APC rushes are a valid tactic, there's nothing about it that bends the rules. It's cheap and irritating, but valid.
APC rushes bring back the glory of the original.
Yep.
But it's a result of poor balance. You have to do something absolutely out of the way that is absolutely counter-intuitive to gamble for victory. Way to kick game design in the guts!
Well, let me just mirror my posts here, first what is wrong, then a couple of my suggestions.
[quote]I've been trying to have this discussion in "New content" thread, but it fruitless and off-topic there, and it is big enough of an issue to deserve it's own thread.
In short: There are classes in RenegadeX that are better than others. This shouldn't be a thing, it has never been a thing in any CnC game worth it's salt, and yet it's here in this very game, and to a huge degree.
To start off with a bang:
[size=200]Engineer/Technician/Hotwire[/size]
These are the classes that you want to play if you want to win. I would go as far as saying that besides these and SBH (Stealth Black Hand), there are no classes capable of effectively dealing with buildings on their own. It is no secret that an easy way to easily get an upper hand is to fill an APC with these and rush a building, then try to bomb it's MCT, due to the many explosives they carry.
As for their combat ability, they can use remote explosives as an offensive tool, throwing it at foe of any kind, be it a tank or infantry, and detonating for instant/nearly instant kill. Even their mines can be used offensively to a degree, placing them while retreating to lure the enemy onto them. They can also use tiberium auto-rifle, much like any other class - this doesn't mean it makes them balanced relative to the other classes, though. The weapon is quite powerful on it's own and makes the class that much better at defending itself without a powerful primary of their own.
Not only are they the best offensive class, they are also the best defensive class. They can repair anything, from buildings, to vehicles, to infantry. They can lay mines around their base, and even in enemy base, absolutely anywhere. They can disable any sort of explosive, superweapon beacon, and they can capture tech buildings
And last but not least, they are the class that you want to use for vehicle warfare, due to their aforementioned repair ability. Once their vehicle gets destroyed, they can just repair whatever friendly vehicle is around. And if they find themselves surrounded by enemy vehicles, they can use their explosives to take them down or at least deal heavy damage to them.
[size=200]Every other class[/size]
Their worst downside is that they are not Engineers/Techs/Hotties. They have no special abilities that Engineers do. They can't capture anything, effectively destroy any buildings, they are not as good for vehicle warfare, they can't repair anything, they only carry one measly timed C4. The only thing they are good for is killing enemy troops - this is an issue in an objective-based game that RenegadeX is, where you are supposed to destroy the enemy base, not X tanks or Y soldiers. This one their attribute only helps for helping their Engineers reach the enemy base by escort so those can deal the damage there.
Their only true strength is bigger health pool and their ability to defend superweapon beacon in case the Engineers have already taken care of the base defenses, possibly by the means of APC/tank rush. Up until that point, there is no point to them, other than preventing enemy engineers from doing the same to their base. Then there are many classes that are bad even at that, like flamethower.
[size=200]Why is this an issue?[/size]
You have essentially two classes in the game:
-Engineer and his upgrades, which are superior.
-Those other classes and their upgrades, which are inferior in every aspect except man-to-man combat.
Engineers are still better and more useful.
[b]If anyone mentions faction/map balance in this thread I swear I will personally track them down and suffocate them in their sleep.[/b][/quote]
[quote][quote="Noodlesocks"]Chem troopers and gunners are pretty good against structures and mendoza/mobius can kill structures singlehandedly if they get to the MCT.[/quote]
Oh, nice to see someone who actually understood my issue.
Problem is, even as they do possess the same ability to destroy buildings, they don't share the other abilities, meaning Engineer is still a better choice.
All in all, I feel like the whole class system needs an overhaul. Let me just write it down now that we know the problem at hand.
[size=200]Remote explosives[/size]
One of the more obvious issues is that Engineers have remote explosives unlike any other class. What do they need them for? Base defense? Mines do a better job. Those remote explosives basically just make Engineers better at everything they weren't ever supposed to be good for in the first place. They don't really need them. Goodbye APC rushes, we won't need you in the bright future where base defenses aren't invincible. More on that later
[size=200]Repair gun[/size]
Then there's the repair gun. That thing is way way too useful for just one class. It should either be changed up, split and shared by multiple classes, left as is and shared by multiple classes to make them somewhat on-par with Engineers as a temporary band-aid, or outright removed. As the latter two are pretty much self-explanatory (and quite extreme for my taste), let me just explain what changes I had in mind:
[size=150]Re-balancing it[/size]
I've already written down just what a repair gun can do in the OP. It basically has four basic functions: Building repair, vehicle repair, infantry healing and tech building capture.
