Balancing and Alien attacks

[seana11]

I started playing trem at the beginning of march this year. I read all of the tutorials, and played humans for a month before trying out alien. I am fairly proficient at most weapons/classes. I have recently started learning flamer, md, and luci on humans, but have not started rant, and have limited basi experience. I am good at building human and alien. I found the game fairly easy to learn (ofc, I had played no FPSs previously other than doom on dosbox :P).

I would have to say that the hardest bit to learn for alien was dretch. Next to that was learning how to use goon and mara after getting into the dretch mentality. For humans, I'd say the hardest to learn was how to track aliens. I think the game is fairly easy to learn if someone sets their mind to it. I have put 308 hours, 40 minutes into this game, and have become fairly good.

I think that what new players really need is ready access to tutorials, since this is what helped me the most. This is not the same as posting them on the forums. Many gamers do not seek out tutorials (I have come to believe that I am an anomaly in this sense), and will only read short bits, and only if prompted (especially veterans of other FPSs, who "know" how to play already. I suggest a series of 10 basic tips to be presented on first startup, with a link to more tutorials which could be accessed in-game. Some videos might be helpful as well for visual people, as well as interactive ones for 'hands-on' learners, all accessible in-game.

Anyway, my 2 cents :P

[WhiteTech]

well, I won't argue against the 'the other people were better than you' thing, because it's very seldom that I'm the best player on a server (regardless of game). However, when I went human and the people that were humans before went alien, my team won. Those guys that managed to 'pwn' me before, suddenly couldn't do anything.

Now, you may argue that the human model is more familiar to a 'new' player than that alien stuff (I really, really hate that 'attack without clicking a mouse button', I know that trem did it, too. But I still don't like it.) but, to be honest, you really don't need any skill to kill a dretch with a pumpgun or even the default rifle.

And if the area is large an alien really has absolutely no chance in getting to the human.

And as soon as they manage to evolve, the table turns and it's the humans that have nearly no chance.

Some people are only good at one side, like me. Im pretty bad at playing humans. So if people switch teams and lose, it kind of makes sense. As for how easy it is to kill a dretch, really really really depends on the player. Some dreches are darn near impossible to hit. Hence in Trem 1.2 they made the model and hit box bigger (bigger then in Unvaquished) to make it easier to kill them.

As for the evolving, yes, when humans are Stage One with no helmets, the larger aliens like the Mara and Goon have the advantage. But getting to the goon and Mara can be challenging to some. Once humans get to stage to, a skilled human can take down aliens relativity easy.

As for dretch not clicking to attack thing, I couldn't really see it any other way. It already takes a skilled player to use one well enough, never mind the extra skill it would take to time the hits. Seeing as the Dretch is the only one that does this, (other then Basi Grab) I think it's fine.

And I agree with danmal on the input from new players, we need it to make the game more inviting rather then the new player being completely owned from the start until they get some skill at the game.

[Khaoz]

I think you just need some tips :)

Dretch:

• Never run in a straight line
• Jumping makes you easy to hit
• sticking to the walls + roof makes you hard to hit
• Try sneaking up on humans (dretches make no sound whilst walking), ambush them, try to get behind them (if you get close and behind them & look up at their head they usually won't have enough time to react before you kill them.

Humans (vsing aliens once they have evolved)

• Obviously, Keep your distance
• You have a huge amount of stamina, so use it (double tap to dodge, or strafe jump away from the aliens)
• Learn to predict when the alien is about to swipe and run the opposite direction (when vsing goon + tyrant)
• Shotgun is usefull from s1 through to s3, if you are proficient at dodging you can take out tyrants.

hmmm all I can think of at the moment.

[Viech]

I played a few rounds of this interesting game and I've come to the conclusion that the Alien race is completely unbalanced.

I agree with you that the alien race, especially the dretch behaves rather unintuitive and I hope that will change at some point. The current Unvanquished is, gameplay wise, a remake of Tremulous GPP which has a lot of experienced but few new players. Its statistics say that humans do more kills (56% on the most popular map) while aliens win more matches (61%). I hope we can get rid of both in our game. However, "completely unbalanced" is wrong. As soon as you learn how to properly play the alien race you'll see that it's both fun and powerful in combat.

