The War on Bullsh*t Presents: Ninja

hey, you mentioned the maps, the sh*tty maps from very old mcpvp days got picked by ctf staff, too

all im saying is you're overdoing it with the going back

 

well, look at it this way. you go ninja on blackout, for example. spawn -> pearl onto the big box thing in the middle and lose two hearts to the pearl. pearl across the box to near enemy spawn/flag room, lose another 2 hearts. down 4 hearts now before you have even reached the flag room/flag carrier. if you're recovering then you probably have to pearl down to the flag carrier again which is another 2 hearts. if you are planning to cap you have to pearl down to the flag room and then back to your flag, which is probably 6-8 hearts (only of pearl damage, doesnt account for any player damage you may take along the way).

i'm trying to make the point that, sure, ninja does have op mobility with its pearls, but when you account for the extra damage it takes along the way and the time it has to take to heal then the mobility really isn't as fast as people make it out to be. if you choose not to heal then you are pretty much dead to anything you attack unless you are a fighting a complete noob. and if you choose to heal as you go then the time it takes to get across the map is going to increase by a decent amount. i don't think pearls need nerfing because of these reasons. the mobility may be op but it's what you do after you get across the map that is worth considering. if you cross the map in seconds but then take 10-15 seconds to heal to full health is the mobility worth nerfing?

and since i've given my pov, i'd like you to explain why ninja pearls are seemingly so op because, as a ninja main myself, i've never found myself completely dominating a flag carrier or an offense/defense because of the mobility. the only exception is ghost capping because the defense just can't catch up unless there is a really good ninja on defense. that's the only instance that i think ninjas pearls are op. it's also very rare, but i do admit that if you pair a ninja with an engineer cake then the mobility is ridiculous because you have basically infinite health.

 

I do acknowledge that ninja mobility as a standalone ability is op. however, with other factors considered, i do not see the point of reworking the class because I don't see it necessary if other factors somewhat balance out the op mobility. to me it it seemingly pointless to change the pearls if they aren't op when combined with the rest of the class

 

I am @LordChaos_92 and I approve this message

 

Welp, @Admiral_Munson I have nothing to argue that @November hasn't already said, so I'll just state which parts I agree with.

For starters, I agree with every part of this post:

As for the point you've restated a few times in this thread, you're correct, ninja's enderpearl mobility in and of itself is OP. Two posts directly above this, November also said that. And I'm still restating him when I say, you haven't included the other aspects of ninja in your argument, and you've even acknowledged this. Indeed, you have mentioned the other abilities of ninja, but it doesn't seem that you have considered them.

Proving the non-op-ness of ninja's pure mobility without considering outside factors is like proving that ice cream (or choose your favorite unhealthy dessert) for every meal is not the a good thing without considering the health effects and the general vomiting that would occur. In this example, you'd be saying that ice cream is in fact the best meal every day, while not only do people tell you otherwise, but you decline their suggestions of why they disagree. I believe you are breaking one of the most important rules of debate: consider your opponent's evidence.

Of course your debates are better than this, but whatever you are trying to say, to me it's coming out as "I know there are plenty of reasons that ninja's mobility is not 100% OP, but I'm still pointing out that without those constant factors it is OP." Just sayin', gotta revise your argument.

 

The problem about Ninja is that CTF doesn't punish you for dying. Ninja is really good at abusing Instant Respawn because they can teleport. I'm currently writing something about Steak and Instant Respawn, and I'll probably have it up after I finish my exams (BTW I've been having exams for the past week so that's why I've suddenly become kinda inactive in this community). But basically, Instant Respawn enables suicidal gameplay, especially with Ninja, and increases Stalemates. A dynamic Respawn timer (I.e. your respawn time changes depending on how/where/when you died) that increases your respawn time if you're close to the flag or if you die soon after spawning would really help make it easier to cap flags unless you're playing suicidally (which is how most Ninjas play, either when capping or recovering).

Personally, I'd also have teleportation (Pearls, Teleporters, etc.) be disabled while you are carrying the flag. However, Ninja gets some kind of Resistance buff so they can 1v1 recovering Ninjas more easily. Depending on the map, Ninjas can cap flags in less than 10 seconds while other classes (Even Soldier) have to walk for a very long time. That's kind of skewed crazily. Compared to other games with flag capturing, not even the fastest characters can cap that much faster. I think the Ninja having crazy good Mobility is fine, although a little bit much while capping. If there are respawn timers that punish short lives, it'll be completely balanced.

