Planned Development Games

[Norfenstein]

Let both species build something outside their base.  Give it limited bp.  BUT allow it to confer some advantage to the side that makes it. It can generate credits or evos, it could heal, it could contribute to stage advancement, take your pick.  But make a consequence for losing ground.

Building forward does confer advantages, and they're almost exactly the things you listed. A forward egg/booster/medistation gives health, defensive structures make it easier to get funds (which contribute to stage advancement), and putting pressure on the enemey means they can't as easily attack your main base. And there are consequences for losing ground: you lose the advantages you had, and without the forward base keeping the enemy occupied your main base is weaker because build point queuing prevents you from getting defenses back up immediately.

The slow bp regen is a good feature but an easy response would be to camp harder.

How does "camping harder" help when you have fewer defensive structures protecting you and your spawns?

The whole repeater+bp just feels like a betrayal because the devs say no to everything.  I never thought the devs would consider mobile bases.  Also, I've been very vocal about how 1.2 isn't going to mean anything if camping remains viable in the game.

I read through your posts from the past twelve months. You made some suggestions to address camping (remove luci/tyrant, make ammo cost credits, bouncing barbs), but I didn't see anything that could justify taking personal offense at any of the changes that have been made.

You've also said:

Personally, I wouldn't bother with 1.2.  IMO, it adds very little constructively, introduces a lot of undesirable effects, and ultimately is a drain on everyone's patience.  I would mod 1.1 Tremulous on to a newer engine and give this thing a whole new kick around the internet consciousness.

I think the sum of all the changes works well together.  It feels different but not worse.

I like how the developers are addressing camping and its good.

[temple]

Building forward does confer advantages, and they're almost exactly the things you listed. A forward egg/booster/medistation gives health, defensive structures make it easier to get funds (which contribute to stage advancement), and putting pressure on the enemey means they can't as easily attack your main base. And there are consequences for losing ground: you lose the advantages you had, and without the forward base keeping the enemy occupied your main base is weaker because build point queuing prevents you from getting defenses back up immediately.

The advantages don't mean anything if people just camp.  That is the heart of the matter.  You could have the om directly outside the human base.  If the enemy never leave, what's the point?  That's why the controlling team should get a bonus. So they can speed up the closure of the game.  

Its like boxing and leaning against the ropes.  The opponent swings, you lean on the rope, and eventually your opponent will tire themselves out.  But the difference is there is no score card in Tremulous to decide a victor when time is up or ref to penalize the exploiting player.  

Having a booster or medi outside their base doesn't change the fact that one team has to risk/waste their upgrades beating against a base while the other team accumulates wealth.  That's why the external structures should restore credits or evos.  Otherwise, once you get done wasting your credits/evos attacking (while the other camps), it will be easier for them to destroy the external stuff.

I really want to support this game. I really respect what you guys do, truly.  But over the years, I thought that nothing was ever going to change.  Now I see changes happening and they are really close to solving the real gameplay changes.  But....you won't go all the way.  

I think rants and luci's ruin game.  I think stage 3 completely kills the fun once players realize the metagame of 'camp and killwhore'.  But I don't bother arguing about that because I figured that would never change.  I wasn't excited for 1.2 because I believed that major changes weren't going to happen.  However, the whole external base thing is a great idea and made me a believer again.  But it will be just another way to camp if it doesn't actively contribute to a team winning.

People say you can't stop camping.  But you can punish it or at least empower those who don't.  I'll leave this alone for now.  

[David]

External bases don't need to give you creds, as they allow you to attack and survive.

[Norfenstein]

I understand what you're saying Temple. Let's break it down. The dynamic in Tremulous is:

• Both teams start out even and fight in the middle, maybe picking at each others' bases.
• One team gains an advantage in funds.
• The advantaged team attacks the enemy base and either wins the game or exhausts themselves, giving the other team the advantage or making them both equal again.
• Repeat.

There is no "camping" in that cycle; when the disadvantaged team is being attacked they are defending. Where it breaks down is when the team that has the advantage refuses to use it and acts defensively instead of aggressively. That's camping. So the problem isn't necessarily attackers not being rewarded -- they should already have the upper hand if they're in a position to attack -- the problem is that defenders don't lose their advantage when they don't use it. Complimentary funds is meant to relieve that, but I agree it's not perfect.

Build point queuing does help too:

You could have the om directly outside the human base.  If the enemy never leave, what's the point?

