The War on Bullsh*t Presents: Ninja

You seemed to be talking about how teamwork isn't feasible in non-competitive/team matches, so why is it unreasonable to make arguments that are mostly applicable to just regular matches? You say we need to balance around regular matches, how my ideas are unfriendly to noobs, yet the moment I make an argument that only applies to regular matches (solo stealing the flag), suddenly you say "you must not play in team matches" and "it doesn't work in team matches, so it's fair". That's pretty heavy hypocrisy. In regular matches, the meta very much is solocap oriented. In competitive/team match play, solocap isn't as effective, but Ninjas are usually limited in how they can cap, or are just not allowed to cap in the first place. Is that not a sign that something's wrong?

Pearl capping is very annoying to deal with, and frankly it's also very Noob unfriendly, at least compared to "teamwork". The concept of "attack flag rooms together" is a concept that seems pretty simple. The fact that you need to play Archer or own the recovery premiums in order to consistently catch up to a capturing Ninja is extremely Noob unfriendly.

... And this helps stop solo caps. Your team has to clear a path for the Ninja to go through and the Ninja will be able to cap. The fact that the Ninja doesn't have to deal with offensive players at their own flag is exactly one of the many problems about Pearl capping.

Explain how it's just a bandaid fix. It's easy to throw that term around without anything behind it. And again, you're mentioning "solo recov". I'm advocating for more teamwork in this game and you argue that it's hard to solo recover?

 

i wasn't making a generalised statement. i was replying to something you specifically said (see below). also, comparing team matches and regular matches is hard to do. defenses in team matches require teamwork to beat because the defense is organised and everyone should know what they are doing. the meta in regular matches is very solocap/recov orientated because nothing is particularly organised. if defenses in regular matches had the same level of coherence as team matches then i'm fairly certain people would not be able to solo cap. i believe the reason people solo cap in regular matches is not because classes are op, but because it's just easier. its like playing at national level vs playing at international level. ngl i didn't really know how to reply to this because i couldn't clearly see the point you were trying to make

no i don't really believe it is. if you want to bring up that argument then i can also say that pyro, archer, assassin, medic, chemist, mage, elf, engineer, necro and dwarf are all also limited in matches. granted, some of them do need reworks, but just because something is limited in a match does not mean it needs reworking. with your logic we should be reworking all of the classes i just listed.

well, this is subjective so i suppose we can agree to disagree with eachother because i doubt either of us will change our opinions on it. i personally don't mind it but i can understand why it would be annoying

yes it is a simple concept by itself, but to actually achieve anything people need to have knowledge of the game. it's no use sending in a soldier, a medic and a ninja if the medic doesn't know how to heal, the soldier doesnt understand wallclimb and the ninja is not aware of its abilities. maybe the examples i use are a bit extreme, but i'm sure i am not the only one who has played with numerous medics who don't know how to heal.

you don't:

i really don't understand the last sentence. ninjas cappers do have to deal with offensive players? i've seen plenty of occasions where offensive soldiers have recovered off ninja cappers by just standing near spawn or the flag because that is where most ninjas pearl to.

it's a band aid fix because it doesn't actually fix the problem that you and admiral are proposing. from what i can gather, you are both suggesting that ninja's mobility is too good and it can cap too quickly. removing pearls and adding resistance doesn't fix the problem, it just removes the problem and makes ninja capping useless. your suggestion reminds me of the necro rework. the mobs were too op so they were severely weakened, now the problem is "fixed" but necro is essentially useless. with your proposal i could see the same thing happening to ninja

again, it was more of an example than an argument. i was saying that it's hard to solo recover if my team has no defense, because that means i have to be the defense as well as the recovery. but if my team has a defense then i can focus on recovery and then ninja cappers aren't an issue.

i do agree that these are examples of teamwork but the reason i ignore them is because they're not that significant in terms of the outcome of the game. sure, you could argue that these things could help your team, however what i was mainly refering to was things like killing a pyro for a soldier to steal, or waiting where a ninja lands to pass off, or making someone unblock so an assassin can assassinate them, or making someone block so an archer can headshot them, and so on. these instances of teamwork are, i believe, much rarer than the ones you listed as they're much harder to coordinate and put together which is why reworking a class around "teamwork" is difficult. as we've seen it is a subjective topic.

