Creating a new clan: focus on teamplay and atmosphere

[Moses2k]

i guess your not interested anyway, it doesn't match your playing style.

Maybe were I a younger man.

[kangaxx]

Maybe were I a man.

fixed it your you

[Xenomorph]

Erm, so, Maniac, are you suggesting insane no res? You very rarely get a full mission with no-1 dieing on insane, even less with less experienced players. Some people cannot play on Insane, or even hard for that matter, also Ra has stated in the guidelines that no 1-shot-kill weapons will be aloud for anyone who is not demo. I would like to see 8 people complete Lost Contact for example without using those weapons on hard/insane, and not run out of ammo. Even with ammo bags, certain missions take up a lot of ammo. Rifles drain ammo very quick and it sounds like most people will be using those, as only 2 ags and 2 demos. On maps like bio-labs or reactor core, okay there is no risk of running out of ammo, but remember, the harder you play, the more ammo you use. Newer players tend to use more ammo because they cannot predict when their gun will kill the enemy. Besides, don't enough people die on normal as it is? I mean look at Rescue, such an easy map, yet people ALWAYS die on it, even on normal.

[Johnathan]

It's 5:30 here, don't expect much.

I'll say I like the core idea of this. Getting back to the roots of what swarm used to be. I remember back when we did the very first insane sigma campaign. It was pretty tense. Lot of 'oh shit' moments and a good ammount of covering each others' asses.

THAT was what made swarm fun.

Unfortunately 2-3 years later, swarm has kind of lost the newness it once had. We have many good campaigns available to play and most of the maps I don't know (not like I know sigma and ortega), however things are predictable as far as alien behaviors and weapon behaviors.

It's kind of like the girlfriend you married and spent 3 years with. You still love her but you've come to expect certain things that make the relationship less interesting than it was at the outset. However by knowing what to expect you can appriciate that solidity and. . .

Anyway.

What if you made a small mod to how the aliens react or WHAT comes out of a spawner? Yes you are changing the fundamental gameplay but maybe for the better. Certainly more in line with Swarm than the akira or site-ex. . . Or the shield belt. . . >.>

What if you were to just make a mutator that removed some of the equipment that steps out of 'Aliens' and into 'Star Trek' Then at least you wouldn't have AS MUCH of an advantage. I mean you're already disalowing shottys and stuff. . . (Does that include the flamer? That thing can be devistating in the right hands)

Yeah so excuse me for ranting/raving. Heres the gist.

I like the idea with the caveat that if you thought to make a clan with the idea of preserving and creating atmosphere/tension some changes would need to be made lest it become voluntarily nerfing your playing for the sake of the team.
Suspending your disbelief is so much more fun when it's done because you WANT to and not because you HAVE to. (I really need to stick with the team. Nevermind the fact that I have a flamer, satchel and site ex.)

Just my thoughts on the matter. I'll be watching this closely

[Laosh'Ra]

unfortunately its not possible to edit the game itself (like the spawn logics) without a patch from the developers.
here's a list of the things we could change:

ServerPackages=AoTelic
ServerPackages=AoTelicBeta
ServerPackages=AoTelicGuns
ServerPackages=AoEFRCode

bAddTelicEquip=True
bAddTelicHelmets=True
bAddNoFFAward=True
bAddTelicStims=True
bAddTelicMelee=True
bAddTelicInfrared=True
bAddTelicSpawnWatchdog=False
bAddToTelicCampaign=True
bAllowTG=True

i'm not so very sure about their meanings.
it doesnt seem like we have much freedom though, people will simply have to follow the rules by themselves. for example there will always be a restart button, even if we dont want to use it.

[Xenomorph]

Ra, would we all be using the Telic stims then? I think, they encourage rushes and kill farming.

[Laosh'Ra]

we've had a meeting today (pallo, johnathan, lotuspec, mugen and i) discussing several issues about the server. we dont know what parts of them are possible, but here's a list of how we'd like it to be:
random camera variation, random alien type variation (uber etc.) just like you can find it on non-campaign maps
as for rift code, we've come to the conclusion that it ruins the atmosphere too much. same goes for a few more weapons...
if its possible we'd actually like to ban the following equipment:
assault shotgun
flamer
autogun
grenade launcher
sniper rifle
akira
tesla gun
both laser guns as well as the laser backpack (even if its rift-code anyway, i'd better list it here)
gastank
happy funtime shooter kit
shieldbelt
site-ex
the morita hack bind should not be used at all. the rest of the telic/efr stims/equip should be available though, autogunners will have to rely on the mustard for example. demos have the biggest nerf, they can still use their mines though.
we are aware that these bans seem quite drastic, but it's not like we'll play on the server 24/7.
johnathan mentioned that its also possible to modify weapons by replacing the current ones with almost identical copies (did i get that part right?). if thats the case for this server, we'll have at least one more meeting to discuss this. ideas included to improve the shenk and to increase the shotguns clipsize, there were a lot more but imo its rather pointless to discuss this unless we are certain that it's actually possible.
there also was a suggestion to lower the number of spawns and ammo clips in order to make things a bit more realistic.
before having a final decision concerning the settings, we'd like to know which things listed above are actually possible.

[Fuzzy Bunny]

You're banning the autogun but not the Telic stims? Why are you keeping the Morita? Even without the special bind you are still able to spam the alt fire by setting it to one of the mouse wheel directions. You can even take a flashlight and you don't have to worry. The morita does have the highest dps in the game, as far as usable weapons, you know.

