Instant Kills - Why they must be Removed for a Better CTF

[Disclaimer] There has been a ton of debate on this already, but since the place of instant kills in CTF is such an important topic I decided to make another thread on it. As you may or may not have noticed this post is very, very long. Because of that I have broken my arguments as to why Instant kills are bad for the game into three main points:

1. Instant Kills make CTF less friendly to new players and are a major limiting factor in its popularity.

2. Instant Kills take away teamwork from CTF, which makes the game even more unfair.

3. Instant Kills both ruin and limit the type of maps that can be built.

I strongly suggest reading some of - or all if you can - my logic behind these arguments if they do not seem sensible at first. But beforehand, go get yourself a cup of coffee or maybe a Snapple or if you're on a phone get on a computer and take a look at it without hurting your eyes.

NOTE: In spite of the academic tone this thread does not mean to imply that those who are in favor of keeping instant kills are ignorant in any way.

Also:

Now read on

Before I get into my main arguments I want to take a moment to cover three things:

1. Some of you might wonder what the point of this post is when Instant kills have already been so heavily debated. The reason is, a consensus needs to happen about how CTF should be reworked. However, because instant kills are a huge part of CTF and for a rework to occur they will have to be addressed in one way or another. No rework can be made without a decision about what to do with instant kills. Because of that, I have created this post as an impassioned plea for their removal as the only way to really start on the path to making CTF a much more balanced game.

1. Secondly, I want to debunk the popular argument that instant kills should not be removed from the game for fear that it would destroy the game. This argument has been disproved before but it is still being used as a reason why instant kills shouldn't be removed, which is why this fore-note is necessary. Anyway, I digress, the problem with the argument is that it is based entirely off of the appeal to ignorance fallacy, that CTF could never be practically remade without instant kills. Of course any argument based on fallacy is automatically wrong so this one is likewise debunked.

3. Instant kills fundamentally unbalance the game. It’s very funny to me how some people claim that instant kills are balanced because there is nothing balanced about being killed instantly. I think we can all agree that in combat terms, balance is all about finding that equilibrium, where each side has an equal chance of defeating the other. However, the trouble with instant kills is that they deny that chance; they slant everything towards the Pyro, the Assassin, the Archer, or even the high level Dwarf in combat because these classes are all given the advantage of being able to instantly kill their target(s). Some of you may ask the question, so why does this matter? CTF is still a fun game after all, so why is it so urgent that the instant kill mechanic be removed? Perhaps if you are the person making this argument you might find that instant kills make the game fun and invigorating, for instance.

First, I want to make it clear that I agree with all of the above. To a certain degree, instant kills do make the game fast paced and exciting for those playing instant kill classes since there can be nothing quicker in combat than being able to instantly blast the enemy to kingdom come. Nevertheless, most people who argue or have argued against removing instant kills state that their removal would make the game slow and boring. That argument is flawed in and of itself.

Indeed, it begs the question of how can anyone state that CTF without instant kills would be slow and boring when such a version has never existed before? To make such an argument is to commit the slippery slope fallacy and naturally that is illogical in and of itself.

Now that it is established that CTF without instant kills is possible as a fun, fast paced game I shall point out three key reasons as to why instant kills hurt CTF more than they help it aside from what I have already said about balance in the above section:

- Firstly, instant kills in CTF make the game less noob friendly and limit its growth in popularity. In my topic On: Instant Kills I examined the primary arguments in favor and against removing instant kills. @BAWSS5 composed an interesting response to my argument which you can read below:

Spoiler

“Since I'm the one who originally said it, let me answer this question...

What's the total number of players brawl has on at any time, across all game modes? Let's say about 1000. That's 1000 players... across all game modes. Of that 1000 potential CTF players, only one server at a time is ever truly full, and of the other three, one is usually about half full, and the other two have a few players. So, rounding up, that's about 100 players of CTF on average. AFTER THE BRAWL BOOM. After we were presented to a server full of prospective new players, we can barely manage to fill up one and a half 60 player servers on a regular day.

Now, keep in mind that CTF classes can only be bought once per player, and with each class costing 2.50 a piece, and being generous in assuming that all of the 100 average players will purchase every class, nor have they purchased any classes from MCPVP that were transferred. That's 3250 dollars profit for CTF on an average game. Total. That's not that much. No matter how you slice it, CTF is not a profitable game mode without a constant influx of new players.

