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gammae102

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Posts posted by gammae102

  1. A few thoughts:

    I agree with Coolrock in that a single point bite instead of an AoE bite should work better in APB than AR.  Other things if dogs remain to OP that can be considered include making the player hold down the mouse button for a second (or fraction of second or however long) with the orange bar at the bottom of the screen before lunging at the enemy.  This can be done like planting a flare currently in APB where if you move during the time the flare is not planted, or like the demo truck where you can keep moving, depending on what works better.  I think it might also be a good idea to not let dogs inside buildings as I could see how they'd be too good in close quarters.  Also the dogs should start barking automatically if a spy gets within a certain radius.

    Dogs, cruisers, MiGs: is there anything the APB team cannot do? :o

  2. I play all of the W3D Hub games on my Lenovo Yoga 900 laptop.  Since the screen is relatively small on this laptop, I hook it up to a 30 inch LG TV via HDMI cable for gaming.  When I do this the sound comes from the LG TV (Intel (R) Display Audio) instead of the normal laptop soundcard (Realtek High Definition Audio).   I had been having issues where there is no sound when I play ECW and Interim Apex (but not APB or Reborn), and I just noticed recently that this issue will go away if I set the audio to come through the laptop instead of the TV.  So while this is a pretty minor issue, I am just mentioning it here in case there is a quick fix so that the sound will work properly coming from the HDMI cable/TV.  If any further details or specs are needed for help, please let me know.

  3. Having been in the same match that Raap is talking about, I have to agree with him that Tanya is not a good fit for HW.  I know that that was one particular game with a relatively low player count, but with the ease of suicide rushing with a Longbow or even landing a transport on the Soviet's island, I think it will make it too easy for the Allies to win.  The Soviets can't lay mines to stop her, and they'd basically need to have at least one player on dedicated Tanya defense for the whole game to have any chance.

  4. So really, this is only an issue for a few buildings.  It appears to be the consensus that the Naval Yard/Subpen/Barracks are not really an issue on this topic.  This leaves the War Factory, Ore Refinery, Construction Yard, and Power Plant.

    The Ore Refinery, to me at least, would seem to be the biggest problem because it is present on almost every map and is one of the higher roofs.  I think a good solution might be to restrict rooftop access to only the flat part above the area where the ore truck dumps.  This limits the number of places the flare could be placed and would leave attacking infantry with less places to hide.  The Ore Refinery is probably the structure with the most nooks and crannies, so as it currently is, it sometimes takes me a good 10 seconds just to figure out if the flare is inside the refinery or on the roof, so this would limit the number of places the flare could be.

    With regards to the War Factory, I like Raap's idea of adding MORE ladders. It would make it more difficult for enemy infantry to camp, and as Pushwall has said, a ramp may be feasible with the dimensions on this building.

    The Construction Yard is not on any flare maps, to my knowledge, so i would likely be less of an issue, but perhaps like with the Ore Refinery infantry access could be curtailed to the flat part of the roof.

    The Power Plant is probably the building with the most empty space inside, so I think that this would be a good candidate for internal rooftop access, either in the form of elevators, ladders, or both.  As mentioned previously, these could secured by team-locked doors if deemed necessary.

  5. So this is an extremely minor issue that won't affect gameplay at all and is mostly about aesthetics, but I'm going to bring it up anyway.  I was showing a friend of mine APB who had never played it or Renegade before and when telling him about how the technicians and engineers work, I started thinking that the repair tool is kinda ridiculous.  Engineers already have the golden wrench, so I was thinking it would be really easy to replace the repair tool with a non-golden wrench.  Now, I do realize that swinging a wrench at a MCT to repair a building doesn't really make that much more sense than pressing buttons a a flip phone, but I do think it would be a little more intuitive to new players. I also think it might  drive home the point to new players who have played Renegade before that repair tool doesn't work the same as in Renegade (although this is admittedly hardly an issue anymore).  Plus it is more RAlistic, as in Red Alert you repair buildings by clicking the wrench icon and then clicking on the building.  And also the repair tool doesn't really fit in the the time period, since Red Alert is supposed to take place in the '50s and a repair tool is some pretty advanced technology. The only downsides I can think of are that this may cause some confusion with the mechanic wrench vs. the technician wrench, and also nostalgia for the repair tool and 56K sound effects. So what do you think. Should we keep the repair tool as it is or replace it with a wrench?

