The problem with this game is that the game looks specifically designed to create deadlock-type situations due to the humans are ranged / aliens are melee dichotomy and the obvious fact that players + base defenses > players alone, while at the same time punishing players who want to, well, head towards the enemy base, enter the enemy base and attack the enemy base.
Look at games like Quake, Teeworlds and Xonotic, I don’t play PRO(!)prietary online team games so I don’t know anything about them, but anyway, in Xonotic CTF if your entire team camps, you can still take a weapon and head out for the enemy base, and the worst that could happen is that you die and enemy players get some score (which of course won’t help them in fighting department).
Now look at Tremulous. If your entire team camps and you go out, you surely lose all credits and revert to dretch or rifle, and then you can’t get any credits at all (mainline Tremulous) or at a very slow rate (New EDGE, thanks to the credits for damage), all while the enemy team gets credits and/or stage ups, and you’ll probably get flamed for feeding. Camping is not a choice. Everybody camps because everybody else camps.
There’s only one way to fix this. Make so that dying doesn’t matter at all. The game should be about control over the territory and teamwork, not about the skill and luck of individual players.The concept of feeding should also go. Teams should feed themselves by building supply structures and the only way to prevent the enemy team from getting stronger should be going out and killing their supply structures while preventing them from building more. If you camp, the enemy team will boom their economy and you will quickly lose. On the other hand, if you go out, you still help your team even if you die without killing anything or anyone, if only by wasting the enemy team’s time.
To further encourage aggressive gameplay let’s create a system where what are you doing and where influences your income, just as romdos proposed. Attacking the enemy base and dying constantly should still yield you more credits than camping and killing.
And by now we already have most of what the Resources 4.x proposes.
It would be interesting to have a human building and an alien building that would automatically generate credits/evos, in addition to the earning of credits/evos from frags. To withdraw credits/evos from those buildings perhaps you would press q or r at the building. If you could also deposit evos/credits back into those buildings, there would be a more tangible sharing mechanism.
It’d simply make the game more luck-based and allow people to sabotage their own team by taking all the credits from these buildings and wasting them on purpose. This would also be much more difficult for admins to detect than normal deconners or bleeders.
It’d do nothing to prevent camping: going out while everybody else camps would still put you at a disadvantage. Under my proposal, you’d actually gain credits even if you can’t accomplish anything by going out instead of losing them.
There could be a team announcement every time someone deposits/withdraws credits/evos.
By having the credits shared this way, it allows lower combat skilled players to receive credits/evos from higher combat skilled players, and allows them to get better equipment/aliens. Also the credit gain of these “bank buildings” (for lack of a better term), could be based on team members trying to attack the enemy team. So the more players that attack and not camp, the more credits/evos those buildings produce.
And that could simply lead to newbies being afraid of actually using this structure in fear of getting flamed by their teammates.
Still, after your have withdrawn the credits, it would still not be in your best interest to come out because you would probably lose them. And there would also be a social limit to the amount of those credits you can use before getting flamed by your teammates.
Why implement a complicated and indirect system instead of simply awarding the credits directly? Under my proposal, everyone simply gets a constant stream of credits based on the number of the supply structures the team has and their own activity score, ie. you gain credits very slowly if you are often inside your base and very quickly if you are often inside the enemy base, and it doesn’t depend on the skill all that much.
Actually, no, it should be based on kills and damage, but, if you attack, you should be able to get at least 1/4 activity score just by dealing scratch damage, 1/2 or 1/3 by dealing moderate damage, and after that, damaging and killing should yield diminishing returns (you should never be able to reach the activity score of 1). If you are inside your base, you should hardly be able to get any significant activity score.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to specify detailed gamelogic rules, since they’ll most likely be exploitable, etc. and require further corrections, but anyway:
however, because everybody camps, u can actually move out, since the enemy isn’t attacking.
WRONG.1
however, be advised that the Resources proposal has nothing to do with promoting teamwork.
however, be advised that the Resources proposal has nothing to do with making the game not depend on the skill and luck of individual players.
in all games (where applicable, and excluding contrived games), what u r doing and where influences ur outcome. is the above supposed to mean the following? what u r doing and where is the only thing that influences ur outcome (eg., ur growth, score, win/loss, etc. is independent on whether ur team or the enemy team is n00b).
1 another option would be to make a dretch / naked human worth 0.
If that means that dretch and naked humans cost no evos (which they already do), the reason it reduces camping is because it’s also a form of making dying matter less! Imagine if dretch / naked human costed credits, and if you died with 0 credits, you wouldn’t be able to respawn for the rest of the game. Imagine how hard would people camp under such a system! It’s just that it isn’t enough.
If your proposal is to make killing naked rifle / dretch yield 0 credits, it would obviously solve the problem of dretches / rifles feeding, but, assuming that dretches and rifles get credits by killing each other so that people can actually get credits, it would simply lead to more camping, since people will cling to their equipment or classes and be more afraid of going out with advanced classes / weapons, as they can’t get easy credits by killing dretches / rifles anymore. Furthermore, players who go out with advanced weapons will encounter dretches / rifles who will attack and damage them, reducing their chances to survive the future encounters with better-equipped players while not giving them back any credits. Camping should be solved by making it easier to earn credits outside the base, not harder.
You can’t know in advance that all the enemies camp in their base instead of waiting for you somewhere behind a corner at the other end of a long hallway. And even if you know, if you actually enter the enemy base you’ll get killed and lose credits, so the game is still stalled.
If you team is noob then it can’t build / defend supply structures, and you don’t get credits.
I suppose if someone found a bug that allows you to make Lucifer bolts do 20000 damage, it would not be fixed and would instead be enshrined as an “advanced skill” provided it’s difficult enough to trigger it…
it is (this has been proposed multiple times before, btw).
non sequitur. credits/evos can be gained both with time and by destroying enemy structures.
WRONG. it would lead to less camping, because there would be free, feedless cover support from dretch/naked teammates, and thus, would lead to easier teamplay.
no, camping should be solved by whatever approach that solves camping.
WRONG. since everybody camps, that includes all enemies.
which is why u don’t enter the enemy base, but rather poke around the perimeter.
so therefore, by
[quote]
what are you doing and where influences your income
[/quote], u don’t mean
[quote=“DevHC, post:10, topic:136”]
what u r doing and where is the only thing that influences ur outcome
[/quote], but something else. what?