Add on top of all this the fact that the classes are unbalanced to the point where new players are just likely to rage quit as they are to stay at all, and you've got a CTF that's only really going to survive on the strength of its own player base and their constant support.

So, how many players of CTF do you think will move on to new games within a year or two? Probably quite a few, and while there will obviously be new players joining the veteran community, with the age and staleness of CTF, there's very likely going to be 2 or 3 leaving for every new joiner from here on out.

If you take all of this into account, the point I made becomes clear. CTF's time to thrive, to generate profit and as such allow for brawl to justify spending considerable time fixing it, is only going to run out. Maybe it will live for years to come. However, unless there's a massive update that revitalizes the entire game mode's playability, CTF will only continue to be a hollow shell of the life it once had.”

First off, before I respond to @BAWSS5’s post, I want to point out why it is relevant to the argument that instant kills limit the growth of the player base. BAWSS’s post is relevant because it notes the point that all classes are unbalanced to the point that new players are likely to quit just as much as they are to keep playing the game. Of course, this unbalance is by and large due to instant kill classes, although classes like Chemist have issues of their own.

As for his post, @BAWSS5 is correct on multiple accounts that CTF is not and will not be profitable without a constant influx of players to make up for the low prices of premium classes. Furthermore, BAWS is also correct that CTF has a low player base, one that has not grown since 2013 and will most likely not see much life for very long without a major update.

Some people have said that it is the so called ‘condescending’ community or the fact that CTF’ers seem to be more closely knit than other communities that turns outsiders away, but that is a bunch of nonsense. CTF's community is no more rude than any other community out there, on Brawl or otherwise, and is a good deal kinder than some.

In fact, what makes CTF not a noob friendly game is primarily is its ridiculously unbalanced game play. @BAWSS5 stated that people are just as likely to stay as they are to leave and I think there’s some truth to that. Instant kills wreak havoc with CTF because if someone logs in to the server and gets headshot a whole bunch of times within a few minutes not only does that situation scream imbalance, it happens all the time. In fact instant kill classes not only make the game far too unfair because they provoke people to use very OP non instant kill classes as well, such as Mage, Chemist, and Soldier, in order to counter their effectiveness and this is also bad for the game. Just imagine the situation when someone logs into CTF as a Heavy and is suddenly confronted with a bunch of people shooting at him as Archer, pot spamming him as Chemist, lightning him on fire as Pyro (and so on)! That doesn’t sound like a game that is particularly receptive to new players to me. Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating for total balance as that is never possible no reasonable, but I am merely restating that removing instant kills must go if we are to make the game fairer.

Think about it, if instant kills were removed the last free class counter to Chemist (Archer) would no longer be very effective against it, which would naturally force a comprehensive rework of Chemist. This would be great for the game for two reasons, first a broken mechanic would be gone from the game and secondly Chemist would be far more balanced and not the ‘jack of all trades’ class that it currently is. I do realize however, that removing things from the game to force reworks of broken classes more broken is a bad way to do things but the example was merely to prove the point that classes such as Chemist are as OP as they are to counter instant kills.

Moreover, I think that if we stopped the counterbalancing juggling act between super OP classes and the instant kill classes and balanced out the classes we could draw more players to CTF. Generally speaking people like a game that is fun but dying a whole bunch of times because you don’t own the right class – such as Chemist or Mage – or because you’re getting headshot all the time is not fun at all. It’s hard to believe for those of us who are CTF regulars and have been for years but some people get put off by getting killed very quickly by a headshot or getting their flag stolen by a soldier for the umpteenth time. After all, wouldn’t the game be better if there were no more spawn camping Pyro’s killing a bunch of your team-mates? Or if you didn’t get head-shot the instant you jumped off the sponge? Or if you didn’t lose all your levels as Dwarf after getting 1 shot by an Assassin?

I think we can all agree that a game where death wasn’t extremely fast as it is with instant kill classes would make the game more fun to play. Right? Right.

Thus the issue with instant kills causing CTF not to be noob friendly is actually twofold:

Firstly, instant kills cause a fundamental imbalance in the game that is filled by a whole bunch of broken classes. Or instant kills are added as a band aid to make up for bad class design such as how Assassin was created to be – more or less – a counter to Dwarf. In this situation - as I have already explained at length - it makes the game too crazy and too unfair, and this is a big problem because it does not readily allow for more balanced competitive gameplay.