au contrare, i believe it does. you can apply it to any game mechanic. pyro, for example. if you took the axe and fire on it's own and told a noob that it deals 3.5 hearts of true damage while someone is on fire, 7 in frenzy mode and 9.5 with a crit in frenzy mode they may well be like "what???? that is so op!". but once you tell them it has squishy armour and a lack of stack it makes up for the strong damage output.

same applies to assassin. tell a noob that it has the ability to one shot people by right clicking and they'll probably say it sounds op, but then add in that assassin gets 1 shot if you can block it, that it only has golden boots and has no steak then they might not think it's as bad.

i tihnk the same applies for ninja. tell a noob that they can teleport around the map really fast and they'll probably say it is op. but then factor in no armour, no steak, damage upon pearl landing and i don't think it sounds anywhere near as bad.

i'm not sure i agree with you in the way that you are singling out one class mechanic and then seemingly judging the rest of the class just off of that mechanic. that mechanic by itself may be op, but once you factor in abilities (or lack of) of the rest of the class then it compensates.

 

I really wouldn't say ninjas pearls are OP in any context but capping.
On recov the ninja really only has about 2-3 attempts to kill the flag carrier before they're across the map and have support. If they don't have support by this time blame da team.
On defense the same thing really applys, because either they die or they're out (above thing).
And in regards to the recovery thing, catching up to the flag carrier kills your health the more times you try it (assuming they haven't reached their side of the map, and yur still chasing). Because they'll be farther and farther out, and then you have liake 5 hearts when you try to kill them. With ninja newly nerfed sword, you really need those hearts, and if you regen, they have more time to cap.

Ninja capping is complete bull in regards to crossing the entire map (I have no problem with ninjas pearling out of the flagroom however).

 

Yes. :3 And I was pleased with that post c:

Now I'll give my own stance in this thing. The saying that ninja can teleport halfway or most-way across a map is nowhere near as ludicrous as the idea that elf can "fly" halfway across a map. But the ability is not perfect in its strength. The damage from pearls, coupled with flag damage, also accounting for possible damage having been dealt before stealing the flag, and sometimes you have a ninja being forced to slow down--sometimes for several seconds at a time just to regenerate about four or five hearts to withstand the next flag-and-pearl-damage combo.

The argument in favor of the overpowered-ness of ninja's flag-teleporting seems to be mostly in the instance of the ninja having most or full health every time it enters a flag room. Not to mention, even when a defense isn't quite as flawed as some argue it to be sometimes in order for a ninja to escape, just one hit from a defender's weapon can deal sufficient damage to impair the ninja's capping capability.

Ninja capping requires a good deal of swiftness and health management. "Stealth" in CTF is easy enough: don't go to the places where you see players. Granted, this is a heavy hit for teamwork in CTF in that watching your own health bar and controlling where you go requires next to no teamwork at all, though teamwork is not what classes are really designed for in your average game of CTF. It's more that the classes are designed to enable teamwork rather than require it; which, come to think of it, would probably be true for any class setup unless the creators intentionally disabled teamwork.

My final point specifically on ninja pearls alone: the only real problem I see with the class is the ability to ghost cap. Other than that, ninja capping whether on defense or offense is just another interesting--whether fun or annoying--part of a generally fun game. Why else can't people quit CTF--because it's boring? Nah. People get addicted because there's something about its design that no other game has, and let me tell you, that design does not involve absolute balance and a 50/50 chance of winning every single fight.

