ET enhancements I would love to see

(Borsuk) #1

If you aren’t going to read WHOLE fat post, this topic isn’t for you. These are ET tweaks I would love to see…implemented in next official patch.

Covert Op exp system overhauled

Exp reward for disguising reduced from 5 to 2 . Disguise should be regarded more as a tool, than a goal. There are circumstances where it doesn’t help at all. This change would also separate helpful Covert Ops from pervert panthunters.

Covert Op gains 4 exp for killing someone with non-scoped weapon and keeping his disguise

Covert Op gains 2 exp for each kill within 5 seconds after losing disguise.

Covert Op gains 2 exp for throwing smoke grenade at MG nest served by enemy

Covert Op gains 3 exp for throwing smoke grenade at certain important objectives that need repair/being constructed. Examples: , Assault Ramp (allies), bridge (allies), disabled tank or truck (allies), foot bridge (allies).

Covert Op gains 3 exp for throwing smoke grenade at certain important objectives that need to be destroyed. Examples are: tank/truck barriers, bridges, etc.

NOTE: reward works only for “next” barrier, for instance if tank is before first barrier it’s first one, if tank is before second it’s second one etc.

Covert Op gains 5 exp for opening team door if a teammate is very close to him. Works only once per 30 seconds or even once per spawn. Doesn’t work on Radar if main entrance is blown

B. Medic, the most aggresive and careless class

Should have his ability to pick up own medpacks REMOVED, but his health regeneration rate TRIPLED. Three benefits at once: no problems with healing self instead of others, medics would be forced to play slighty more defensively, and they wouldn’t be able to ignore flamethrower (I’ve seen medics run&shoot at me UNDER HEAVY OR FULL flames, in closed areas like corridors, and hit me without any problems. Punkbuster enabled. Flamethrower gives them enough time to reload after kill and then use medpacks)

…OR
Amount of ammunition Medic can carry is decreased by two clips. Medics can’t pick up medpacks while on fire .

Medic loses 4 exp for killing a teammate, or 6 if he knocks off helmet on the process. This way medic attempting tk-revive and failing would lose 4 exp. Medic who does tk-revive successfully, loses 4 then gains 4, so his exp doesn’t change. Any medics stupid enough to try tk-revive and knock off teammate’s helmet should be severely penaltized.

Engineer tweaks:

Possibility to file complaint after walking into landmine COMPLETELY REMOVED. . Explaination - I never saw teamkillers try to use landmines, I guess because

  1. spawn teamkilling impossible because of temporal invlunerability
  2. if it’s anywhere else you can avoid or jump above it
  3. you don’t jump onto badly placed landmine just to check which idiot planted it.

[b] next-to-pointless engineer actions give halved exp [b]. For instance destroying any barriers if Axis still spawns near Command Post, or repairing the tank if the bridge isn’t reinforced.

Vehicle tweaks:

1 exp for each grenade or rifle grenade which damages (NOT disables) tank or truck
2 exp for damaging truck or tank with Mortar/PAnzerfaust (they deal quite a lot damage, and Panzerfaust soldiers often get no rewards for damaging tanks because they need to hit it 3 times.

Misc:
/kill command takes 5 seconds to work, so you can’t suicide instantly . It would be enough to drive out /kill abusers.

2 extra exp for killing someone carrying portable objective, or killing someone next to portable objective if it’s in starting position. PRetty obvious.

3 exp for returning portable objective Hmm heavy/light weapons exp doesn’t seem approtiate, perhaps Battle Sense ?

[b] New awards:

Most Team Friendly - lowest team damage, if there are some players tied at say 0 (just kidding), the winner is the one with highest ammount of grenades thrown, artillery/airstrikes called, heavy weapons fired, and highest amount of Covert Ops in team.

I Don’t Need Enemies Award - for the man who received most team damage.
[/b]

Spawn invulnerability shields additionaly reflcts damage. Shield indicators are changed to red. This should stop spawn camping once and for all. NOTE: people revived by medics don’t get such shields, but standard ones instead.

(Hanlon) #2

Ok, covert looks fine but medic is FUBAR. Tripling their regen will make them more powerful then before, they will be almost unphased by flamers and it won’t matter if they can’t feed themselves health because they won’t need to. However you did kinda touch on a good point, I think medics and fields should right click to feed themselves, I hate feeding myself when I needed to feed a teammate.

Medics feeding themselves mid fight isn’t the problem, the problem is that they have more hp (that regens) then everyone else, so in a even fight the medic always wins. I always thought soldier should have the most hp, followed by medic, but not very close. This unfortunetly would make panzers even more powerful then they all ready are so soldiers really can’t have any more hp.

Close on engy. Engies should be able to complain on the teammate for wasting his mine…=) pipe-dream but hey, playing engy is stressful.

(HellToupee) #3

meds r fine sure they have more health but heath is their job, other than health thats all they got, if field ops could own meds in smg and everyone else with support fire not fair, u can kill meds fine in fights u just have to be agressive you play like a wuss he will run round a courner and be back stronger, u gota follow him around and kill him while bhes defenceless.

As for XP, with the smoke nades ild like to see certian hot spots on the map u get xp for smokin it, like the main gate on fuel dump once smoked is alot easyer to get thru or on radar with 2-3 smoke nades down on the other side is a wal in the park to get thru.

(Pamper) #4

Actually radar has 2 team doors, next to 2 destroyable entrances. Neither should give points after the associated entrance is destroyed. Also the lower door on Oasis shouldn’t work if wall is blown. And in fact, the other 2 doors on Oasis never help reach game objectives, maybe they should never give points (only helps clean out spawnkillers). Maybe all doors should be categorized as to whether or not they block the way to an objective- and this will change as the mission progresses. Obviously, only doors leading to objectives should give poitns.

Another way to do team doors would be to give him points not for opening it, but for each teamate (including himself) who passes through. The covert who opened a door gets 1 point per teammate who uses it. Once a teammate has given a point for using a door, he can’t give any more until respawned.

Medic loses 4 exp for killing a teammate, or 6 if he knocks off helmet on the process.

<u>An alternative way to change TK/revive would be to remove the need for it.</u> If a medic has a needle out, all teamates with less than his revive amount (40 or 100, or whatever it really is) could show an orange “needle-me” icon on their heads (like the normal red icon on a hurt guy). Those people could be needled while standing up, and brought up to your normal revive level.

<u>A different way to make TK/revive less necessary:</u> boost the power of a hurt teammate getting a very fresh medpack. If someone picks up a medpack less than 2 seconds old, and his health is less than the revive-level of the medic who created it, he goes all the way up to the revive level.

Possibility to file complaint after walking into landmine COMPLETELY REMOVED.

I’d rather not. It is possible to intentionally hurt your team by planting in bad places. Most teamkillers want instant gratification, but mine-traitors can happen. The 2 changes I would prefer instead:
1. Make it possible to stare at a mine and tell who planted it. (Maybe also click on it in limbo and see) If you don’t like where a mine is, there’s currently no way to tell who put it there without jumping on it.
2. Make all TK complaints work better. <u>First</u>, the globally-printed obituary should print the weapon used in TKs. <u>Second</u>, the offer to complain should say “You died by TEAMMATE Pamper’s Landmine. File a complaint?”. <u>Thirdly</u>, If you do file, a message should print to everyone. By giving all players more information about what TKing and complaining is happening, they will be better able to judge the situation and deal with it (probably by voting off whoever is causing it). This way, if a person complains for landmines, he’ll get yelled at by both teams.

1 exp for each grenade or rifle grenade which damages (NOT disables) tank or truck 2 exp for damaging truck or tank with Mortar/PAnzerfaust

Instead, I’d prefer that all damage done to a vehicle is remembered. Then when it becomes broken, split up the 10XP proportionally to everyone who hit it.
(If an arty or airstrike breaks tank on the first hit, but continues to damage it, that does get added into the total)

/kill command takes 5 seconds to work, so you can’t suicide instantly . It would be enough to drive out /kill abusers.

I never /kill, but I don’t consider /kill to teleport back into a spawnpoint abuse. /kill to get ammo is OK too, I guess (although I can always find an enemy willing to kill me). However, /kill to recharge your power is just lame. Therefore, someone who /kills should respawn with the same power level he had at time of death.

A separate kind of /kill exploit that I’ve heard of, but never seen, is the “XP denial”. You’d supposedly /kill just before an enemy finishes you. To avoid this, when someone /kills, the last enemy to hurt him should get 3XP. In fact, maybe when someone suicides or teamkills, the last enemy to hurt him should ALSO get 3XP. If I attack 2 guys with my SMG, and the end of the battle has both of them dead, I deserve 6-10 XP. Even if I tricked one into shooting the other, it was still my doing.