Secondly, instant kills create vastly different gameplay experiences. For example, the person camping as an Archer might have a great time in CTF but the guy trying to get one kill with Necro isn’t going to be too happy. The problem is, it’s almost too easy to get kills sometimes with instant kill classes such as Archer, Pyro, Dwarf – and sometimes Assassin – and that causes the gameplay for those classes to sometimes be vastly more enjoyable than that of non-instant kill classes. However, the issue with instant kills creating various levels of enjoy ability in gameplay cannot simply be boiled down to the statement that instant kill classes are better than non-instant kill classes because you can get instant kills. That is fallacious as some non-instant kill classes are far stronger than some instant kill classes such as Assassin.

No, the issue rather, is that gameplay with instant kill classes is either extremely good or extremely terrible for both the person playing the class and the people playing against it. Instant kills create a situation where skill is – to some degree – irrelevant because there are times on various maps where you walk out of spawn and are headshot and immediately killed. How do you respond to that? You can’t really. Make no mistake, there are plenty of skilled Archers out there but that the fact that they are so skilled at what they do makes the skill of players playing other classes irrelevant.

The trouble with situations like this in game is that people like to think that if they are skilled at a game they can do really well at it. Think about it, even if someone is good at strafing or combat PvP there is nothing they can do if they get headshot or axed, or one shot by an Assassin or Dwarf, and this is not only frustrating but it is not fun. I mean, what is the point in trying to capture the flag or playing the game in general if I am just going to get headshot a whole bunch of times or get killed by a rampaging Chemist?

This is a good point that I wanted to pause to address. This post is not advocating for raising the skill bar anywhere near the level of HG, nor is it advocating for making kills very hard to come by. I agree that easy kills keep people playing but quick deaths from an instant kill do the absolute opposite when you're on the receiving end of one a lot.

I know that was a lot of text to read through but I hope you can see what I am getting at. If you didn’t here is my final point of this argument in a nutshell: instant kills make CTF – in its current state - less attractive for new players to play because they cause massive imbalances in game in game play through the power of the classes and their disregard for skill – to a degree - of other players.

Therefore to make CTF more friendly to new players more skill must be incorporated into the classes so that if someone happens to own Chemist, Pyro, Mage, or mains Archer they do not have a total advantage over you. Yes, they may have an advantage in certain areas and that is fine but the issue occurs when they are too good at what they do and that leads to extremely unbalanced gameplay and a bad time for the countered class.

To reiterate @BAWSS5:

“Add on top of all this the fact that the classes are unbalanced to the point where new players are just likely to rage quit as they are to stay at all, and you've got a CTF that's only really going to survive on the strength of its own player base and their constant support.”

2. Furthermore, the second reason why instant kills must be removed is that they take away teamwork from CTF gameplay. Take Assassin for example. No matter how much teamwork you have you cannot outdo the Assassin or the Archer in killing the flag carrier (at long range) because both classes are simply too good at what they do in that role.

Another way to think about this is to look at all the best defenses and offenses. All the best defenses have a Pyro, Assassin, or Dwarf and many of the best offenses have either a Pyro or a good number of Archers. You may find yourself asking this in response: well if all these classes are fun to play then why is a rework even needed?

What is key is that a rework is needed so that the game is fun to play for the players who are up against classes like Pyro, Assassin, Dwarf, or even Archer. It is simply a bad way to run a server if the game is extremely skewed in favor of people who use certain classes for whatever role they choose.

Indeed, to some degree instant kill classes make CTF a little like a pay to win server. Obviously, this comparison isn't completely true as Archer is a free class and classes such as Chemist are non instant kill but are extremely strong on their own. However, there is some truth to it for several reasons.

As I have already established in the previous argument, instant kill classes force non-instant kill classes to be very OP in order to adequately counter them or non instant kill classes were previously very OP, creating a need for instant kill classes to counter them. Because of this, classes like Chemist, Soldier, and Mage are quite strong. Soldier is extremely mobile. Chemist excels in all roles. Mage is one of the strongest midrange classes in the game. Therefore, CTF is made somewhat pay to win because many of the strongest, most versatile classes are either instant kill premium classes or instant kill/non-instant kill free classes (Archer, Soldier) and most of them are premium classes.