As for the little regular-or-team-match subtopic going on here (@November @1337Noooob), I really don't see the point in the debate. Official games have no reason not to be forced to have different rules than regular games. It's like comparing the NFL to a schoolyard (American) football game: in the NFL, if you scratch your nose before the Center snaps the ball, the referee throws a flag (this is an exaggeration for those unfamiliar with American football); while in a game with your friends, abusing the rules of pass interference, out-of-bounds, and whether you've been downed or not is not only easy but permissible if you're just having a fun time. Isn't that exactly what all competitions with official and unofficial versions--very much including CTF--are like? In official games, the competition is much more intense, the stakes are much higher, and therefore the rules and regulations must be much more black-and-white and non-abuse-able than in an unofficial game. In the specific case of ninja, the abilities of the class causes some gray area, and so the rules often remove that gray area entirely, i.e. prohibit ghost capping, premature pearling, or ninja capping entirely.

And finally, in a much broader perspective, there's the "brokenness" of the CTF game in its entirety. Things like this ninja topic which are not on the absolute top of the priority list (i.e. making necro useful @Admiral_Munson) simply do not need to be fixed until more important things are taken care of.

Why bother pestering our poor coders with unimportant demands when they could be focusing on better things to do? And besides, even if there is just no hope of some things ever being fixed, take it for what it is and find the fun in it: ninja capping is annoying as crap sometimes, but then it can also present a challenge to keep defenses alert and keep midfielders looking for the right targets; pyros and mages can be difficult to kill, but whenever you succeed there's always that reward of satisfaction; heck, even the elf nerf is interesting enough in that it forces elf mains like me to play the class even more strategically and sparingly, and if you play the elf class in the first place it's because you're looking for a challenge.

 

Problem solved! Have a cooldown per pearl throw!

 

As a heavy/medic main I believe there is some need for ninja's mobility. Yes, it's really annoying what they can do to catch up to you, but its mobility is necessary due to CTF's lack of class that can move at its speed.

Sure, assassin can move pretty fast, but what makes ninja so mobile is its pearls. With these the Ninja can aim where they want to go, not just run there. This mobility is needed for a chase when the capper is already down the map. There's nothing you can do if you don't have a ninja on recovery and someone is already halfway down the map.

So, while this power ninja has is very needed, a big problem I have with it is how quickly it can come back. If I'm capturing and kill a ninja, it has the speed and high attack output to come back and hurt me, possibly 3-4 times.

I'm thinking something similar to a respawn wait, but for enderpearls. You die as a ninja, you have to wait 15 seconds (Or whatever time is thought necessary) before you get a pearl back in your next life.

TL;DR: Instead of nerfing its mobility directly, Ninja could possibly have to wait 15 or so seconds to use an enderpearl each time it dies.

 

^^^ exactly.

 

15 seconds is extreme, bro.

And @1337Noooob alreasy beat you to the idea

@Admiral_Munson stahp ninja'ing meh. I'll read that later ^

 

Just a number I used for the idea. Look at the big picture

 

Put back the 10 pearls imo.

 

@Admiral_Munson Introverts don't have large social batteries, but doesn't mean we can't type a bunch of stuff!

Ye, but I was sharing the wonderfulness of the topic with this thread, too.

I never really implied a ninja nerf aside from ghost capping...

Nevar. I was simply implying that because CTF so rarely gets updates, they should be focused on the top priority stuff, not even secondary or less major. Work from the top down. Like what you did say about ninja itself: its top priority was the pearl, not the sword.

Lol, it seems that I'm getting return fire about debate etiquette. Granted, it is a terrible attempt at persuasion; people tend to enjoy a non-broken game more than a broken one. The point, though, was that while CTF is still in a very long process of being "fixed," people need to shut up and have fun while supporting the fixing effort by participating in forum discussions and giving input on new ideas, etc. You said yourself (though I'm paraphrasing of course), developers hardly know what the community truly wants; while the forums are the only real bridge between regular players and developers, we as forumers may as well make it useful in discussions like this. If ya don't want to participate, then you apparently don't have a problem with current CTF.

 

make ninja have sharp 5 and buff chemist and pyro armor. I completely disregarded reading this whole thread so dont hate me if this has already been said

 

Easy solution... Because eggs and potions shoot way farther in ctf. Bring that back down to default minecraft settings. At least for just the pearls

 

Make the pearls too slow, though, and you defeat their purpose entirely. Ninja can actually cover a good third of the distance a pearl flies just by running after it when it's thrown (at the right angles, though).

 

Just

ew