[ViruS]

The reason why humans get more kills than aliens is because dretches feed easily more than rifle men.
If you think about it - 10 dretches versus 1 flamer suit. The flamer would win obviously.
Then, a tyrant versus 10 naked rifles. The naked rifles would win.

Then again, attacking bases, humans do not have autoregen and hence once taken significant damage and no medikit remaining, they need to recover health and retreat. This makes it hard for them to actually reach the alien base, and if they're lucky, there aren't any aliens camping on a booster in base and hence attack.

I would generally think that the defences of alien bases are really weak with the exception of the hive while human base which has been nerfed [no more instant shoot, although is superior to tyrants making tyrants almost useless] is only prone to two types of attacks when built well: Snpes and zaps. That is, if someone snipes the turrets that are hard to reach with zap, that is. After a few of the hard-to-reach turrets go down, zap becomes so overpowered that even a solo adv marauder can take down a human base. Well i guess thats equivilent to a lucifer cannon or a pulse rifle in an alien base.

Also, tt would be nice if the acid tube knockback was actually set to 0, because spraying toxic gas pushes a human away? Looks like that tube is in pain. Another thing i dont like about the tubes is its colour. It stands out too much, i cannot hide it in dark places anymore. Same goes with trapper.

Basically my solution is to give humans an upgrade like the biokit from tremx, but a lot weaker, while making acid tubes more damage dealing than the hives already do when up close.

[WhiteTech]

I agree with you that the alien race, especially the dretch behaves rather unintuitive and I hope that will change at some point. The current Unvanquished is, gameplay wise, a remake of Tremulous GPP which has a lot of experienced but few new players. Its statistics say that humans do more kills (56% on the most popular map) while aliens win more matches (61%). I hope we can get rid of both in our game. However, "completely unbalanced" is wrong. As soon as you learn how to properly play the alien race you'll see that it's both fun and powerful in combat.

I'd agree, but the dretch is more or less like the bad example of a horde of zombies (Left 4 Dead). They're easy to kill, but the shier number of them is where the power is. So, the humans having more kills makes perfect sense. Which in GPP, it takes more dretches being killed to stage up the humans, then humans being killed.

[tuxator]

I think you just need some tips :)

Dretch:

• Never run in a straight line
  - Jumping makes you easy to hit
• sticking to the walls + roof makes you hard to hit
• Try sneaking up on humans (dretches make no sound whilst walking), ambush them, try to get behind them (if you get close and behind them & look up at their head they usually won't have enough time to react before you kill them.

ok, you make noises when you jump, sure. Or what is meant here? Hitbox misalignment? For me, when someone attacks me and jumps, I can't get a clear shot...meanwhile someone running on the wall/roof is easily killed (if he's not in a very good hiding spot)

Also, somehow I find the wallmovement of the dretch more confusing than it was in Trem...but maybe that's just my mind tricking me...or the maps walls were more smooth.

[seana11]

ok, you make noises when you jump, sure. Or what is meant here? Hitbox misalignment? For me, when someone attacks me and jumps, I can't get a clear shot...meanwhile someone running on the wall/roof is easily killed (if he's not in a very good hiding spot)

Also, somehow I find the wallmovement of the dretch more confusing than it was in Trem...but maybe that's just my mind tricking me...or the maps walls were more smooth.

You are easier to hit when you jump because you are no longer in contact with the floor, and therefore cannot make sudden changes in direction until you come in contact with the ground again. Those on walls and roof are harder to hit since they can change direction, and flank very easily. It is also harder to shoot the walls as human because you are confined to the ground.

There is a topic on wallwalking.

[ViruS]

MY opinion is that more people are used to only moving their mouse left and right only in fps games.
Most non-quake-like gameplay fps such as battlefield generally on requires to you aim to the left/right only so up/down is still inexperianced.
And it still is for me, despite trem being my first fps game in 2007...

[WhiteTech]

MY opinion is that more people are used to only moving their mouse left and right only in fps games.
Most non-quake-like gameplay fps such as battlefield generally on requires to you aim to the left/right only so up/down is still inexperianced.
And it still is for me, despite trem being my first fps game in 2007...

That's a very very good point... I guess that's why drop shotting is a cheap COD console tactic (although it usually never works on me, especially on PC).

I think people need to get used to Trem before they can be effective at it