That's a bad example. Camping works because the defensive team has a safe platform from which to attack. By building forward you can have a safe platform too, except yours is disposable. It's okay to lose your forward egg+booster because your OM and other eggs are on the other side of the map; it's not okay for the human team to lose any of their structures because they're all contributing to not losing the game.

The game shouldn't be about who attacks first or who get a forward base up first. There has to be a back and forth. You definitely have a valid point about Tremulous being a more defensive game than would be ideal, but I don't think that can really change without fundamentally altering the game, which I never considered to be part of my mandate in directing 1.2 changes (believe it or not). But I think the changes we have made, when taken together, improve the dynamic enough to be worthwhile.

If, after playing the beta a lot, you still don't agree, wait for 1.2.1 with a domination gamemode*, which is probably exactly what you really want.

*Not actually promising anything, but I'd like to see it.

[temple]

The game shouldn't be about who attacks first or who get a forward base up first. There has to be a back and forth. You definitely have a valid point about Tremulous being a more defensive game than would be ideal, but I don't think that can really change without fundamentally altering the game, which I never considered to be part of my mandate in directing 1.2 changes (believe it or not). But I think the changes we have made, when taken together, improve the dynamic enough to be worthwhile.

If, after playing the beta a lot, you still don't agree, wait for 1.2.1 with a domination gamemode*, which is probably exactly what you really want.

*Not actually promising anything, but I'd like to see it.

Well its never going to be a back and forth if there isn't a reason to leave your base.  

People have done the whole external base thing.  Play on any server with more than 100 BP.  I've done it on SST more times I can count.  People just get better at camping instead of getting better at rushing.  

There has to be a consequence for camping.  Starcraft has exhaustible resources that force you to seek expansions.  Dawn of War 2 has victory points that force you advance.  Any good strategy game forces players to win battles and push forward.  

Like I've said, I respect what you guys are doing.  Just recognize that the current features makes Tremulous a really good team deathmatch game instead a good team strategy game.

[FisherP]

!shuffleteams.... though this would mean that there's a record of the kill rates of each player. Maybe not.

The reason I say this is often teams will stack with all the good, experienced players on one team. This will force the other team into defense mode.Yes, this happens too when the humans are stacked and the aliens are forced on the back foot. I know this because I will also be part of the stack on occasions.

[Nux]

You definitely have a valid point about Tremulous being a more defensive game than would be ideal, but I don't think that can really change without fundamentally altering the game, which I never considered to be part of my mandate in directing 1.2 changes (believe it or not).

Still, the ability to dodge reliably in lagged makes plan-making more interesting and I believe this enables much more aggressive gameplay on the whole than unlagged allows.

People say they don't like how 'easy' it is to dodge without unlagged yet it sounds like the more aggressive gameplay of 'lagged' is just what you're looking for. Come to a euro-public server; You might still see campers (it takes a certain degree of laziness, but yes they're in europe too), but players are more likely to go out and fight when they aren't as easily hit.

[FisherP]

...(nothing big, so it shouldn't be long) ...

LIES!! 

Thursday?

[Norfenstein]

Thursday?

Maybe! It's kind of out of my hands now. Let's play on edev.tremulous.net today though, in half an hour.

I made a list of gameplay changes made since 1.1: http://tremulous.net/forum/index.php?topic=11859.0
It's likely I missed a thing or two. Please ask any specific questions you might have in that thread, but know that nothing's up for debate anymore until the beta has been out for a while and generated statistically useable data.

[{7}wrath]

Dev game today? Just for fun?

[Norfenstein]

Yep, why not.

US server, 1 hour 45 minutes from now. Or earlier if people show up to play (ping me in #tremulous if anyone wants to start early).

EDIT: People playing now

[mooseberry]

Good games going now.

[Norfenstein]

Okay, it's obvious by now the release has been delayed a little longer than we'd originally hoped for. There were a handful of remaining bugs we wanted to resolve, but as of this weekend I'm saying nothing more is going to be done in the MGDev branch. Timbo has a few more revisions to catch up to and then we'll be back on track.

In the meantime, why not play some games today? Euro server, in 15 minutes.

[Norfenstein]

We have a little more work to do before releasing the beta, but this morning marked an important milestone: Timbo finished migrating all of the changes from the MGDev repository into mainline Tremulous SVN. There were a little over 500 patches to commit, and doing the whole lot at once took about 2 hours.

Test-game-for-fun on the US server (dev.tremulous.net) in 30 minutes.

