AMA Admiral's Really Great AMA Therapy Session

Ask and you shall receive.

Sidenote: I will not answer more than ten questions at any given time so @SoCool21 if you send me a list of 500 questions I am not going to answer 490 of them.

 

Yo

Screw you. Stop acting like the American media.

People talk about how awful Trump is compared to Clinton all the time. You can't go on almost any self respecting news website anymore and not find a torrent of articles chronicling the latest in stupid from the Donald. Seriously.

And the people who attack Trump for spewing racism, hatred, lewd comments, and so forth are all right. That's what he stands for. Self promotion, and he'll say anything to promote his brand. That's why he acts in such an authoritarian manner in both speech and body language. But the pundits miss the mark, often in a scary way, when they claim that Clinton is better than Trump. Because she really, really isn't.

Google something about Clinton being corrupt, or involved in some horrible legislation, or even more horrible wars (a.k.a. 'police actions') in the past two and a half decades and you'll find a treasure trove of information about her. What kind of information? Well for starters...

she supported the TPP. She supported normalizing trade with China. She supported the Korea Free Trade Agreement. And she supported NAFTA. All of these trade deals combined have cost Americans hundreds of thousands of jobs and have been responsible for lowering wages from country to country for the benefit of soulless multinational corporations. She called former President Clinton's crime bill "very well thought out" whilst making no mention of the terrible effect said bill might have on minority communities (thereby bolstering institutional racism). She called young black men "super predators" as First Lady. In 2001, while courageous members of Congress like Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV.) opposed the Iraq War and the PATRIOT Act, then Senator Clinton supported both actions. Clinton continued to support the War through the 2000's whilst opposition was mounting, and could not declare opposition to it in 2008, a full eight years after Iraqi citizens were illegally detained in Abu Ghraib prison, stripped naked, hooded, and humiliated in various ways, beaten, killed, or given electric shocks. Clinton had access to that information as of at least 2004 (when the infamous pictures of U.S. torture chambers in Iraq) as U.S. Senator yet where was the opposition?

But that's not all.

In fact, Clinton has supported fracking for years, supported exporting fracking around the world as Secretary of State, and is so for it that she cannot even pretend to be against it. She supported and still supports the U.S.-Israel apartheid against the Palestinian people and seems unable to mention that Palestinians, for all their flaws, may have a right to a home, peace, sovereignty, and dignity too. Back to the domestic front, she has been in I don't know how many email scandals over various stupid and or corrupt activities regarding her or her opponents. Clinton is bankrolled by several Super PACs (one of the many mechanisms by which the wealthy and powerful attempt to control elections by heavily influencing candidates with unlimited amounts of money), including one that has sent online trolls to attack people speaking ill of Clinton on the internet, and has enlisted the services of former Republican hit man David Brock (he was responsible for shamelessly trashing Anita Hill, who claimed that Justice Clarence Thomas made inappropriate sexual advances to her), has received tenacious support from some major Republican donors including the Koch brothers and Meg Whitman, has received the backing from numerous Bush era officials including John Negroponte and Richard Armitage, and has sought out the endorsement of war criminal Henry Kissinger whilst professing herself to be an admirer of his. Clinton has recently selected a pro fracking, pro coal, pro TPP former Democratic Senator, Interior Secretary, and lobbyist Ken Salazar for the head of her "transition team" should she win the Presidency. And to top it all off, she has endorsed ultra corrupt, payday loan company supporting, TPP fast track supporting, and former DNC head Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL.) for her congressional reelection bid and has made her the honorary chair of her campaign.

You'll hardly hear a peep about any of this, only about the need to "stop Trump". It's farcical.

Point being: What Trump says and does shows he is a narcisscist and would be an overt danger to the safety of both the country and the world if he were to become President. His words alone show that he is unfit for office. However, Hillary Clinton has a proven track record of being awful. Like Trump, she is also unfit for office, but it is her actions rather than her words that demonstrate that fact.

Hell will freeze over before I vote for either one of them. I'd sooner take Gary Johnson or Jill Stein. And if people put as much energy into electing Johnson or Stein as they do in convincing the populace that they must have thing 1 or thing 2 we'd end up with a third party in the White House.

Harambe, sixty percent of the time, every time.

The U.K.. I love that country and am exceedingly proud of my heritage. My dream for the future is to move back there and take a trip around Scotland (in particular). It's a very mystical place out there. Plus, there's a ton of medieval history in the area that I'm intensely interested in and I want to check it out.

Honestly? You're a very relaxed and all around chill person. I'd say you're one of the few people in CTF that I genuinely like and can match me in a battle of witty assholery (other than @BrandinoB, the ultimate Skype troll). I have great respect for you and I'd love to talk to you on Skype sometime, get to know you better and all that jazz.

