Problems that haven't been addressed in EGTT category and Ideas to solve them

Tremulous Evil Genius Think Tank
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I’m sure this topic have been discussed somewhere in the forums, but after searching it I couldn’t find it. I’ll try to be the most specific in terms of number of words, so I don’t end writting a seriously boring long post.

Big Maps

  • Problem: Playing big ass maps is always fun, but they are the origin of certain unpleasant situations. For aliens, the fear of receiving a nuclear mass driver explosion on your dretchy head. And humans, the unavoidable feeling of being too exposed when traveling on foot in very big spaces.

  • Idea 1: For aliens, every class should have the ability to camouflage, at different ranges. For example: dretches can be seen at X units of lenght, Basilisks at (3/2) times X units, marauders at 3X units, dragoons at 6X units and tyrants at 9X units. Why? Because human range is infinite, I recall playing a very big flat map where you had to pounce for and hour to get to human base, and humans can see aliens as dots, with the right aim you could hit dretches incredibly far, with ANY weapon, except flamer and luci. I think this idea would make big maps very playable for aliens. (I know New EDGE gave Basilisks the ability to camouflage if they stand still, but I’m suggesting a different method.)

  • Idea 2: For humans, the idea from romdos to be able to use fireteams, adding the ability to know where they are at any moment, and to stick together, because human strenght is in numbers, if any given fireteam of 4 or more is together in X radius, some type of buff is applied. (more to be added, havent thought of what kind of buff)

Credits and Evolution Points

  • Problem: New players tend to be more susceptible to feed the other team, regardless of the team they are in, while experienced players tend to be at full credits and evos because of them, making new players to loose their patience or even stop playing just because they cant get a kill.

  • Idea 1: While new players as aliens or humans, tend to go solo I think it is ok to kill them, but every death they have should award less credits or evo points to the one who kills it. For example: Player 1 kills player 2. Full award gotten. Player 3 kills again player 2, 2/3 award gotten. Player 1 kills again player 2, half award gotten, after the third death, without any kill, player 2 enter in a losing streak state, where they award 1/4 of the current value of class for aliens or humans.

  • Idea 2: Experienced players can get kill streaks, after 3 consecutive kills the player gets a tag over their head which can be seen by enemies only, making them attract more bullets or more bites/claws. Awarding 2x credits or evo points to the one who kills it. It could be that after 8 kills, the player gets a glow only seen by enemies even through walls, while being human you become “the hunter” for aliens, where aliens get 4X evo points for killing, and as alien you become “the prey”, where humans enhance their radars to see the alien you have to hunt.

##Chat

  • Problem: Tremulous wasnt designed to have a chat, that is what I think. In the hud, we all can see the chat of course, but I actually see is a mirror of the console, not a chat, where all logs are shown. Console must log every single detail of the game, that is not questionable.

  • Idea: Let’s separate kill and build logs from chat. It would be easier to follow up conversations while playing, maybe in a smaller invisible window on any othe part of the screen.

By far, thats what I have to add for some ideas to the trem gameplay, I know it is easy to just say ideas and let others do the hard work when coding, testing and making them work in game. I appreciate the people who use their free time to make a classic game better each day. By the way, for the readers who havent seen my other post of the communications idea, heres the link Voice Commands

Thanks for reading this, and let’s make it a brainstorm.

Edit 1:

  • Erased the word “Appear” in “after 3 consecutive kills the player gets a tag over their head appear which can be seen by enemies only”.

  • Changed work precition (bad written) with Aim (accuracy)

2 Likes
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I understand what you mean about this, but only MD is 100% accurate over long distance. Las gun seems to have some kind of limit to its range (at least it did when I tried it on the map epic (which is probably the map you’re thinking of). It is impossible to be completely accurate at very long range with rifle, luci, pulse, flamer, (psaw), etc.

Adding an extra bonus to having lots of your team seems a bit OP to me, especially in scrims. Maybe it could work for pubs, but perhaps make it a % of the team who have a weapon on them?

Aside from the way in which it’s displayed, the concept is nice, and it has been done on some other servers, with relative success. I think it was announced in console that player x was on a killstreak of 5, and therefore the evos/creds received from killing them would be doubled.

Nice ideas though.

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This is not a gameplay issue it’s a mapping problem. The designer of these large open maps didn’t take the gameplay into account. We shouldn’t have to change the gameplay to conform to their bad mapping, we should just refuse to play their map. Interesting ideas though.

I really like both your ideas proposed here. Many games have a similar system and they work great (even competitive games) such as league of legends. However, I would estimate that these values need to be adjusted and perhaps it would be better if the “lose streak” was time based rather than not attaining a kill for a certain period. Singling out the stronger players helps tip the balance in favour, although I imagine kill-whoring players will dislike that. The hunter and prey dynamic is interesting, but may cause some balance issues in scrims as Shuffle mentioned.

A separate build and kill log is definitely required and I believe it is something we are working towards.

Thanks for your input.

