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr]

Oh come on, there's got to be more interest in this. I remember when I first got Renegade I was like "What the fuck? Where's the god damn bike? And how come I can't build bases?" but back to the bike: I've played Renegade to DEATH. For like 10 years, over and over again, I've used every single class and every single vehicle. Except for the Bike.

Alright so after some lengthy discussion, we've cut thru all the nonsense and finally got to the main reason why Bikes haven't been fully implemented: their damage output is equal to the stealth tanks, meaning, $500 bike rushes would for the most part be too OP for GDI to handle.

The first solution to this problem is the simplest: Up the price to $800.

I'd prefer lore accuracy though. Keep the Bike at $500, but lower it's damage output near the rocket soldier's level. Like how the Attack Buggy's weapon is a more powerful version of the Officer's chaingun, the Recon Bike's missiles are a more powerful version of the rocket launcher.

Perhaps lower the bike's damage s little bit and then lower the rate-of-fire enough to lessen the overall damage-per-second.

I gotta do some tests.

 

Edited August 8, 2020 by DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr