Remove Repair Upgrade, Rehaul Build

yeah, being able to repair a tank 50x faster than a gren can possibly damage it is a pain in the ass.

 

I think I got my ideas mixed up. E-build needs a buff, perhaps 1 engie = 2 e-build, or 1 repair upgrade = 3 e-build, but we also need to keep repair upgrade. If we get rid of repair upgrade, engineres will be takeing revive.
As to my secoend point, 95% of people who you are healing are looking at you, not in the direction that the enemey is going to be attacking from, aka, the direction that they should be looking.

 

Nerf tank repairrrrreeeeee! :p

 

They should also nerf the heal rate to make heal upgrade a little more appealing. It's kind of gay hitting a couple people with a mowtar and before you can shoot another shell they are healed up all the way.

 

Naw, mortar reloads too slow. Default heal is really slow too, healing upgrade is fast, maybe too fast...but still 1 skill worthy.

 

buffing repair via giving engineer e-build doesn't make engineer tank repair more powerful than it should be.

 

heal upgrade is very appealing if you're in a pretty active combat area. it's cheaper to heal people with heal upgrade than spending a chunk of tool energy on a revive.

 

/sigh

Ikalx, none of the points you made were consitent, coherent or constructive in any way.

1. "Mmm...actually, I find if I spawn wit' engy ammoz, build t3h rax then switch class it stays up more often, than if I spawn as rifle."

= Contradiction to your entire argument. Of course it will be built faster, you're an engineer...so thank you for that enlightenment captain obvious. Also, I'd like to take the time to point you towards your later poitn that you sit on the rax as a rifleman as opposed to preventing the onslaught of nadespam/gren fire that's bringing it down....further slowing the construction process. Congrats on supporting your own contradiction with your general lack of appropriate tactical gameplay.

2.Your second conjecture [insert game referencing quote here] consist of semi-incoherent rambling. Zeke is ok? Not sure what players you play with, but he's never more than above average in terms of 'raw score' in games where I've seen him. Then again your point is semi valid that score isn't everything. You not playing other classes is entirely your own fault. If you really want to get things accomplished, and feel that you're competent...cough...then stop bitching, take the initiative and lead a squad. I find that people tend to listen when you give them coherent directions and have few issues with my squads. In doing this, or else joining a competent squad, you can opt to be whichever class you prefer and have tasks delegated to those whose class can most efficiently complete them.

3. Again I reiterate, you cannot effectively build a rax and lay down suppressing fire. A scenario to ease the explanation: You and an engineer with repair upgrade are building a rax, I as an engineer place 1 wall caddy corner to the opening of your rax (let alone those other variables that I previously alluded to) and drop an amo crate. From here on I proceed to (from behind the wall) nade spam the rax. Now, that rax will go down despite there being both yourself (a rifleman) and a repair engineer inside building it because the seismic nade spam will do more damage than your 2 man team can sustain. Now, you peak your head out the door to try to shoot me, but wait, I'm behind my wall.....seeing the trend here? So without you physically closing on my position (laying suppressive grenades as you go), you (as a rifleman building the rax) are effectively useless. So again, I digress, no you cannot effectively build a rax and lay down supressing fire AS ANY CLASS (grens there's a little leway). Now keep in mind, that this example was a 1v2 and I hadn't bothered to establish a fortified position with either a. more walls, b. a turret or c. the high ground. All of which would leave you (the rifleman insistant on building/shooting while building) as a significantly further disadvantage).

4."So what you want is the engineer to be an engineer as described in most other games, right? The problem is, explosives and base bitching and deconnin' is not so fun unless you got a weapon that is interestin' too. You mayaswell ask for the engy to get a shotgun, it's in every other game with an Engineer."

Thats not a terrible synopsis. Except for you're leaving out a few huge factors. In no other games are buildings dropped from the sky for engineers to build. Nor are engineers able to repair tanks in most other games. Nor are engineers able to drop turrets or walls...seeing a trend? By no means would engineers be boring if they lose ONE skillset (to heal/revive). Especially if they were to pick up an additional skillset that was more befitting their play style/character/balance...aka mines as I mentioned. The way I play my engineer, I only revive on specific maps or where situations deem it necessary (which would simply then be delegated to another class) and it would in no way compromise the integrity of the class, but would rather strenghten it and balance the game in the process.

5. a. I'll start with this, riflemen are by no means unstoppable. In fact they're rather easy to deal with from an engineers perspective.
b. Incentive to play the class.....I've played this game for 4 years now and roughly the same distribution of players have played across all the versions released in that time frame (except when scout had their incredibly overpowered rifles..2.1? don't remember). On top of that, the amount of building that is accomplished each game is based off of the player quality/play style, not the quantity of engineers. So increasing the # of engineers to the exclusion of all else does little to help in the way of team productivity. The game would be better balanced if they lost the ability to heal/revive.
c. Again, not sure who you're playing that often (see you around occasionally), but when the hell are the majority of the players riflemen...ever...even remotely close (aside from maybe district, but that doesn't pertain to your point as there is no building on district.........so..........yea....about that...).
d. Again, never have less than 50% of the team be engies in games over 10ppl/side.

