Mines suggestion? Feedback?

[Riou Insuiko]

Mines have been a hot topic since the release of the latest patch. I've got some suggestions regarding this. These suggestions would require maps to individually be tailored to the change.

First is a classification/distinction between mines: Base mines and personal mines.

Mine limits on all maps should be reverted/changed to a maximum equivalent of 3 mines per door. Only within the buildings of your base will you be allowed to place base mines. Base mines behave as mines did previously and do not disappear on death. This change will make it impossible for Hotwire/Technician mines to be placed outside of buildings.

Personal mines will be able to be purchased as additional equipment and take up the secondary equipment slot in your inventory. For example you won't be able to take mines & a superweapon beacon. One or the other. These mines can be placed anywhere. Personal mines will have 75% the strength of standard mines, disappear on death,  and cost 1,000 credits for a 3 pack. 3 being your personal mine limit. These mines should also have less health, in line with their strength, I'd say that they should have 25% less health than base mines making disarming them quicker and easier. Also faster with EMP weapons than standard base mines.

Interested in hearing feedback regarding this idea.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Riou Insuiko

[HavocPrime]

i think mines tripping should be notified

[Mystic~]

My thoughts are that 1000 credits just for three mines seems really expensive, the same cost as a beacon or mobius and more than an airstrike and on top of this they're weaker than ordinary mines and will disappear the moment you die, well that's just silly. If personal mines are going to be purchased as extras they need to remain around even after you die once they're placed, I don't think they need to be that expensive and if they get emp'd people are going to feel like they're wasting too much at that price range... maybe just 100 credits per mine? Capping them at 3 per person seems sensible. I don't mind if they do less damage, although this might become confusing if its not communicated by a change of colour or something if people think that base door/window mines and personal mines behave the same.

[Guest]

old suggestion from 2018

 

anything is better than whats currently implamented lets be real

[Riou Insuiko]

26 minutes ago, Mystic~ said:

My thoughts are that 1000 credits just for three mines seems really expensive, the same cost as a beacon or mobius and more than an airstrike and on top of this they're weaker than ordinary mines and will disappear the moment you die, well that's just silly. If personal mines are going to be purchased as extras they need to remain around even after you die once they're placed, I don't think they need to be that expensive and if they get emp'd people are going to feel like they're wasting too much at that price range... maybe just 100 credits per mine? Capping them at 3 per person seems sensible. I don't mind if they do less damage, although this might become confusing if its not communicated by a change of colour or something if people think that base door/window mines and personal mines behave the same.

I disagree. I think they should be intentionally expensive by design. Both in credit cost and functionality. The broad idea being that it should be much harder overall to place mines in other locations but you have the option to do so if you have the credits. The scenario where 1,000 credits for 3 is fair is when you are playing a defensive role. It's easy to justify the 1,000 credits for extra mines if you are otherwise repairing a building for example or scouting for intruders. The personal mines in general would be an additional defensive measure against sneaking or rushes that would be running into buildings. They would not be designed to act as a 'tripwire' to alert you of an intruder. Thus they would not be added to the mine count/total. In the same way that tank mines are absent. They would still make the same noise on explosion or disarming, so you'd be able to hear that.

The problem with having personal mines sticking around even after death or being cheap is that when you are dominating offensively the other team will have a much, much harder time trying to do infantry rushes or sneaking if the mines stick around forever. When there is no risk of you running out of money and you have the other team locked into their base it'll quickly become a normal strategy to cement that victory by having all of your players purchase and place extra mines in an attempt to completely prevent your base locked opponent from pushing out using infantry. The idea behind them disappearing on death is so that it won't be practical for you to constantly be replenishing them if you are playing an infantry role and have a decent chance of dying. 

You make up a good point that they should be visually distinct. That's something I didn't mention but should be included. Something a bit more than a palate swap might be ideal but maybe you can get away with just changing the colors around a little & the name.

Edited August 15, 2020 by Riou Insuiko

[Ryz]

The 'old' mining system was fine, but needed explanation (like more things ingame).

When there were no new players there were no issues with mines.
WIth new players the mine issues appeared

Whatever system you introduce; without explaining it people will still screw up. The times I've seen people place AT mines in buildings.... Just make clear what it does and so on and things should be fine

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Ryz said:

The 'old' mining system was fine, but needed explanation (like more things ingame).