 

I look forward to reading that rework. (btw, you're accounting class mobility in the dynamic respawn, right? it'd kinda suck to be a heavy and have the same respawn time as ninja )

 

First of all Dwarf's Instant Kill is OP because the Dwarf itself isn't something you can't avoid since they stand next to the flag at all times and are super hard to kill, plus there's no way to prevent it besides blocking while being a Heavy. And Assassin's is OP because it's too good in direct combat while Assassin is meant to take on enemies by surprise.

Secondly, Ninja's cross map teleportation isn't as gamebreaking as people make it out to be. The Pearl itself has to move, and if you throw a Pearl as Ninja and run after it, you can actually cover a fair amount of ground before it lands. It's only OP with vertical distances, but Soldier can do vertical as well.

At least, without the flag. I agree that teleportation is way too good when the Ninja actually grabs hold of the flag. It promotes solocapping. I think teleporting to the flagroom is fair though as long as the Ninja is punished for failing (hence, respawn timers).

If you really want to stop Ninjas from flying across the map at all times, maybe you could use an EXP bar charge system? Or just a cooldown? idk. Honestly I'm kinda tired so I can't be bothered to check that everything I said made sense but whatever.

Thanks for the support though

I'll try to finish it after exams (and post-exam celebration [emoji14]). It's nothing to crazy, so my post just now probably explained most of it. The full thing is just to go more in depth with it.

 

In advance: Sorry for double posting, but if you edit in quotes it doesn't notify the person so I double post if I want to quote someone.

I'm not accounting class mobility into my rework. But here's why.

Personally, all classes should have similar amounts of uptime and downtime. If 80% of the time the Heavy is being useful and 20% of the time they're rotating around the map, it should be similar for all the other classes. But that's not true. A Heavy that dies has to walk around to get back to where he was, while a Ninja just has to Pearl back.

The respawn timers won't (or only to a small extent) account for what class you're playing. A mobile class should have the advantage of being able to be more active and rotate positions faster than other classes. They lose some downtime because they can move from place to place faster, therefore spending less time traveling, but they also gain downtime because their role requires them to move more. Dwarf is slow as molasses, but once it gets to the flag room and charges the Sword for a little, it's good to go. Ninja can get where it wants very quickly, but will have to be going to multiple places to recover or ambush or whatever.

The Respawn timers only serve to equalize uptime. The closer you are to your own flagroom when you die, the longer your respawn. It's much faster to return to your own flagroom from spawn after dying than it is for your enemy to go from their spawn to your flag after dying. If the defenders respawn slower than the attackers, then the attackers actually have something to compensate for having to travel longer distances, therefore equalizing both role's uptime.

And even though Heavy and Ninja will have the same respawn time, their uptime should remain similar. Ninja is teleporting a lot, but this is balanced by longer respawn times, not because of the class, but because the class promotes a more suicidal, short-lived type of gameplay compared to the Heavy, who is slow to return to the battlefield but lives longer, causing them to respawn less and faster.

 

you forgot one fatal clue; other ninjas can rek the flag carrier + there should be players in mid-field, right? Or at the enemies flag. WHY CANT THEY HELP?! Also...

Its how you play it, not what you play.
- lasertagfighter
2016 quote.
Rip 2000 - 2016 for copyrighting or being stupid.

 

I think teleporting with the flag as a mechanic is fundamentally broken though. When you have the flag, you shouldn't be able to use your usual powers of evasion to easily bypass half of the recovery. That removes the aspect of teamwork from capturing. There's a reason invisibility is disabled for capturing Ninjas, and that reason should transfer to pearling.

 

nope, or you'd have to give it diamond armor.