@Quarrelt made a great point about Solo-capping in a related thread and how that is, more or less, the norm in current CTF.

First off, I agree, this is a very valid point, which is why I want to address it.

As I have previously stated the issue lies in that instant kill classes such as Pyro or a lvl 20+ Dwarf can almost entirely defend on their own, or how a Chemist can run into a flagroom on their own - potspam the hell out of everyone and get out and can only be stopped by a Pyro or a Dwarf.

In other words:

(*Yes I know I was the person who posted the End the Tyranny of Teamwork thread and that was a joke @furtles )

The third and final reason why instant kills should be removed is that they can ruin maps as well as limit what kind of maps can be built. While it is true that some maps are poorly designed - such as Unholy Faith - in that they are OP for classes like Soldier, Archer, Engineer, Mage, Pyro, Chemist (etc.) instant kills not only magnify the problems with these maps but also make potentially good maps bad as well. For example, most open maps are taboo or not very fun to play on because they end up being Archer OP.

Furthermore, instant kills make it to where you cannot have maps that are too closed in because they end up being Pyro OP, or Dwarf OP, or Assassin OP. If this was not the case and instant kills were removed – thereby forcing a rework of other highly unbalanced classes – CTF map making as well as reworks would be made easier. How so? Because there would not be so many ridiculously unbalanced game aspects to have to compensate for while building that could break the game if it isn’t made just right.

There is one final point to note in this argument though. Most maps have been designed to admit instant kills the best they can. What would happen if instant kills were removed and many of the classes were suddenly reworked?

I think it would force some maps to be changed but at the same time it would make some maps easier to play on. For example, with less crazy or harsh gameplay in a game without instant kills or with classes that are less OP maps such as Blackout would not be as overwhelmed by sniping Archers and the flag-room could possibly be more easily defended with a nerf on Soldier's mobility per removal of Pyro's instant kill.

Conclusion:

For the sake of not repeating myself too much I'm going to keep this short and sweet.

There are a lot of good games out there that do not have instant kills. Not a single base ability (not including AP or AD) in League of Legends is an instant kill by itself, yet it's an extremely popular game.

CTF can be more popular, but to do so it simply needs to be more fair. That's really all this post is about.

If any reworks are going to happen on CTF the biggest cause of its imbalance - instant kills - need to be removed so that the other ultra OP aspects/classes of the game can be fixed.

Anyway I apologize for making this post so long, I only did so to thoroughly explain every single one of my arguments the best way I can.

I know CTF is not a priority game mode but its broken and needs a fix, and I think removing instant kills is one step towards a solution.

Thanks for your time,

-Admiral

Spoiler: Tags

@Sir_Inge
@obikenobi21
@cactusflower
@Xelia_
@Glasgow_Beam
@aRandomBob157
@Nohox
@NomNuggetNom
@Quarrelt
@LordCh4os

 

Of course.

But it would only be very messed up if reworks/tweaks were designed by Mr. and Ms. Potatohead.

 

Well, so far no one's really disagreed with me yet by the look of it. My hope in this thread is that everyone can agree that removing instant kills is a place to start for reworking aspects of CTF.

@Sir_Inge absolutely. The same mistakes McPVP made when they created CTF should not be repeated the second time. It's quite hard to pinpoint balance for a class and still make it fun or not particularly complicated. Reworking Pyro is a huge example of that, which I found out after proposing two non instant kill Pyro reworks

 

Well for starters I'm not saying that instant kills should be removed without any changes, or that the game should become very heavily skill dependent as you're inferring.
There are so many ways to change the game so that instant kills can be replaced with less broken mechanics, that a 'huge skill gap' would not actually happen. Also, Pyros could still be defensively powerful, it just depends on the rework. I've made 2 non instant kill Pyro reworks both of which were strong defensively (in the flagroom) but wasn't as powerful as a one hit kill.

Furthermore, to some degree new players are getting 'tossed around' in current CTF because no matter how good they are at PvP they cannot counter an instant kill like getting headshot out of nowhere outside spawn on Academy. Hell, that happens to everyone not just new players.

Instant kills are not needed in CTF. CTF is a fluid concept and can be made in whatever image the staff and the playerbase see fit and I don't think its that hard to imagine a CTF where headshots 1 block outside spawn aren't a thing or when its next to impossible to get out of the flagroom because the enemy team has Pyros or Dwarves on defense.