<u>This would also help against Panzer Pussies</u>. If I shoot a panzersoldier twice in the face and then he vaporizes us, the current system gives him 3 XP and me none. But really, I caused his death, so award me something. Give me 3 XP too, for being the last to hurt him before he suicided.

3 exp for returning portable objective Hmm heavy/light weapons exp doesn’t seem approtiate, perhaps Battle Sense ?

How about 1 point to each of his active skills? (BattelSense+LightWeapons+CurrentClass). Or just give the points to whichever of his 3 active skills is lowest.

New awards:

I don’t like the current awards, they’re basically just highest XP. Not much fun.

<u>Here’s some cool new awards:</u>
“Victim”: most deaths. “Bleeder”: Most health healed. “Survivor”: longest time without respawning. “Streak”: most kills without going down. “The Ripper”: most knife kills. “Cowboy”: most pistol kills. “What bombs at midnight”: most dynamite kills. “Pacifist”: highest ratio of kills/XP (you got points without killing). “Fashion sense”: most XP for changing clothes. “Trigger Happy”: largest amount of ammo used. “Marathon”: largest distance traveled. “Efficient”: highest kills/deaths ratio. “Safety first”: highest ratio of enemy damage to team damage (including self).

Those awards shouldn’t be given after every match- only if a minimum threshold was reached to be eligibile for each. And when they’re printed, it should list what numbers were used to qualify!

Spawn invulnerability shields additionaly reflcts damage. Shield indicators are changed to red. This should stop spawn camping once and for all. NOTE: people revived by medics don’t get such shields, but standard ones instead.

An alternative would be to make freshly spawned people invulnerable and invisible (to the other team). That way, if someone is waiting at your spawn, you can see him first and position yourselves accordingly.

On a side note, the blue invuln icon that comes from being revived shouldn’t be drawn on an enemy’s screen if he can’t see you. As an allied sniper on battery, I’ll kill a guy looking out the window (newbie). Then a medic comes heals him… and I see the blue icon, so I can aim perfectly for where he’ll be when he gets up, and kill him again! Mucho XP for me!

(SCDS_reyalP) #5

I doubt splash is going to make serious gameplay changes in a patch. But just in case they are thinking about it, I’d like to urge them not mess with the medic or /kill.

Tweaking XP would be OK, but people will always find ways to whore XP rather than trying to help their team win. The solution isn’t to make the XP system more complex, but to play on servers where admins kick stupid players.

Rewarding covops for throwing smoke on objectives would be open to exploitation.

What I would like to see:

  • Teamkill message lists the weapon.
  • Gib and prone boxes closer to the size of the RTCW gib box.
  • Gibbing take more bullets, like RTCW
  • server can configure starting and max XP.
  • server can restore XP for people who dropped.
  • make weapons and classes individually restrictable.
  • fix XP exploits like planting/disarming the same command post over and over.
  • allow per team votes, so that you can call a vote to kick someone from your team, only your teams votes matter.
  • make the unscoped rifles reward skill more.
  • make the pack throwing work better.

If splash wants to send me the code, I’ll be happy to start working on the above :moo:

(Borsuk) #6

The sole purpose of 5 second coutdown is to stop /killer who suicide when they’re about to die. I like this approach more than rewarding last one to hurt /kill’er. I already met such players, all of them were rambo medics and all clanned.

It just seems complex. In my opinion it’s MUCH better than having to bother admin each time you find an asshole.
Not to this extend. It is possible to severely limit amount of exp whores. It pisses me off to see someone on my team called “best covert op” If I was the one who destroyed multiple command posts, revealed many landmines and killed some without getting caught. Current reward for disguising encourages stupidity. For instance I played covop and killed an enemy. My teammate covop rushed to take his uniform. I wouldn’t mind if he used it well, but he just jumped at nearest enemy and fired. I could’ve used it much better.

Perhaps you have no idea how much does smoke grenade help when thrown at tank barrier etc.

Additional idea:

[b] Ability to choose one of several reasons when calling kickvote. Examples:

Teamkiller
Idle
Ignores Objectives (selfish medics and fieldops also fall in this cattegory)
Observer
Newbie (it’s not necessarily polite, but…)
Hurts his team (disarming mines, jumping onto them, destroying MG nests, blocking the way…)

(SCDS_reyalP) #7

Agree with that. Other people have suggested just prompting the vote caller to enter a reason, but your idea would be better. If you choose ‘teamkiller’ the server should automatically show how many TKs they have, and if you choose ‘idle’ it should show how long since he last moved. Maybe newbie should be ‘clueless’ instead :stuck_out_tongue: You could have ‘complainer’ for mine / support fire complainers, and have the server show how many unique people they had filed against.