[b]Buildings[/b]
Engineers should no doubts have the ability to repair buildings. However, the way it works now, the offenders have an extremely hard time breaking base defense when there are multiple engineers camping the MCT. This makes vehicle sieges difficult and prompts for extreme measures like single-class rushes. On top of that, healing speed from outside has been apparently buffed in RenX, making it all that easier to turtle.
One design aspect that is urgently needed is to make more than one engineer camping the MCT redundant. If there are more camping it, it won't increase the healing rate any more. This would both prompt people not to pick Engineer when there are more than 5 on their team already repairing the buildings, and make the defense easier to break by vehicle/infantry siege. In the broader sense, it would bring more game into the game - people would actually have to go out and destroy/scare off those mams pounding on their base rather than getting 50 engineers and camp the MCT's or doing whatever else the oversaturated class can do, rather than waiting for the enemy to come up with a better plan and eventually finish them off 3 fruitless hours later. The game would also become less defense-based, more in the spirit of CnC - if you camp for too long, you lose to the team that knows that camping doesn't win games. And let me put this straight: at this point defense is too easy. There is no point telling me that you can use tactic X or Y to win easily. Defense is easy, breaking it is counter-intuitive and that is a fact.
An alternative measure would be to break building HP into segments instead. This would make chip-damage weapons more effective against buildings - only, say, 20% of building's health would be needed to empty one segment. Once a segment empties, it can't be refilled, much like destroyed buildings can't be repaired. In another case, it would make MCT campers less effective against organized vehicle pushes. The problem that exists now is that while they do usually take more than 20% of the building's health, but it always gets repaired. With segments, each push would be successful to a degree, and if defenders don't do anything about it, they lose the building after 5 pushes.
[b]Vehicles[/b]
You just bought a Mammoth Tank, sweet. What class do you go? Sydney? Mobius? Nah. Hotwire. You don't want to lose 1000 credits and a ton of firepower just because you couldn't go out and repair it.
This is another thing that makes Engineer unbalanced relative to the other classes. They are the class you want to pilot vehicles as. Every class should have equal chances when it comes to piloting vehicles.
I hate to remove features, especially the good ones. But one way to break Engineer+vehicle relationship would be to make it impossible to repair your own vehicle. I know it hurts. I know you hate me and think it's not overpowered because you have to go out and you can have your tank stolen etc etc. But that's thankfully not the only way.
Another way would be to give every class a blowtorch that works like point-blank repair gun, but only on vehicles. You might say that I've played too much Battlefield 3, but the truth is, I've only seen a few videos of blowtorch drivebys on helicopters and such, never before have I played the game. Ahem, so basically, you could repair your vehicle as any class, but Engineer would still have a more powerful Repair Gun for that.
[b]Infantry healing[/b]
Frankly it is pretty hard to heal infantry with Repair Gun, so I'd keep it as it is, but I have an ide-
[img]http://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/thumb/2/26/Medic.png/250px-Medic.png[/img]
[i]Hello frauleins! No fear, herr Medic is hier![/i]
Yeah we could have a Medic infantry class I guess, but that was not my initial idea. I thought it would be much cooler to have a Medigun secondary weapon that any class would be able to equip - at the expense of it not being Tiberium Auto-Rifle, and yes, it would only last one life, much like secondary replacements are meant to. Have I told you that Medics in TF2 drop like flies? And there aren't even as many snipers and sniper-friendly maps! Now you know.
And I guess passive healing inside a vehicle wouldn't hurt, at least for certain types of vehicle like APC. All in all, those things are expensive.
[b]Tech building capture[/b]
At this point only Engineers can do it, which is, well, lame. Especially the incredible pistol fights that always occur around them as normal classes don't care for tech buildings, they can't do anything with them, they can't destroy them, they can't capture them, waiting for an enemy engineer to kill isn't as much fun as blowing up tanks. Really, what's the point of even getting near one when not playing Engineer?
I already mentioned blowtorch, that could be one way for the other classes to capture them.
TB's hilarious suicide when trying to C4 one is another inspiration. Simply damage it to capture it. I don't like this idea too much, but it could work.