When there were no new players there were no issues with mines.
WIth new players the mine issues appeared

Whatever system you introduce; without explaining it people will still screw up. The times I've seen people place AT mines in buildings.... Just make clear what it does and so on and things should be fine

yeah i agree.. its like this game needs some sort of.. i dont know.. a tutorial island or something.. hmm

[Riou Insuiko]

4 minutes ago, Kaunas said:

yeah i agree.. its like this game needs some sort of.. i dont know.. a tutorial island or something.. hmm

Send em on over.

[Mystic~]

Can you remember what original Ren-X mines were like, you could run through 5 mines and it could only guarantee killing about one person? There's no way anyone will convince me 3 weak mines are worth 1000 credits. I even think 800 is too much for an airstrike. I know AT mines can be 'slut mined' to block a base entrance and so in theory so could anti-personnel mines, but they're disarmed just like the prior system, throw an EMP, disarm them with a adv engineer or jump over a weak spot.

I don't take any issue with them being weaker damage, or quicker to disarm, but 1,000 credits for 3 shity mines is ridiculous, more so that they just disappear after dying... there needs to be little holographic placeholders in buildings so people know where base mines need to go... as for being able to mine particular spots for extra benefits, I think this is fine and opens up creative play, with a bit more though something can be implemented to prevent people abusing it if anyone can buy them.

[Riou Insuiko]

1 hour ago, Mystic~ said:

Can you remember what original Ren-X mines were like, you could run through 5 mines and it could only guarantee killing about one person? There's no way anyone will convince me 3 weak mines are worth 1000 credits. I even think 800 is too much for an airstrike. I know AT mines can be 'slut mined' to block a base entrance and so in theory so could anti-personnel mines, but they're disarmed just like the prior system, throw an EMP, disarm them with a adv engineer or jump over a weak spot.

I don't take any issue with them being weaker damage, or quicker to disarm, but 1,000 credits for 3 shity mines is ridiculous, more so that they just disappear after dying... there needs to be little holographic placeholders in buildings so people know where base mines need to go... as for being able to mine particular spots for extra benefits, I think this is fine and opens up creative play, with a bit more though something can be implemented to prevent people abusing it if anyone can buy them.

We just disagree then. I would be in favor of making secondary weapons slightly cheaper, something like airstrikes for 500, if there were a structure on death that increased the cost to 1000. Without that I think that the price of secondary items should be high. From my point of view if mines need to be changed to accommodate new players, if they just can't learn on their own, then limiting them to buildings is essential. 

[Mystic~]

Basically, yes.  I think extra battle field mines are fine, but spending 1000 credits just for 3 low damage mines just seems madness, cash to burn, especially when compared to everything else.

Airstrikes sounds like something the comm centre might be useful for, say you get to see enemy movements + cheaper airstrikes. It could be a desirable base building even, but it would mean changing some maps.

With the place holders, it would just take someone to record a nice 5-10 seconds of showing someone placing the mines with a voice over, these useful tips used to fill gaps in between maps played, but maybe they could go only into the skirmish mode as training.

[Ryz]

Can say that in the PUG it worked out 'well' yesterday. No errors turned up with this. 

If the system is good? I doubt it.

Why:

- Normally you would have to choose where to put mines (unless you have a building less)
- This creates chances for Nod (and even GDI) to sneak
- Now you can just mine extra without risking a building to have less mines. For example WF on Goldrush had 9(!) mines - 3 normal and 6 'personal'
- It aids in stalemates and makes it even harder for Nod to win anything. In pubs I barely see Nod win (due lack or coordination / logic, afk sbhs, and the fact GDI is just 'straight forward' put out vehicles, etc.)

Maybe, since the mines are 'zone based' make the personal mines ONLY work in enemy base (so they can be used for offensive mining when defending a beacon / infiltrating).

Normal mines had issues (cause people didn't understand them). Now you cannot make tactical decisions with mines anymore but you 'always' play on safe, making the gameplay more stale. 

Edited August 16, 2020 by Ryz

[TheOlsenTwins]

Yes, some details need to be improved, but overall i like the direction this is going very much!

[Mystic~]

So is the thing where one side can place the whole compliment of mines inside their last remaining building no longer a thing? It's the times where players decide that some buildings on some maps need extra mines that really confuses things, it's often Nod with the Airstrip tower and Hand of Nod when accessible by ramps on air vehicle maps. So long as these extra field mines don't produce a warning when they disappear, I don't necessarily mind when people decide to mine the bridge or back of base route on Goldrush, just have to be careful not to run into them!