(Borsuk) #8

You could have ‘complainer’ for mine / support fire complainers, and have the server show how many unique people they had filed against.

I wouldn’t go that far. True, there are idiots who will run into your colorful smoke anyway, but on the other hand, I have right to complain when someone shoots panzer/flamer or calls support fire at me just because there was an enemy next to me. I have damn right to complain when I’m teamkiled not because of my fault. I’ve met panzer-teamkillers who were disgusted by my complaint because “you were near tug” or so. How about I can use panzer thru whole match and 0 teamkills ? It happens from time to time. If I can, they certainly can, too.

(Freedom[]Tickler) #9

how about having level 4 battle sense be able to pick a helmet up and put it back on, if yours was shot off.

kinda simple idea, but would be nice if helmets we re-usable

(rgoer) #10

Well, I hate to sound like a baby, but I feel that (a lot of the time) engineers have a hard enough time getting XP as it is. I mean, I hate XP-whore engies as much as the next guy, but if the XP for “useless” engie actions is reduced, I think the XP for “mission critical” engie actions should be increased. Just my thoughts…

Also (and I doubt this is anywhere near the “doable” end of the feasability spectrum), I’d like to see engies get for laying quality, well-placed minefields–not just scoring kills with mines. You know, mines that blockade important passages, or mines that barricade objectives or constructables–the engie should get a few XP just for laying those.

I don’t know–maybe engies get plenty of XP and I just need more practice ;^)

(wudan) #11

A lot of your ‘suggestions’ are really just based on your ‘beefs’ about the arrangement and balance of gameplay. It’s a war, I suppose, between which matters more - the XP or the Objective, and I’d have to agree that the objective should be more important. However, if gameplay were changed, a lot more people wouldn’t like the new way, myself included.

XP whoring can be fun, and frequently you get lots of XP just helping to complete the objectives.

(Freedom[]Tickler) #12

wudan is right

and Ive accussed borsuk of just that in another post - hes got an advanced case of knowing better

i dont care about frags or XP - just winning.

the game is about ENGINEERS - and how best to support them in winning the maps - I dont think Ive ever seen these XP minded types even pay lip service to this critically important fact.

playing defence is less about engineers than offence - and rail gun requires less engineering than the other 5 maps - but still the fact remains - all balance issues hinge on ENGINEERS being the corner stone to this game.
These XP minded posters invent these issues and then dissect them in a vacuum

(Borsuk) #13

No, there’s basically no difference between exp and objectives. That’s the purpose of xp system, it’s meant to encourage behaviour benefitial for team and completing objectives. That’s how most of it works.

If it wasn’t meant to work like that, medic wouldn’t get any exp for healing and reviving, or engineer for constructing and repairing. Even Light Weapons skill indicates player’s usefulness - you clear the w way for yourself and teammates to complete objectives, or prevent them from being completed. If you kill lots of enemies, you DO help your team and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Name one reason why Covert Op should get so much exp for being pervert and constantly changing clothes. It’s basically way of collecting trophies for many players. This class should be called Tailor, for instance. Current name is confusing.

Classes in general gain exp for doing something no one else can do. So covert gets xp for revealing mines, destroying objectives, and spreading confusion among enemies. However I can give you plenty of examples where picking up disguise doesn’t change anything - when you are between your teammates and they ignore you, when you are running with satchel (very easy to distinguish), or running in opposite direction with good health. You aren’t going to fool anyone, but you get lots of exp for that.

From another one

and Ive accussed borsuk of just that in another post - hes got an advanced case of knowing better

i dont care about frags or XP - just winning.

And I decided to ignore you, because you like to criticize me instead of trying to understand my motives. There are many cases where winning you are so concerned about gives you exp. Tell me how rewarding covop for letting engy thru team door is not about winning, and not about supporting your beloved angies ? Why do you oppose that ? And what’s wrong about throwing smoke grenade at assault ramp so engy can construct it easier, does it disturb engy (smoke-o-phobia) or prevents him for blowing gun controls ? Oh I guess you skipped that part, my bad. FEEL FREE TO COMMENT THIS PART.