Or simply use it like you would a normal purchase terminal and wait for beacon-like "hacking" bar to fill.
[size=200]Tiberium Auto-Rifle super-engineers[/size]
Non-issue with the next patch, hopefully.
If you made it this far, I applaud you. Incredible scrolling skills. I wish my mousewheel was so fast.[/quote]
[QUOTE=Lijitsu;44155473]Those are two entirely different facilities. Like... I know gameplay comes before realism, but it doesn't really make sense for a nuke silo to also function as an ion cannon. A radar or communications tower would be the best solution.[/QUOTE]
perhaps GDI uses the silos communications arrays to precisely target the ion cannon
they could add some communications looking stuff
I do like that idea of more limited support gear for your pistol slot, being able to do one of healing people, repairing and capturing buildings and disarming, or repairing vehicles for a couple hundred credits would be a nice incentive to play other classes.
I don't think engineer APC rushes themselves are a problem though. The reason they work is because they're an organised offense against a disorganised defence, not because engineers are god-tier.
[QUOTE=ReligiousNutjob;44158948]What would those really do that wouldn't too much upset the balance of the game?[/QUOTE]
In classic the custom maps with construction yards gave it an auto-repair function that worked incredibly well. In classic building repair pretty much [i]had[/i] to be done at the MCT though, repairing the walls gave you jack all for speed. They've got to fix that if they want to bring the old game back, because at this point there's almost no reason to repair via MCT as a tech. Unless you're being pounded by MRLS or something where MCT is only barely covering it, you can just stand outside and heal with no problems.
[quote]And there aren't even as many snipers and sniper-friendly maps! Now you know.[/quote]
What. Every map in Renegade is sniper friendly. I should know, I used to be source of a lot of rage on even the stock maps.
[editline]7th March 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=ReligiousNutjob;44158948]3 more buildings would mean the bases would need to be colossal.[/QUOTE]
You should see Cairo. Still one of the best custom maps for Renegade I've ever seen. The bases were pretty damned big I'll admit, probably around twice or three times the size of the Islands bases. Multiple defense structures, construction yard, and I think there were indeed multiple power plants - one for each defense structure. Defensive air units were common, I used to fly around as a tech for spot repairs and tagging snipers and tunnel runners.
[editline]7th March 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Sableye;44160322]perhaps GDI uses the silos communications arrays to precisely target the ion cannon
they could add some communications looking stuff[/QUOTE]
Well in that case what's the point of it not being a communications array period? Both super weapons function via beacon, so both can benefit from the array.
[QUOTE=Lijitsu;44160434]What. Every map in Renegade is sniper friendly. I should know, I used to be source of a lot of rage on even the stock maps.[/QUOTE]
Probably worded the joke wrong, I meant that in TF2 there are less sniper friendly maps and yet Medics still drop like flies.
[editline]7th March 2014[/editline]
My problem with APC rushes is that it's a very specific tactic that is popular because it's one of the very few ways to break the enemy team's defenses.
A balanced game should have more forgiving defense so people would have more freedom in their approach, rather than APC/Gunner rushing every time. Think of something more fluid, where classes are more balanced and you can play whatever you want, and still be able to break the defense by simply having a better team with better communication. Understand better communication as hitting Q at everything in sight, not yelling "ALL GO HOTWIRE DOING APC RUSH" and after a few minutes "good game, the better team won this match with superior skill and communication"
[QUOTE=Drury;44161128]Probably worded the joke wrong, I meant that in TF2 there are less sniper friendly maps and yet Medics still drop like flies.
[editline]7th March 2014[/editline]
My problem with APC rushes is that it's a very specific tactic that is popular because it's one of the very few ways to break the enemy team's defenses.
A balanced game should have more forgiving defense so people would have more freedom in their approach, rather than APC/Gunner rushing every time. Think of something more fluid, where classes are more balanced and you can play whatever you want, and still be able to break the defense by simply having a better team.[/QUOTE]
Except competent teams kill APC rushes.
At the end of the day nobody is exactly a super genius in that case.
[editline]7th March 2014[/editline]
If defense was harder and engineer less powerful as an offensive class, the game would actually have to be played the way it was meant to be played and it would be more about which team comes up with a better offensive strategy, rather than better defensive strategy.