Edited August 16, 2020 by Mystic~

[yosh56]

7 hours ago, Ryz said:

Now you can just mine extra without risking a building to have less mines. For example WF on Goldrush had 9(!) mines - 3 normal and 6 'personal'

To clarify.... the WF back door had so many mines on purpose just due to how I mined it. If you saw every building, you'd see some were intentionally short some mines as it's unlikely anyone was ever going to go in there. 3 mines per door is just PUB 'standard'. 

The only reason it jumped to like 9 mines in that door is cuz we just dumped the mines for the dead Refinery in that door...since using that door is Crab's only strategy on that map. 

[Mr. Stagger Lee]

Haven’t posted on here much but, yo, Mining culture is one of the richest parts of what makes ren such a great game. You have the freedom to do whatever you like, but you need the know-how to do it effectively. this applies to many thing/tricks in on this game. A lot of issues not only mining, I think would just be solves by informing the player.. ie A proper training server that walks you though a match with bot or a tutorial or both.

 

[Mr. Stagger Lee]

On 8/15/2020 at 12:16 PM, Kaunas said:

yeah i agree.. its like this game needs some sort of.. i dont know.. a tutorial island or something.. hmm

Yeah they said it all ready. I 3rd this. Like... it’s obvious. You just need to inform the player. Period. You can keep changing things forever and people will still screw up if they are not taught or informed. Having players from all ages, all over the world, just telling people how to play via game chat is not enough.. we gotta show’em how. I think a lot more players woulda stuck from the current influx of people if we’d had proper training tutorial. Literally saw so many people looking for answers and the best advice people got was “go read the ren x Wikipedia page”. Which is fine for me but let’s be real it’s 2020 and people don’t wanna read shit.   
 

tib sun has got to have some sort of tutorial if you expect people to quickly catch on and stick around

[Mr. Stagger Lee]

On 8/15/2020 at 10:34 AM, Ryz said:

The 'old' mining system was fine, but needed explanation (like more things ingame).

When there were no new players there were no issues with mines.
WIth new players the mine issues appeared

Whatever system you introduce; without explaining it people will still screw up. The times I've seen people place AT mines in buildings.... Just make clear what it does and so on and things should be fine

 

[DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr]

@Mr. Stagger Lee Fuck yah, train 'em up

@yosh56  Lee's got a good idea

[Ryz]

On 8/17/2020 at 1:25 AM, yosh56 said:

To clarify.... the WF back door had so many mines on purpose just due to how I mined it. If you saw every building, you'd see some were intentionally short some mines as it's unlikely anyone was ever going to go in there. 3 mines per door is just PUB 'standard'. 

The only reason it jumped to like 9 mines in that door is cuz we just dumped the mines for the dead Refinery in that door...since using that door is Crab's only strategy on that map. 

Ok, clear.

Still the point is that it becomes even harder for Nod to win anything... 

[Snow.]

On 8/15/2020 at 5:34 PM, Ryz said:

The 'old' mining system was fine, but needed explanation (like more things ingame).

When there were no new players there were no issues with mines.
WIth new players the mine issues appeared

Whatever system you introduce; without explaining it people will still screw up. The times I've seen people place AT mines in buildings.... Just make clear what it does and so on and things should be fine

I'm fully agree, and from my point of view thats the main issue we have in this case and the mining system should not be changed at this point.

Mammoth and I had a suggestion how we can do that till we have a "real tutorial map" / Videos or something:

We can use existing structures from PUG - we have VC, server etc. We "just need" mentors and organisators. And maybe we can create with these tutorial videos?

On 8/15/2020 at 3:27 PM, Kaunas said:

old suggestion from 2018

 

anything is better than whats currently implamented lets be real

I fully agree too and its a great pity it was not followed up...

On 8/17/2020 at 4:17 AM, Mr. Stagger Lee said:

You have the freedom to do whatever you like, but you need the know-how to do it effectively. this applies to many thing/tricks in on this game. A lot of issues not only mining, I think would just be solves by informing the player.. ie A proper training server that walks you though a match with bot or a tutorial or both.

 

That is what I liked on the old system, it was possible to try out new things and how to best mine with limited mines... And it was not easy to lay mines properly, for example in tunnels or how to defend HON on flying maps and that always gave me a certain challenge.

[TheOlsenTwins]

Sorry, but to come now with, "people just need to explain it to newbs" is just silly.