Most of the standard weapons are really quite balanced, and the Telic/EFR stuff is only really necessary for the Telic/EFR maps. The only original weapon I might question about being balanced is the flamer, but if you're sticking together instead of spreading out and ramboing, the flamer isn't going to be such a problem. It's good for covering the rear, taking out groups of eggs, and slowing bugs.

Sacrifices were made in order to carry stims pre-1.3. Making them free allows you to carry a potentiality useful extra. In my opinion, being able to stim while carrying a hack tool or mines makes the game easier.

In closing, modifying the weapons is doable through mutators, and the spawns could also be modified the same way, probably. Personally, I think you should force Rifle into every marine's primary slot except the autogunners, and restrict every extra except pistol flares flashlight and explosive mines, and leave the usual options for secondary items. The autogunners would be forced to take autoguns. Restrict the team to one bag of ammo, one sentry, and three med satchels.

[Ran-bot]

/agrees with Fuzzy about the autogun

I don't get the flamer-hate around here either. Set the difficulty to something other than easy/normal and you'll find that it's not so powerful. In fact, it becomes a hell of a team weapon on hard/insane [assuming you can control your FF] because it slows the bug hordes down for the rest of the team to finish them off. Even on normal difficulty a flamer in rear-guard works great and shouldn't cause any TKs.

For all the talk about teamplay and restricting stuff, I think you just have to start playing on hard [or insane] difficulty. For any semi-experienced player normal difficulty is pretty easy and too tempting to rambo around, but I don't think restricting half the weapons/equipment is the right way to make things "fun". I admit most of my ASw experience is limited to the Sigma, Ortega, and Telic campaigns, so I'm not passing any judgement on EFR stuff and I'm assuming that people aren't playing Sigma/Ortega with Telic/EFR load-outs.


All this recent ASw/AS:I talk is tempting me to reinstall UT/ASw and noob stuff up a bit for all you vets. Maybe this weekend...maybe...

[Xenomorph]

I am also wondering why you are taking out the autogun. There are some missions which are not possible without an autogun or ramboing. You see how this will work? Everyone will want to be tech or medic because the Special Weapons marines will loose what makes them useful. Demos are still aloud mines. Why isn't the Autogun aloud? That is like taking away med sachels, or taking away the tech's hacking ability.

[Laosh'Ra]

the idea was that its pretty lame to instantly cover about 70° over 1-2 screens without any significant disadvantages... considering the demos dont have assault shotguns and flamers anymore, it would dominate too much too.
focused on the mustard, autogunners would become true "heavy weapon marines" as you might know them from certain films/games. quite slow while fireing, so they really need some cover. but once in position, they blast everything away... the runup time as well as the possibilty of overheating boost the atmosphere too.
but its a point we could still change. i'd say we simply try it without autogun. if it doesnt work out properly we can still allow it.
however, if felix wants a final decision right away, we keep it allowed.

For any semi-experienced player normal difficulty is pretty easy and too tempting to rambo around

please read the entire posts before replying, we've already discussed this point. for example, getting a perfect on each mission not easy at all - even on normal mode. you might say that's irrelevant, i say you need to do the best you can to save the medsatchels for the rest of the team.
the ramboing should stop being tempting because we never restart. and because people who play on the server agree to the guidelines.

[Maniac]

I'm totally with Fuzzy on this that the flamer is a good cover weapon.
And the part of just using rifle is pretty easy to since you can still melee the aliens they need like 2 blows from a melee attack on normal to get killed I think that's pretty easy to achive when on normal since then can't run that fast also the thing about rifles is that they still have their grenades that makes 1 shot 1 kill.
If you want to have a weapon that's not that powerful you just have to get something like shenks since both the rifle and the morita is still powerful on normal mode.

Hard as I said before doesn't let people rambo, this is just a suggestion since your apperently wanting to play on normal but if that's the case just skip the extra stims. please it's way to easy and even easier if you have rift code on since they get 1 extra stim and the meds get 3 extra.

[SephirothTDL]

I think you guys are way over thinking this. Instead of banning certain weapons, why not play the game without telic/efr weapons. Stay with the original weapons...

[Xenomorph]

Because, the original weapons are actually worse coz they encourage rambos. Flamer, that makes the game way too easy + it encourages people to leave the team even to run away from enemies. Rifles have grenades yes, but they only have 4 of them and experienced players will no doubt keep them for eggs on certain maps.

Edit: Also, the Autogun can be menacing if only covering that 70 degrees, on some missions, autoguns are not that good, also, autoguns are slow firing and can only kill 1 enemy at a time. If there is a big spawn, then obviously the autogun will not survive. One thing though, you should ban bots, bot AGs are like mobile Akiras, but they reload.

[kangaxx]

Autogunners....

If there is a big spawn, then obviously the autogun will not survive.

Well imo thats what an autogunner is made for... large ammount of bugs. though he will get into trouble if hes on his own and gets sourrounded by loads of bugs...

and dont forget we´re talking about normal difficulty only.. a skilled (with sum stars on his special skill) AG just mows down every enemy way too easy.. on hard or insane thats a different story... so keeping the autogun banned is a good thing imo. using the mustard requires much more flair when to shoot or to run. shoot the mustard in an inproper situation and youre gone in seconds