If my changes were implemented (even just covop part) you’d newbies acting closer to completing objectives and making your team win. You’d see more players useful for teams in general. You may not care about public servers because they’re so lame and so forth, but - believe or not - it’s quite rare for players to be born as clanned. Even clanned ones ocassionaly happen to be idiots. Most good players come from public servers, and a match played with good players is more probable to be fun.

You see, you are contradicting your own statements.

If my proposed system isn’t perfect, great ! I want Covert Ops to abuse throwing smoke grenades at assault ramp or barricades because it MIGHT be very useful, as opposed to picking up pants which usually serves no purpose.

(wudan) #14

Well, ok, so both arguments have some merit, I’ll warrant that.

I guess you could say, that the methods of progression in the game are two-fold, and break down in to 2 distinct playing styles:

Lions and Hyenas.

A Lion Player will escort the objective seeking players, or be an objective seeking player, and actively assault the enemy or problem at hand. He tackles it, and can be successful or fail, depending on the organization and determination of his enemies.

The Hyena Player is a scavenger, while he does serve some purpose to his team, frequently goes off the beaten path to pick up kills (in my small circle we call this “side-busting” or “snaking”.) He preys on characters who’ve wandered away from the herd, thereby creating his own ‘side-game’. He has a fairly high success ratio, because this scenario has less to do with battle tactics and more to do with intuition. Essentially, you can lodge a few bullets in someone’s head very quickly, especially if you see them first.

I think a good player is a combination of both, depending on whether he’s an Axis or Allied soldier - for instance, while the Axis aren’t generally on offense, a CvOps at the top of the Assault ramp on Battery can frustrate the hell out of the allies - but how useful is he? if he has a sten he’s marginally useful, if he has a sniper, yeah, if he can get a good spot he’d be ok, but he’s best on that little spot of land in front of the assault ramp, for the express purpose of blasting it.

(DrGratis) #15

No, there’s basically no difference between exp and objectives. That’s the purpose of xp system, it’s meant to encourage behaviour benefitial for team and completing objectives. That’s how most of it works.

I’m sorry you will never convince me that getting XP= playing towards winning…

True XP is given out for doing things that if done properly will help win the map. But often people do things simply for the XP regardless of if it helps the win the match.

Field ops will use arties and air strikes (and give them selves ammo) and not hand out to anyone else…

Medics can revive idiots who run though their own teams landmines.

Eng can go build things (or demolish things) that are not the current priority (goldrush anyone) or Gun controls on Railgun?

And people hate to defend when they could be out in the courtyard and running toward the allied spawn on goldrush when it just takes two allies 20 secs to nab both gold boxes…

Yeah I might not get a lot of XP from standing guard or riding the tug, but I do it every game…
often by myself…
While the XP whores are of getting pointless kills…

(_placid_) #16

i don’t believe medics get any xp for reviving a guy they tk’d as is…

and just on a side note, medics don’t do that so they can xp whore fucktard, they do it to heal you more. if you have 2health and they’re below a level 2 medic they can only drop 4 packs, if they’ve used those it takes a while to regenerate that much, so instead of giving you 2 packs which will give you 42 health they kill you, revive at 50 health + 2 packs = 90 health.

if you really want to stop xp whoring go play in a league instead of complaining about pub play. people will ALWAYS xp whore no matter what you change to make themselves look big.

(Freedom[]Tickler) #17

borsuk,

In a Pavlovian sense :fluffle:, you are right, but what we need is operant conditioning for the newbz who dont RTFM :twak: :bash: :poke:

Is it not likely that if all your ideas were implemented, pub games would still be the same. XP whores, DMers in the hinter lands, pants stealers who dont spot mines, players running over the ‘flaggy power-ups’, etc. Your ideas impact the end of games stats, not how the map was won. Thats not the XP systems fault, but a function of how alot of people play this game.

The XP system is good enough as is, and a great idea, but also seems to be a bit of a distraction. I dont mind not having a holiday named after me for being the only engineer on my team that keeps the tank rolling, builds the bridges or blows up the obstacles etc. Winning is the greatest reward, just below the ‘welcome newbie’ award :smiley:

(Borsuk) #18

2% less of such people would make me happier.

(Mr. Chris) #19

Here is an idea I saw on the Planetwolf forums:

A covert op being able to pick up his victim’s gun for further disguising

(wudan) #20

Nah, cappin a disguised CvOps just because you recognize the sten or some such weapon is good form, rarely happens, but when you recognize the scum, it’s a good worthwhile kill.