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i think it will have much bigger impact than you expect. in normal gameplay (without noobs) same player can be killed multiple times without any kills (rant rush). so rants will stop rushing after 1st or 2nd wave because of no evos. same with lucy rush and massive dretch killing. what about MDs at early stage of the game.

another thing is that it may enlarge the problem you are trying to solve. noobs usually start by killing other noobs (if 2 of them go solo and meet somewhere). therefore they may stop getting points for those kills.

imho this way of counting would completely change balance and gameplay. i’m not saying it’s better or worse. i’m saying it’s unpredictable at this stage. and the only way to asses it is probably implement it and experiment. but the experiment will be hard because it will require lots of noobs and their feedback

i was thinking about helping noobs by giving them points (similar to W server) but if they are noobs it will be simply feeding as their goons or rants will soon die killed by mid-skilled rifle/shotty

+1

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The reason i still play tremulous (and i imagine many others do as well) is that tremulous is a game where the developers don’t hold your hand in making decisions, you get better at the game by playing with the same resources everyone else has access to, i understand that you want to make the game more fair and balanced, but by using some reverse logic you also imply that noobs should be given advantages, rather than learn to play the game. Is there any reason to become skilled at the game if you’re only going to get less powerful resources the better player you are?

The crybaby, CoD way of fixing balance in the game would definitely be to punish people for being good at the game, but in reality you would a) Destroy the competitive scene (Bonus for grouping, lmao, less rewards the better you are, lmao) and b) Make the game less enjoyable for people who are good at it in general. Making the game easier the worse you are, is counter intuitive.

The chat idea is great though, please do this s00n™

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I don’t see any changes here that only benefit new players. A new player on your team not feeding credits assists the entire team. I also fail to see how this has anything to do with decision making. You don’t have to focus the shiny kill streak player if you don’t want to, the decision is still there.

They still do, even if skilled player dies 3 times in a row they are now worth less. It’s not like this is GUID targeted, it’s dependent on how you play. Honestly, some of these new features would even benefit a player like myself.

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jkjk

But in all seriousness why do you want to make the game more noobfriendly than it already is. chainsuits and tyrants exist for a reason…

Yet it destroys the purpose of ever trying to get better, as you will be helped by “magical forces” to remove the potential snowball effect from ever happening. Trem is still a game of punishing mistakes and abusing advantages (like aliens camping h entrance at s2 to get s3 vs s1, rather than attacking with adv maras) Fundamentally trem has things in common with poker, idk if you play poker, but if everyone at the table was of the same skill level and played the same way, there would be no profit anywhere and therefore there wouldn’t be a game.

Artificially reducing skill gaps results in less incentive to learn, basic logic.

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This game is far from “noob friendly” there isn’t even a tutorial. Also for the skilled players attaining these kill streaks I would see this as increasing the skill required.

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Some weapons have range problems and they should stay the same, with endless range. I’m just trying to replicate something like this by limiting human eyes on distance just for small aliens, shots could hit anyway with some luck (or aimbot).

I left the buff unselected to see ideas about it, it may cause scrims to feel unbalanced, depending of what buff is applied, I have thought of many suggestions for this, but I’ll post it later,

Glad you liked it.

I think we should be more open minded to different playstyles. I’m aware this is not gameplay issue, but a map issue. I’m just trying to make the game more dynamic when talking about maps, not always playing ATCS like maps. (I like ATCS though)

I see it backwards, when being hunted you could make humans or aliens to chase you into a prepared ambush, just for being hasty in the credits you get by killing the one. That’s just an idea.

All hail separated chats!

When playing at least 6 vs 6, after you killed 6 different humans you get 6 evo points, or 6 dretches you get all credits, It doesnt apply as global effect intead as single effect. And I must say not a single rush is perfect, both sides gets kills, getting kills get your status reset. Example: Tyrant rush: Player 1 slash player 2, player 2 spawns shoots players 3, player 1 slash player 2 again, you get full rewards. This would limit too egg/node camping.

They will continue to make points, it is extremly unlikely to find 3 times the same guy alone in the same place. And if it happens player 1 should be killed 3 times in a row by player 2 to get the lose streak and apply effects.

This is just ideas, testing is needed if the majority likes them and devs agree to give them a shot.

I’m not saying noobs should get advantages, I say skilled players should have a more challenging game, don’t you like challenges?

CHALLENGE!, if you are more skilled than others, lets play it harder.

Why?, I think im giving ideas to make the game more competitive, and not the other way around.

I like challenges.

To attract more players! Game usually tend to have 10 times more unskilled people than skilled one, this idea may help trem get more used and not rage quitting because DarkMicrobe mara slashed my head 5 times in a row.

Isnt that what today games are fighting against for a balanced gameplay?

I think you are afraid of people wanting a change. All I read is “lets stick to the past”

Less skilled players tends to “pass” or “withdraw more” from not being able to calculate their winning chances, having players feel they have an advantage make them risk more. Talking in tremulous terms, the more you feel you are getting advantage the more unlikely is for players to /quit.

I couldn’t agree more with that.

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All fine and dandy but we keep talking about tackling the good players rather than teaching the noobs, and as you said yourself: we have 10 times more noobs than good players. Why do we want to make learning counter intuitive?