6. Lastly, one thing i've gathered from this post is that you're the type of individual who plays this game to avoid more direct point and shoot 'fps' style games. Contrary to popular belief, the same values espoused in those games, are effective in this game as well. While it may not seem that someone sitting outside of a rax mowing down infantry as they spawn is productive (must just be them building their "epenis" right?), there are many factors that make such acts EXTREMELY beneficial to your teams victory...

right 'ol boy?

Edit: I agree that engineers repair armor too swiftly...either increase basic gren missile damage or decrease engineer repair rates on armor.

 

Phantom, if you go engineer with the intention of getting repair upgrade and building everything in sight to whore points, then make a damn computer program of some sort and make it so that your dude dives after every unbuilt building possible.
So many people underestimate the power of revive; it is arguably one of the engineer's greatest assets in combat other than healing and dropping ammo.

And score really doesn't quantify skill well. If you want to get points, become squad lead cause you get a lot more points that way or whore points with vehicle machine guns.

 

Repair upgrade points accrue at a much slower rate than a skilled rifleman due to buildings availalbe and engineer tool capacity limits...

Squad leaders earn points at the same rate as other squad members...1 pt/every 10 pts earned across the squad, it's just awarded with a slightly different game statement...

Revive is a great asset? ...Too great an asset to be on engineers...that was my point...along with the fact that engineers ARE still extremely viable without it as an option (especially if it's replaced by the option to take/defuse mines)...I use revive in many different situations but my emphasis as an engineer is more base around controlling the fight by limiting firing lines with turrets/walls and building up support structures (rax/armories). Which is how they should be played, as opposed to everyone taking revive and noone taking advantage of the skill.

While score is by no means an 100% accurate or balanced depiction of one's abilities or accomplishments in game, it is a fairly reliable benchmark...Game Scores consist of a compilation of points earned based upon kills, repair units performed, heal units performed, vehicles/buildings destroyed.....etc. So a person with 1 point has effectively maybe killed one opponent...or constructed 1 100unit building (aren't they talented and useful). While an individual with 10 pts may have accomplished that (assuming same time frame of play) + additional tasks making them (generally) much more useful in game. Its funny, because I explicitly made the point that to an extent I agreed with scores not being the end all of game significance...so why you even attempted to bring this up is beyond me. I could get into the tactical advantages of kills relative to general situations + buildings constructed, revives performed etc etc etc that all end up in the culmination of a high game score that would support game scores being an accurately accrued value appropriately dictating player value in any given game...but I wouldn't want to melt the brain of a player who goes against the grain of a thread to make an irrelavent (already agreed upon) point, for the sake of justifying his normally average in game scores ove: love yah hex .

But as a quick example...there are reasons I kill a lot of people with tanks (of any varient weapon) and other people don't...because I don't suck,and it provides an EXTREME tactical advantage to your team. Hmm....1 tank able to bog down 6-8 enemy units for 5 minutes all by himself? Nooooo that isn't useful...noo that doesn't provide a 5-7 man advantage for the rest of your team to push forward and take refineries/positions....let alone the less significant factor of wasting enemy tickets and res (killing turrets, buildings and vehicles).

Hmm...one engineer taking down a rax, 4 infantry, an armory and a radar....noooo that's not particularly useful. Despite the x minutes their infantry waste killing you/ respawning/ rebuilding their base not to mention the 4 tickets and 1250 res you now just sapped from their team (and potential x minute delay on research until their next dar is up). And just so you're aware...I spend a large portion of my time seismic spamming (all by myself) large buildings yet while still maintaining high overall game scores and accomplishing other considerably important. Despite nade spamming large buildings being very time consuming and inefficient in terms of in game points accrual...

Point being your entire post was directed explicitly at me, most notably my accomplishments and their relative worth in game, as opposed to sticking to the premise of the thread. (Which involves offering up ideas in terms of game balance pertaining to engineers)....still waiting on those suggestions of yours

 

you really are overdoing it.

 

With what explicitly?

...So instead, we should be more like you and troll the forum by not reading the comments (because they're too long /ZOMG WORDZZ) and instead post arbitrary comments of our own that do not give any information...at all (honestly your sentence doesn't even have a direct subject for its reference "overdoing it here" doesn't really tell me where im overdoing "it".) let alone pertain to the thread topic in any way shape or form.

 

I agree to Metal Smith. Most people won't read large postings.

Highlight your main points and write as short as possible, so that people can read and understand it in some seconds.

Example: http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=11854


And "Forum Troll" doesn't mean that these people only troll on the forums. Many of them are play testers. But as the testers forum was opened to everyone the title was changed.

 

First off, very nicely organised post...its purrrty (the one in the link). But on a serious note, yes organizing posts into simple/coherent texts is important. However, theres only so much that can be done under certain time constraints that some of us have in our daily lives and numbering/paragraphing points should be more than sufficient. Especially when there's only about 500 words in a post...that's effectively 1-3 real Ps worth of reading. And honestly, anyone who's not willing to put in the 5 minutes that it takes to read and understand posts on a suggestions forum, loses significant validity in any responses they should make. If you're not willing to put in the appropriate time to develop, explain and support your ideas, then your position was probably not well thought out to begin with.