We've tried that for the past 5 years, it did not work.

Better to enhance the new system, maybe by adding some more mine zones on each map, where previously accepted mines were laid.
 

And also maybe include the personal mines into the 2 mine limit of the AT mines - so you can plant either 2 AT or 2 proxy or one of each (but only with the corresponding char of course) - shouldn't be too many additional mines but will still allow some freedom.

[Handepsilon]

Yes each systems need explanation, but here are the two problems :

1. The vagueness of the mining system. While systems indeed need explaining, a system should be able to explain in of itself what generally needs to be done right. Compare this to the MCT. Every new player will be able to grasp in mere minutes or even seconds to know that... 'ok, it's a weak spot'. Or compare this to the harvy and credits where players would figure out on their own 'Oh, this is our money source, so we need to defend it'.

Mining system on the other hand, needs to be explained intricately. One could say.... 'Ok place a couple in doors' but we don't know how many we need without looking at others first. 'Oh wait, the ramps need some mines too', and then they'll need to calculate again. 'Oh, hold on, you can jump into HoN and Airstrip window', and then they'll need to consider that once again, 'Oh wait, the team mine is full'. Point is, it needs some form of codex to cover up the whole strats of mining. Would be fine, had it not been for point 2, which is :

2. The overimportance of mining. So, players are confused of the mining system because of point 1. What's the consequence of not mining correctly? Well apparently some C4 wielding hobos came inside unchallenged, and boom.... suddenly you lost a building and its' perks without being able to get them back. Mining system is pretty much trial-by-fire, where the consequences of not understanding the meta are losing a game and potentially excommunication from the rest of the team.

Yes, we could make a whole video or tutorial explaining about mining, but really... you expect new players to be willing to spend hours in the tutorial screen when they think they could just learn by doing?

[roweboat]

@Handepsilon are you eluding to the fact that the mining defensive system currently in place should be completed overhauled with something new?

Or a quickfix:

It is not inherently obvious that "proximity mines" = "building defense". Maybe the first step to make things less convoluted, could be to simply give the "building defense mines" a different, more specific name than "proximity mines".

 

E.g. Give a Hotwire 3 proximity mines (used as is) and 3 "Base Defense Mines".

[Handepsilon]

I'd rather have something new really. Your last point about them being door defense is not entirely correct if you include the Nod buildings that you can parkour through the window into

[roweboat]

True enough, I removed the word "door"

[roweboat]

So then the question is, what sort of defense system can be established, that:

 

requires player input, is intuitive and self-evident, can be disabled simply by opposing team, and can have a layer of depth as to not make gameplay stale?

 

Because that is what is required to replace the mining system for defense.

[Mystic~]

I liked the holo mine placeholder idea before as it seems intuitive, but if this is too complex for whatever reason, I don't see why there can't be static painted hexagonal spots on the floor inside buildings where you might expect to want mines placed, make them as a yellow outline to match the colour of the mines, extra ones could be painted as suggested spots for extra mines or different combinations. And I personally think the glass in the HoN needs to be re-enforced glass and not just sugar glass, so maybe you have to blast it out with a couple of Sydney hits or an Orca strike before you can invade it from a Chinook.

I honestly hope there's something more intelligent than floor mines for the Firestorm Expansion, it has to be either internal turrets or laser fenced off that causes damage.

Quote

Yes, we could make a whole video or tutorial explaining about mining, but really... you expect new players to be willing to spend hours in the tutorial screen when they think they could just learn by doing?

A video showing someone placing 2 mines in a pattern of 3 total would only take a couple of seconds in length to show and this would illustrate the point of needing to defend the entrances, it doesn't need 10 minutes of tutorials.

 

Edited August 25, 2020 by Mystic~

[CL Smooth]

How about an occasional random chance of a weapon drop for unequipped engineers healing an MCT?

[roweboat]

@Mystic~

Actually the idea of reinforced glass could be interesting.

 

As it stands, the barracks in an impenetrable fortress compared to the hand of nod

[Handepsilon]

Quote

I honestly hope there's something more intelligent than floor mines for the Firestorm Expansion, it has to be either internal turrets or laser fenced off that causes damage.

I can attest that we will be using the most intelligence defense that we can come up with.

Actual humans

[roweboat]

37 minutes ago, Handepsilon said:

I can attest that we will be using the most intelligence defense that we can come up with.

Actual humans

That's putting alot of faith in erm... people.