  6. I sort of agree with the "heroic last stand" sentiment, and I like to give teams the opportunity to make a comeback.  If something were to be done though, I think something script-based would be good.  I would like to see something where if X amount of base damage isn't done by either team in a certain amount of time it can trigger the map ending.  This forces the winning team to attack more aggressively and finish off the enemy base if they want to win by base destruction, and prevents them from just killwhoring.  It also allows the losing team to extend the game if they are able to make a counterattack and do some damage to the enemy base.  It might not help if everyone on the losing team is only repairing the last surviving structure, but no solution will be perfect, and that's what demo trucks are for. :v

  7. Looking at the statistics for Siege, it appears that there have been 55 games with more than 7 players, and 49 of those have been won by high score, with only 3 base destructions and 3 server shutdowns.  I understand that to a certain extent this is how the map may have been intended to be played (hence the name), but personally I think it may be a bit excessive.  I think one of the only attack strategies I've seen work is landing a chinook full of rocket soldiers outside the power plant to destroy it, and even then there usually isn't enough time to finish off the rest of the base, even if it does permanently swing the balance of the map.  The problem does not seem to be an excessive amount of base defenses either.  I think that issues are 1) there is only one real land route which vehicles can used to attack and 2) the castle walls make it really easy for helicopters to ambush attacking tanks and then retreat to safety.  For these reasons whenever I see a large ground attack force try and mount an assault, it seems it is usually in shambles by the time it reaches the opposing base.

    I think one potential solution to this may lie in one of the things that makes the map unique: the cannons.  I think that if the cannons were either made much more powerful or increased in number, it would encourage an attack strategy of infantry rushes on the castle walls.  As it currently is, there is usually plenty of time after noticing that someone is attacking with one of the cannons to leisurely run over with any type of infantry and destroy the cannon before it does any major damage.  If you increased the damage each cannon ball did to about the amount of a V2 rocket (while keeping the rate of fire the same), or had there be 2 or 3 cannons that could be used simultaneously, it would put a lot more pressure on teams to be proactive about defending/destroying the cannons before they could be used.  Maybe even something like a few fixed cannons on the walls the cannot be aimed that are pointed at certain structures could be an easy addition.

    Also just a final note, I know that there have already been a few iterations of this map, and I can't remember all of the specifics which were changed.  So if the initial version was similar to my proposed changes and it didn't work well, feel free to ignore everything I've said.

  8. I will say that I think the guard towers themselves are pretty useless and you will die much quicker if you go into one.  What you gain in cover you more than lose by limited mobility.  Ironically, I think they could actually use  few more holes in the wall to shoot out of, as well as making the walls a little higher so you aren't automatically dead the second a sniper becomes aware of your presence.  I don't think that would make them too strong, but hopefully they would be a little more useful.

  9. I think naval vs. aerial is the main problem for this map.  To put it bluntly naval units are far too slow.  Especially when cover is available in the form of the icebergs, it allows the helicopters to run circles around the ships.  Add in the helipad and service depot smack in the middle of the map for easy refills/repairs and it really doesn't make any sense to buy a ship if your team has control of the middle.

    How would I fix this?  Make destroyers and missile subs very, very effective against aircraft.  Helicopters already have such great mobility over ships that they should still be able to avoid them relatively easily and strike land-based targets.  Increasing the durability of naval vessels against air pushes more people to get naval units, which to me (Raap can disagree) was always the intention of this map.

    I realize this may affect the balance of other maps as well, so if there is concern this will make Destroyers and Missile Subs too powerful I would say nerf them against land targets.

    And just one final thought, I'd also get rid of the turrets and flame towers guarding the naval yard/subpen.  Again, I don't think you need more reasons to discourage the use of naval units

  10. Two issues I have:

     

    1) The way Hostile Waters is set up now, the most effective strategy seems to be LST rush and try and take out the Barracks. I was under the impression when the map was being made that the intent was to have naval combat be the main focus of the gameplay. If that is, in fact, the intent then I think the base defenses from near the Advanced Naval Yard/Subpen need to be relocated towards the back of the base to prevent a few Captains from sneaking in and destroying everything. Naval units are relatively slow moving and need to be coordinated to be effective. I think, on this map at least, more needs to be done to push the player towards choosing this option.

     

    2) Along the lines of what delta is saying, with the Golden Wrench, it seem like after you use a certain amount of ammo, the remaining ammo does nothing. For example, you start with 100, if you use 90 of it to capture an oil derrick, the last 10 "shots" you have left over seem to do literally nothing. That's why, like delta said, you might be capturing two neutral oil derricks, have 55/100 ammo left after the first one, but not be able to capture the second one.

  11. In the forest, run through the campfire to get a fireproof vest. In the cemetery, take a look around and there's a hole in the ground with a ladder...go down, and there's a medic's healing kit next to the Chronosphere. In the garden, go to the northeast corner and there's a way through one of the fences where you'll see four square rock things...approach one of them and it'll open up, go down, and find a heart container. Once all three cursed trinkets have been picked up (doesn't have to be by the same person or the same team) the Cyborg Commando spawns.

    I knew about the Chronosphere, but I actually had no idea about the Zelda-inspired dungeon until right now.