[Vape]

Finally.

[Demolution]

Gud game. Apart from the problems with SD building, things work correctly, it just takes time to get used to everything.

[{7}wrath]

Yeah, we should have won! Damn bugs. (pun intended.)

[beware of troll]

I have to say that 1.2 without unlagged is clearly unplayable for Humans. The very powerful alien movement attacks are only marginally more difficult, while the much-buffeted humans shall find it very difficult to hit their adversaries.

[mooseberry]

I have to say that 1.2 without unlagged is clearly unplayable for Humans. The very powerful alien movement attacks are only marginally more difficult, while the much-buffeted humans shall find it very difficult to hit their adversaries.

I have to say that I think you are wrong. Humans now win much more often than in 1.1. Aliens have been nerfed. 

[amz181]

I have to say that 1.2 without unlagged is clearly unplayable for Humans. The very powerful alien movement attacks are only marginally more difficult, while the much-buffeted humans shall find it very difficult to hit their adversaries.

I have to say that I think you are wrong. Humans now win much more often than in 1.1. Aliens have been nerfed. 

too much.

but 1.2 beta? i call hax.

[Norfenstein]

Euro server game in 30 minutes.

[Xeno]

Anyone playing the US server today? I'm on 10 minutes before 2pm CST and no one's on..
Couple people connected and disconnected.. I'm leaving the server

[mooseberry]

Euro server game in 30 minutes.

[Xeno]

Yup, I was there. Great fun! Much more comfortable playing the humans now in 1.2 than ever (used to be a heavy alien player but have been shifting to H). Overall I like the game very much. There's a few things I'm not sure if I like or not, but I'll have to play more and get more of an overall feel to it first. Very much like the changed alien heal rate & basi-porta-healer.. it was just too damn easy to hit and run in 1.1. Humans *seem* stronger than aliens but not sure - have to play more. Great work devs and thanks to everyone who's been developing/managing/testing so far, Tremulous has been one of my favorite games for a while now and I look forward to years of great 1.2 games.

[Plague Bringer]

To put out an argument, aliens weren't mobile enough, and this is coming from a human perspective! If you've got a decent dance, or hell, if you've got two other dude with rifles, and you chase a goon, it's dead. That simple. Two chains and a pulse take out a rant in a few seconds flat. It's far too easy to run down aliens, especially if you're being extremely aggressive. Anything smaller than a +mara doesn't mind aggressiveness too much because they're dead anyway. Goons and up just can't deal with it. Now, with the lack of mobility and the need to return to base to heal, they might as well be a group of jettard psawers vs adv goons. In the dev server, you have serious players who love and want to improve the game. You probably get a lot of teamwork (I haven't played too many games there). On a pub server, it's impossible to coordinate humans. You can't get a group together. Only dedicated players with leadership skills will work together. You really think you'll get someone who wants to be a basilisk for the aliens? A mobile booster? Probably, definitely, most likely not.

[HellsAngelz]

A Mobile Booster?
I'd tap that.

[Norfenstein]

US server game in 55 minutes. I can't make it to the games today, but there've been a few changes since last week.

• increased goon repeat 700 -> 900
• increased advanced goon repeat 600 -> 800
• increased goon (both) pounce charge time 700 -> 900
• increased tyrant repeat 750 -> 800
• decreased hive health 175 -> 125
• swapped prices of flamer and prifle

I doubt there'll be any more balance tweaks before the beta is released.

[HellsAngelz]

I swear i'm gonna blow a load once beta releases.
Keep up with the good work, balance is definitely one thing Tremulous is great at keeping, unlike other prettier albeit ugly gameplay games *cough* Halo *cough*

Guys, I have -3 turrets with only 1 thread and 1 reply. But you know what, it doesn't hurt mah feelingz, I'm too pro for rets! ya dats rite, my skillz are greater than BodyOrgan and Yarou combined!

Maybe I should keep my annoying comments in Trem games? :> *slaps himself silly*

[Cadynum]

increased goon (both) pounce charge time 700 -> 900

This makes the goon feel a lot slower and more sluggish.
Instead of making the goon less fun to use, can't the damage inflicted on the opponent be reduced if you feel the goon is unbalanced?
(I agree that pounce was too easy to use as an attack)

[Norfenstein]

It was too easy to attack with, but I also felt like advanced goons had too easy a time escaping from fights, now that they take less damage due to a smaller bounding box. I've only played a handful of small games with the change so far, so it's not set in stone yet.