There are other provisions as well, but to keep the post 'short' I'll leave them out. Most important to note is that if you don't want to read my posts, by all means don't, I take no issue with that. But please refrain from posting meaningless incoherent responses that complain about there being too many words to read. I'm not here to attack anybody, just posting ideas to improve the game (which are badly needed: improvements in general that is). I'll continue to support ideas (whether they're mine or someone else') with constructed arguments if I find them to be valid. Or I'll suggest changes/amend my own ideas based upon new ideas that arise...

 

If you are going to do this, then you need to reduce the cost of tanks. Tanks SHOULD be hard to kill if they cost upwards of 500 res, else there is little point in having them in the mod.

 

I don't think it will make tanks any weaker or not worth the money. I mean the engineers will just have to fall back when about to die instead of repairing themselves in the middle of a tank fight. All the other classes do just fine in tanks with the cost. The issue is engineers in lone wolf mode destroying everything because they can repair and rearm themselves quickly even while being shot at.

 

They were kinda, jus' gotta follow the train of thought. If you can't I can't really blame you, I was deliberately throwing out the post in a different style. Well, purely because I was in the mood to.

My response was meant to this:

I'm Captain Spillalot, not captain obvious, i'll have you know.

Sorry about that, I just kinda thought you meant people who knew how to play the game, rather than random newbies. It's probably unrelated to what you were saying, now I think about it. So you were saying people just build the building instead of tackling the enemy, but they don't go engineer because they obviously don't know how to play and just want to be helpful. And they don't go out because they don't want to die? Or is it they switch to engy to save the rax? I guess you can just see that part of my post as a general instruction how to spawn as rifleman in a barracks under attack - spawn as engy, expend free engineer ammo, change to rifleman, attack enemy. Random piece of information, but I guess that suits my style.

However, something pertinent - in the scenario I gave, I was actually able to kill four of the enemy before they became unobtainable behind walls and turrets. I then ran forward to engage closer.

Ok, i'm sure most people who've played with me know i'm not that useful, but I do tend to be a squad leader and command sometimes. Even sometimes successfully. However, I kinda noticed when i'm on the ground, one dedicated engy can make the difference between a win and a lose. Simply put, yes, I have saved entire games just by myself - doing something that anybody can do I admit. Which is the galling part. I'm not shooting anyone, not mortaring anyone, i'm clicking and holding, and I have seen games where if I haven't done that and the map has been lost. That's sad, really.

You are somewhat correct. I do wonder however, why all your scenarios assume the attacker is not a noob, while the defenders are.

Thread is about a rehaul on repair. All this time i've been trying to understand your angle, and I thought it was that classes should be doing what they're made for, rather than engy work.

a. I disagree, they're not particularly easy to deal with as any class other than rifleman.
b. How does this tie in to repair/build? The goal is not to increase the number of engineers because, as I stated, that is the problem - lack of engineers. The goal of this thread is to allow everyone to be able to build. Which does not obstruct their main job, as people will build things if no one else has, if they are able to.
c. Sometimes. It must be stated that this does not happen all the time, merely something like 1/3 to 1/5 of the time. It also happens more at different times of the day and different vet levels on the server.
d. Ye have na played enough in bad conditions, rite?

Aww...why'd you have to go there, now I just have to plum say you're wrong I played CSS (and still play ocassionally) for 2 years before finding Empires. I like FPS games a lot, they provide instant action and responsiveness, while using on-the-fly tactics. I also like RPG's and RTS's, and just regular strategies I guess lol. Was raised in the Doom era, so i'm quite familiar with FPS's. The reason I like Empires is it is a superior team game than most out there. Eternal Silence is what I previously played before coming to this mod (back when it was more flexible), but it just didn't offer enough.

Too bad how that ended. A general note for people on the tl;dr scale, i'm not aggressively attending this, I just *know* e-build is too slow for anyone else to contribute to building. And quite often it is needed.

 

I agree with Ikalx... E build is painful. And while an increase wouldn't make me a grengi... whenever I am a gren I might be more inclined to build as I blow the fuck out of as many tanks as I can.

As for phantom
revives and heals on the class with the most damage resistance.... are you fucking kidding me...

As it is it gets to be a problem killing 2 revive engis, 2 revive rifles (as anything other than a rifle) would be nigh impossible

 

Phantom--I'm pretty sure that squad leaders get more points. For example, say you have a 5 man squad. 3 of your engineers are revive whoring you to get squad points for squad arty, while some other guy is following the com's orders and scouting out the enemy base on the other side of the map. Your squad leader gets a point every revive. In a real game, this means that his score would be grossly disproportional to his squad member's.
And my score is usually quite high. But does that mean I'm a good player? Hell no. It means I know how to get points.
And tbh, I have no idea why you want to make engineers a useless class while making riflemen gods... Ffs if anything the rifleman needs a nerf or all classes should get buffs across the board.
Finally, if 4 guys can't kill one engineer and his level 3 mg turret, they were a bunch of dumb noobs.

Btw, if anyone needs heal/revive, other than engie it's scunts.