Defense is only "easy" because buildings are repaired too fast from outside, airstrikes are a thing, and Nod vehicles are complete shit against buildings. The missile launch on rockets damned sure doesn't help in the case of air units, either.
Anyone else think killing infantry should be rewarded with more credits? It's sort of ridiculous that I can wipe out a group of engies enabling my team to kill a pack of mammoths and not get any compensation.
You get more credits for killing paid classes.
As per my previous point, that wouldn't be such a big deal if there were less engineers overall.
Engineers should have less health, they are not a combat class.
[editline]9th March 2014[/editline]
Would be better if they just released modding/mutator capability sooner, we could sort stuff ourselves.
It's not as simple as that.
Whenever I play any other class, I feel like I shoulda been playing engineer.
I mean - you're driving a tank as Sydney for example. You get hit. You can't repair it. Shoulda been playing Engineer.
You're near a tech building as McFarland. You wanna capture it, you can't. Shoulda been playing Engineer.
You're inside their base. There is MCT. You have your timed explosives, but that won't do the job and chances are you are playing a class that is ineffective against buildings (there are too many classes ineffective against buildings btw, there are like 2 that aren't, one of them being the engineer). Shoulda been playing Engineer with three explosives.
There are like so many reasons to play Engineer that playing any other class is like a huge deal. You like can't do absolutely anything but kill people when you don't play Engineer. Hence there are so many Engineers around.
It'll be less of a problem when they fix the bought weapons stick forever bug.
Right now there's even less reason to play anything else since not only can you do anything as an engineer, you can use a Tib rifle and destroy infantry too.
[QUOTE=Lijitsu;44160434]In classic the custom maps with construction yards gave it an auto-repair function that worked incredibly well. [/QUOTE]
Maps with Construction yard would also respawn destroyed building after a timer passed. Provided both auto repair, and a way to get structures back. It was a nice feature on some of the maps, though annoying on others, and not all maps with the construction yard had the respawn enabled.
[QUOTE=Gunner th;44186138]Maps with Construction yard would also respawn destroyed building after a timer passed. Provided both auto repair, and a way to get structures back. It was a nice feature on some of the maps, though annoying on others, and not all maps with the construction yard had the respawn enabled.[/QUOTE]
Oh god, just imagine the more stalemate-y type maps, like Whiteout with it's already respawning Über defences.
In RA:APB they used the construction yard just for auto repair, and it worked incredibly well. They also did the repair pad very well, which I would love for that to be a capture-able structure.
[QUOTE=Cpt.Funkymonk;44190856]In RA:APB they used the construction yard just for auto repair, and it worked incredibly well. They also did the repair pad very well, which I would love for that to be a capture-able structure.[/QUOTE]
The repair pad was good but the thing with APB was there was no way to repair vehicles for soviets, and allies could only repair them via the mechanic (950 credits) which meant it becomes much more important.
I really don't see it being used in renegade if you can repair vehicles with engineers for free.
I think you could also sell vehicles on it.
I remember a hack job repair pad on a few custom maps. I also remember landing pads where you could buy just aircraft. There was quite a few interesting buildings people came up with.
A map where you can't buy aircraft from your base but has a capturable helipad where you can buy them would be interesting.
i discovered the other day that patch is quite capable of harasing mobile artillery, just pounding them with his full auto explosives machinegun thingy, though the recoil on that shouldn't be as big as it is,
i end up only being able to get off at most 3-5 round bursts, the scope mode should just do burst fire anyways
[QUOTE=ReligiousNutjob;44206080]Those grenades are OP as all hell[/QUOTE]
They're grenades, and all those people were held up onto one spot.
[QUOTE=Gunner th;44192705]I remember a hack job repair pad on a few custom maps. I also remember landing pads where you could buy just aircraft. There was quite a few interesting buildings people came up with.[/QUOTE]
there wasn't a hack job landing pad, it was on one of the stock maps, it was one with all the ice
i can't wait for them to bring back CnC City, though i hope they make it MUCH bigger
[QUOTE=Giovannii;44206402]They're grenades, and all those people were held up onto one spot.[/QUOTE]
Direct hits cause the splash damage to be 3X stronger.
just got on...
[t]http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/3296938495612193165/FEB1ED9796039278E3FD4C11C3D484FBA84370FB/[/t]
..............
Nope, it's not fake.
[img_thumb]https://db.tt/paGyR7qB[/img_thumb]
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