What if we just got rid of credits?

[kharnov]

I'm with Norfenstein on this one. You're not going to know if something is viable or not if you just confine yourself to thought experiments, especially if you're coming from a Tremulous background and your entire perspective is tainted by it. It's better to look for gigantic, enormous flaws in the basis of an idea, and then once that passes scrutiny, test it out on a dev server.

[lamefun]

i think the concept for the relationship of "currencies" and progression need some updating, but removing credits/evos would be detrimental towards the real time [strategy] part of the game that makes it unique.

mistakes should cost you

I understand how the currency system creates strategy, but it's also elitist and is against new players. First of all, if you're not skilled, you get fewer upgrades and the game is even less fun for you. Secondly, how do you get more skilled at the game? You fight better players, and the more you do that, the better. And what happens when you seek difficult fights on purpose? You lose credits and revert to dretch or rifle. Excellent.

In my opinion Unvanquished should have two game modes, a hard mode with a tougher currency system (for clan/pro servers) and a normal mode (for the majority of public servers) with a more forgiving economy system, where players can have fun experimenting with different tactics / load-outs without the fear of spending the majority of the game as a dretch or rifle.

[kharnov]

I fully agree with the concept of a split between casual and competitive servers. You see this on a lot of games. Public matches should not be held to the same standards as clan matches. This is what makes the game so goddamn boring unless you're one of those people that like to sit on TeamSpeak or Mumble and wait 40 minutes in a single spot while pretending to have fun.

[krtv`]

Fundamental problems require radical changes, and (speaking from experience) it's better to do them before anyone has gotten the expectation of stability. And If you're afraid to make big changes then you'll never know if you're actually reaching "maximum potential" or just a local maxima.

i used a bad choice of words here, i didn't mean to imply that we should steer away from all radical changes or anything like that, but too take it slower. i was also in the mindset that unvanquished's current gameplay is already a radical change from tremulous's, but really hasn't really been looked at as a whole, there's still things that should be tweaked on this current gameplay iteration that will allow us to take a further stance on what direction to head next. that's what i meant by "stable", not to create a final stable form right now, but stabilize what we have now so we can properly test, and figure out what ideas to go to next. as you probably know, game design is hard, not even multi-million dollar companies can seem to get it right sometimes, and we're not going to achieve a balance overnight, though your point still holds, if we're going to make radical changes, this would be the best time to make them, but we should be careful and really make sure a radical change is necessary.

anyways im getting offtopic, i'll go ahead and create a new thread for this particular discussion.

[Comet_]

I just got back from this and it seems like we're arguing over the same things.

I think kharnov's proposal is a very reasonable and and realistic view of the direction to take the game. However, I will choose to agree with krtv' and everything he has said thus far.

Firstly, even Natural Selection 2 has an individual resource component. It just doesn't make sense to make it free to upgrade. Before you strike me down, please try to imagine the scenario I am trying to paint. Everyone always complained and had trouble in Tremulous from that transition between T1 aliens and T2 aliens. Very often, if humans did not get T2 before the alien team, they would lose to A-mara rush. Not only would it be easier for both teams to create an advantage; with access to the tier's best weapons/alien evolution, but also, once that tier raises, that team would be infinitely ahead of the other. Since the base isn't particularly strong in this game, a never-ending A-mara rush would destroy any base no matter how well-constructed. The same is for humans, once humans can afford medium armor, unless the other team has a goon, they aren't able to deal with humans effectively anymore. A second ago they were walking with shotguns and light armor and now they're all in your base with fire bombs, armor that you cant deal with, and the best weapon they can afford. The bases in this game simply can't handle this gameplay change and even if they could, a swarm full of tyrants would keep the human team from leaving there base at all so its hard to say that this will fix any of the current problems with the game.

mistakes should cost you

This should be the battlecry for Unvanquished. I feel like once the statement above is not true, then you aren't playing the unique FPS-RTS we all love anymore. You're just playing a boring Aliens v Predator clone.
Getting that shiny new and expensive weapon/alien is just the part of the game. You still respawn, you can still earn back those credits and get another try at it and maybe even do better than your last life when you rushed into their base and hit a turret once. I think, especially in RTS games such as this, it should be cruel to people who aren't careful and rewarding to those that play it right. I mean, most people, myself included when I picked up the game as a newbie, would save up credits just to lose them when I played wrong. But I kept on grinding and playing more and more dragoon until I did it right and that feeling is truly sublime. Working for something to see it come together into something glorious! If anything, I think this change should be very far away from competitive Unv play.

Instead of being a useless drone who just keeps spouting his opinion without providing anything constructive to mention I'm going to suggest an alternative that I think would be an interesting component to the game. A cooperative, round-based deathmatch with no respawn. This would take place on a map like Citadel and have no base or respawn. Aliens don't regenerate unless they have a mantis nearby and dretches know enemy positions and have poison bite that stops healing and does damage over time. Humans blaster (or possibly las gun) is replaced by a heal gun that heals battlesuits at like 1/4 rate. The better your weapon is the less ammo it has so you cant just spam luci and expect to do well. I've hardly given the gamemode much thought but kharnov's split gamemode post got me thinking on how we can change already existing game mechanics to provide a fun and diverse twist on traditional gamemodes. Perhaps, using the strengths of the game already, we could come up with something unique like this that isn't just mindless point and click but a combination of strategy and fun gameplay.