  12. I think the Grenadier needs way less range/more arc. Ideally, I'd like to see them as the unit to use where you can sneak behind a rock while the base defenses are still up and do some damage while still in cover. A greater arc would make them more useful for this purpose, as well as reduce their currently ridiculous range. But seriously, throw a grenade straight up in the air now and tell me it doesn't look ridiculous. Also, they need the aforementioned price reduction.

  13.  

     

    It appears I'm a little too late, but I always thought it's funny that our namesake map, A Path Beyond, isn't in the rotation. That's one that could really use remake.

    I seem to recall the issue with A Path Beyond being too large or something? Anyway, when was the last time we had this map...0.9935?

     

    You are probably right about 0.9935 being the last time we had the map. And it was definitely too large. I might be mistaken about this, but I believe there was aircraft as well, which made it virtually impossible to mount a successful rush across such far distances. There were a lot of base defenses as well, with the Soviets having two Tesla coils that covered virtually the whole base. But if the map were completely redone, it's size could be scaled down. Rather than vast open fields (like all in all maps up until Delta, really), add smaller areas with more dense vegetation. Maybe add naval. IMO it was one of the best maps in Red Alert, and it could be a lot of fun in APB as well if done right. Also, the mod is named after it.

  14. Part of the reason I made this topic is because I thought it might have just been developer oversight, as sub versus sub isn't something you'd encounter in a normal game. After hearing that there are technical reasons why the sub can't be given a secondary weapon, it's probably better to leave things as is. It's not a big problem, but I thought there might have been an easy fix.

     

    But in the spirit of making overly complicated solutions for tiny problems, I will offer this (probably bad) idea, if it's even possible. Would it be possible to damage a sub by ramming it? Like maybe make it so if the front tip of an Attack Sub touches another part of a different sub it would do damage? Like I said, I have no idea if it's even possible, and if it is possible I'm not sure it's even a good idea, but it's the only thing I can think of if secondary fire can't be done on a sub.

  15. So today I was playing Hostile Water as Soviets and bought an Attack Sub. I got in my sub, and a teammate of mine bought a Missile Sub, which was promptly stolen by a spy. In spite of being in a superior anti-naval vessel, I was completely powerless to do anything about it so long as the stolen Missile Sub remained submerged.

     

    Now you can say, "look before buying, and don't let your subs get stolen," but realistically there will always be new players and that will never be a solution. In the situation I mentioned earlier, me stalking the stolen sub would prevent it from surfacing and firing, but it also makes for some extremely boring gameplay. So how do we fix this (if it is even agreed upon that it is a problem)? Firing normal torpedoes under water would create more problems than it would solve, and depth charges on a sub make no sense. The only thing I can come up with is some sort of extremely short range torpedo for secondary fire that can be shot underwater.

  16. I'm inclined to agree with Raptor. At the very least, I'd rather leave the grenadier as is before merging him with the RPG trooper.

     

    See, I was thinking of making the grenadier a bit of a an Anti-infantry, anti-building unit. So, essentially a soviet arty. That's on foot. That costs less. And while doing substantial damage to buildings with direct hits (slightly less than the RPG trooper), he wouldn't do as much to infantry (without a direct hit). However, his splash radius would be rather large (like, 20 meters or so). So while you may not die from a single grenade, you will take damage. I mean, most grenades have a kill radius of about 15 meters. This would also deter grenadiers from entering buildings due to the threat of self-harm.

     

    But if we did want to change anything, I like this idea as well. I would increase the amount of an arc you have throwing a grenade, while decreasing throw velocity and range. This would make it more difficult to aim, especially when trying to hit vehicles (keeping a reason to buy a flamethrower instead). I like this in conjunction with Pushwall's idea to get rid of the Volktillery. On some maps this could make a grenadier rush a viable early strategy against an unorganized Allied team, while still being easy to stop for an Allied team that isn't completely neglecting defense.

  17. I think one of the problems is that the things Grenadier sorta has the same niche as the Flamethrower. Make the Grenadier too good, and it becomes basically a half-priced Flamethrower. One idea that I liked, which was floated around during great Rocket Soldier debate, was to make Grenadiers still purchasable after Barracks destruction. The problem then becomes that the Allies don't have any equivalent to this. I wonder if the Grenadier could actually replace the Starshina after Barracks destruction, being that they both seem to excel at close-quarters infantry combat?

  18. Realistically, if the Soviets actually try and take to the field with Kaptains and RPGs to try and stop the Mine Layer rather than sit in their base and twiddle their thumbs until they have money for V2's, it's not that hard to stop it. I just think the Mine Layer will be virtually useless once shocks are out in the field.

     

    Really, the more I think about it, the more I think it's best just to give the Soviets another 5 minutes to get the Radar Dome. At the very least, see how much a few extra minutes would sway the balance and then if it's still not enough, try something more radical.

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