Also:

Yes, i’m saying we should stick to the past.
1.1 was the earliest version, it has always been played as the vanilla game, sure there were mods around, even gpp. And guess what? Everything died, except for vanilla 1.1. Go figure.

And the ragequit part is a really REALLY REALLY bad argument, are you really saying we should change the game because a crybaby didn’t want to invest time into learning the game?

Let me explain the snowballing part with some #EzMaths
If x > y and x grows at the same speed as y, x should always be bigger than y.
If humans are stronger than aliens, and both keep gaining strength at the same speed, humans should win the game.
What you are suggesting is:
If x > y, make y grow at a faster speed than x so x = y
If humans are stronger than aliens, make aliens get strength faster or humans slower, so the game would become balanced again.
To me it would seem logical that aliens should simply be playing better than humans in order to catch up, rather than to have an artificial balancing system in place.
Please don’t think balance is the ultimate purpose of any game.

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Keep in mind, there is a difference (literally a world of difference: capitalist US, communist USSR) between “everyone is equal” and “everyone is free”. In fact, at a certain point they become mutually exclusive. Obviously there are differences between players in terms of skill. We can reduce this difference, effectively making everyone a little more equal, but at the cost of player “freedom”, i.e. how much of a role actual skill plays.

How does equality vs. freedom play out for the noobs?

I am still fairly new (cue Sparky telling me I’m not :stuck_out_tongue: ), and in my case I remember gradually getting better as I played. My philosophy was simple: I’m a noob, not a veteran, I’ll take my losses and gradually improve myself. Learning was more or less automatic as I picked up on game mechanics and received tips from time to time. So for other noobs (who may not be as patient) I would say we need enough skill-leveling to reward them enough to keep their interest as they self-improve. (Also tutorials + wiki would be helpful.)

Also:

Can you explain what “game” (overall gameplay, i.e. buffs and nerfs, or single-round mechanics, i.e. if humans have 80% of map aliens get 80% health) you are talking about?

– rlb

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I’m talking about pure resources: evo’s and credits.
If one team is ahead of the other team, they’d automatically get less c/evos per kill compared to the other team.
This sounds stupid to me, for the reasons explained in my last post

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Where am I tackling the good players?, if good players are tackled with this idea, then they are not good players.

I think they died not for being mods or gpp, I think they died because they put aside vanilla 1.1 gameplay, creating a new way of playing trem. I feel the test being done in GrangerHub test server is updating trem in a way vanilla gameplay is not overall changed.

I’m trying to get new people interested in the serve without feeling they are being owned too easily.

Yes. I’m suggesting to balance the game with different ideas so we get less Luci kill all aliens s1 base, or whoreranting s1 humans. I’m looking to get the game flow with fun to both sides, not only one.

Not true, if one team is ahead of other team, and DarkMicrobe Kills player 1, player 1 kills enemy player 2, and DarkMicrobe kills player 1 again, you get all evos. Is losing streak what awards you less evos.

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friend, please understand that i’m not trying to burn your ideas to the ground, but they sound vague to me, we can debate and argue about the outcome, but if your idea isnt set in stone there is no way for me to disprove and no way for you to prove anything.

How are you not a good player if you get tackled by this exactly?

There have been a lot of balance mods afaik, they all died as well, why is grangerhub different? and no bullshit argument like this one, you don’t bring up any point at all, you’re telling me we should risk splitting the community because you “feel” like vanilla gameplay is not overall changed, vague, actual arguments please, why doesn’t it change vanilla gameplay?

So you want bad players to become better at the game by giving them artificial help? Of course they will get owned, but if you give up on a game that easily then you aren’t worth the hassle anyways imo, also while this community is toxic (nigrjong) there are a lot of good players willing to give some tips etc, some might even share the 5 rant evos (admittedly rare, but i saw it happen yesterday) so the newbie doesnt feed, and guess what? The newbie becomes confident and likes the player that gave him those evos, causing him to want to stay and learn.

Lack of mutual respect, if you use rants vs s1 humans you’re pathetic, idem dito for luci vs s1 aliens (although goons are more useful vs luci than shotty is vs rant) Now i agree that this is a weak argument from my side, but the point is that if you’re so keen on helping noobs, you would see that they get the majority of kills as rant and chainsuit / spamsuit, why would you want to change that, most good players don’t use luci vs s1 aliens and dont use rant vs s1 hummies.

K that sounds better than what i thought the system was going to be, but this will still fuck over humans at s1 vs s1 (tunnel camp becomes shit, bb hs2)

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After this post, the Topic will be closed, I’m splitting this into 3 different topics:

##1) Aliens and Humans trouble in Big Maps, and ideas to solve them.

##2) Credits and Evolution Points System, and ideas to avoid the snowball effect.

##3) Chat window suggestions and ideas.

The chat topic will be closed, for already being considered a fact that we need it, and I have received a confirmation that is going to be worked on in the future. I’ll be adding the links to follow up the discussion shortly in my next edit.

Edit: I’ll open up a Chat suggestion thread by Sparky’s recommendation.

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It still would be good to have and discuss ideas about how to improve the chat. I recommend that you make a new focused topic on that as well :wink: .