 

like people often use teamwork in regular matches anyway. the only time "teamwork" is really used is (arguably) when medics heal the flag carrier or when occasionally someone distracts for you to steal. changing a class because of a reason that is rarely seen in regular games is a dumb idea. it's like the sponge change a while ago. sponges had a delay added because archers sometimes stand on them and shoot at people while making themselves very hard to hit. it was a change that came about because of a very specific thing and in the end was changed back bc it was a terrible idea

lol. removing pearls would end ninja capping completely which is not how you fix a problem. the reason invisibility is disabled with the flag is bc it would be ridiculously op to have an invisible flag carrier. there isn't really a relationship between the pearls and the redstone apart from the fact they are both abilities that ninja can utilise and so i don't see how you can come to the conclusion that ninja shouldnt be able to use pearls just because it cant use invis with the flag

 

maybe we should take ninja's sword while it has flag.
No, I doo see his point that invisibility adds a form of mobility, too, as you can unarguably more easily surpass enemies..

edit: **** maybe we should take ninja's flag while it has the flag

 

Sorry admiral. It seems not everything that comes from your posts are gold. Pearls are one of the only ways to break the dwarf/pyro/ninja infested defense. Not that I don't get salty every time a ninja ghosts on an easy to defeat defense, but pearls are integral to CtF as a whole. -0.00000001

 

Why wouldn't you want regular games to have teamwork? Maybe if you make teamwork a more crucial part of regular games, people would start to use it more. And no, it doesn't have to be a complex multi-push to disable all of the enemy's defenses and give your team a chance to steal. Hell, it isn't even like that in competitive matches. But it should be basic stuff, like protecting your flag carrier and disposing of recovery before they can recover.

The similarities with Redstone and Ender Pearls is that it allows Ninja to easily bypass an entire defense. Your argument is: no pearl capping would end Ninja caps. That's false. It would end solo Ninja caps. It's funny that the meta of the game is that capping classes can just walk in and grab the flag and get out. There's literally no instance of CTF in any other game where a player can grab the flag and leave without killing or weakening the defense. It requires a team effort to properly distract and dispose of the defense. But in MCCTF, it's usually a Medic and Soldier and maybe Ninja entering a room and having one of the three leave with the flag.

Having Speed II, the only thing that can catch up to a Ninja is an Arrow, an Assassin, and another Ninja. And I've said: Give flag carriers (or just Ninja) a resistance boost so it's not as easy for an enemy Ninja to Pearl to Instant recover. Ninjas can still be effective at flag capturing. They only thing that can catch up for long is a pearling Ninja, who the capturing Ninja should be able to fight easily due to Pearl damage and resistance. The only change is that you can't have Ninja just pearl in and out of flag rooms anymore. They need support to distract and kill the defenses, so they can run in and take the flag. Maybe even remove the 2 second flag grab thing, since that's mostly to stop Ninja capping anyway. The thing about Ender Pearls is that it makes recovery too difficult unless you can create a stalemate by also grabbing the flag before the enemy can cap. And stalemates are something you want to avoid in a game.

 

i never said anything about not wanting teamwork in regular matches. i just said it's not commonly used so creating a rework because a class doesnt promote teamwork is a bit unnecessary. and, honestly, teamwork just isn't realistic in regular matches. among regulars, possibly, but a lot of them just random kill or dont pay attention and teamwork generally requires some degree of coordination which is hard to achieve without skype/ts. also, a lot of noobs dont know how the game works enough to be able to effectively work as a team, so reworking a class with the purpose to make it more teamwork based would make the game even less noob friendly.

ok. i'll restate. removing ninjas pearls would mean the entire defense would have to be cleared for the ninja to steal. this is very unlikely in regular matches.

well, i presume you've never played in a team match. if you went soldier, ninja, chemist, medic or whatever else you planned to cap with and walked into the flag room by yourself you wouldn't get out. the only time solo caps ever really occur in team matches is when it's just a really good team versus a not-so good team and one player is just a god.

yes, those are the only things that can catch up to a ninja if the two classes start from the same place. but in a ctf game everyone on the server generally are not in one place. they're spread across the map. if people on offense just paid attention then they could stop ninja caps fairly easily because they may already be on the other side of the map.

your proposition is a complete band aid fix. it doesn't actually fix the problem, it just makes it slightly less of a nuisance. and, again, relying on teamwork for classes to work is a terrible idea purely because teamwork just isn't seen very much in regular games. and, no, recovery is honestly not that difficult unless your defense is just overwhelmed. if i'm on solo recov as ninja i find it hella hard to recover off ninja cappers if i don't have much of a defense, but that's also the same with soldiers, medics, heavies, chemists, etc. if my team actually has a defense then it's pretty easy to defend vs ninja cappers because i can just camp outside the flag room, watch for pearls, pearl to where they land and kill them.