That's a good question. Off the top of my head the three people who come to mind are @wintergreen3, you, and @pookeythekid. I wouldn't mind @ACE_BLUE2, @TheZombieKat, or even @Iosif_Stalin either but I've already done some calls with them so that sort of counts. As for why...

@wintergreen3's strikes me as an all around kind person and she's fun to mess with (CTF: A Love Story, Wintergreen3 will you be my valentine? etc.). The few calls that I've hosted with her (and a few other people) have been really enjoyable overall. I have a lot of good memories.

You, for previous reasons. Plus your sense of humor is somewhat similar to mine and I like that.

@pookeythekid because we have several things in common (with the major exception of programming) and he gets my terrible jokes.

@ACE_BLUE2's just a really cool dude. He's a 6ft. 8 in. basketball player who plays Minecraft, is a fantastic Archer, has a ridiculously good FPS, has an IQ higher than 70, and has the most epic deep voice I've ever heard.

@TheZombieKat since he's my favorite staff member other than @wintergreen3 or @Lord_Roke. He has a very dry sense of humor and generally levelheaded personality which I find both funny and enjoyable.

@Iosif_Stalin because his accent is hilarious and actually knows what he's talking about when it comes to most issues of policy, politics, and especially communism and marxism which has made for some very invigorating Skype (and shoutbox) discussions.

I realize that was six people, not three but frankly if I could I'd have all six of you over, pop open some sugar free root beer and have a good time.

I got tired of people calling me 'Munson'. Seriously, I'm a fan of the West Wing (which is a political drama show from the early to middle 2000's) and my favorite character is the White House Communications Director, Toby Ziegler. I go by that username on a lot of political sites where I'm active and I figured I'd change my name here to match. That said, I'll probably change my username back to Admiral_Munson once the one month wait period is over.

 

Yep.

Thank you.

Leo.

C.J.

I'd gladly vote for either one.

I don't know what to believe.

Kansas.

lol. I wouldn't clap for him if he gave me a small loan of a million dollars.

I don't know you that well but you come off pretty good.

Only if @randomcitizen1 is around.

Honestly, I'd say its the people. Both the staff and the community. I see comments all the time about how awful the community is blah blah blah... but that's a highly pessimistic view that simply isn't true. From my experience, most people on Brawl are generally fine and that never ceases to surprise me considering that the average age of the forums community seems to be around 15.

lol. Obviously @Lord_Roke because he won't let me post dank memes.

Seriously, I wish Brawl spent more time updating their current servers rather than trying to make new ones. But my 'Brawl experience' has been hyper centred on CTF so I can't really comment on what's good or what's bad outside of one game-mode (and maybe HG since I used to play that a lot).

You're a very kindhearted and friendly person and I'd like to get to know you better.

 

BUFF NECRO

I'd also rework Dwarf, buff Ninja, and remove Assassin (because it's the most unnecessary class ever).

The U.K. No question about it.

-50

I really like this one. It's too bad there's not a lot of situations where its dankness is particularly practical though.

BUFF NECRO

On a more serious note, I think that an Engineer rework (it's current design is all the stupid), a Necro rework (along with a buff), a Dwarf rework, and an Assassin rework would make a lot of people very happy. All of these things have been asked for repeatedly.

Another Elf nerf.

Actually there's a lot of terrible changes that could happen with CTF and whatever happens to Elf is mostly irrelevant since the class itself is largely irrelevant. Generally speaking, I don't think any one change would be the "worst thing that could happen to CTF". What would be not good, however, is continuing on the current path that the staff have gone on with regards to nerfs and buffs. For example, look at semi recent 'tweak' update. As @iMuffles pointed out, almost every single change in that update was a nerf.

Pyro got that ridiculous double click requirement for Frenzy mode, Archer saw its Punch reduced to Punch I, Dwarf got a great big band aid nerf (level cap and fire/potion resistance at level 10, not level 5), Medic lost its Sharpness I (???) and webs got a slight nerf, Necro's spawner is now easier to break with a wooden fence, and a few other things. In the CTF Holiday Update several months prior to all that, Soldier got its XP/Wallclimb nerf, Chemist got a whole bunch of nerfs, and Mage got a nerf on its damage spell range. The buffs for what they were worth consisted of a minor Elf buff, addition of knockback I on Necro's pickaxe, and probably some other thing that I've forgotten about.

None of this is to say that most of these changes weren't good. In fact, quite a few of them were. For instance, the Pyro Frenzy Mode rework has, in my opinion, been a success. The massive true damage Pyro can now efficiently deal from a close range has taken the place of an instant kill without having an actual instant kill, thereby changing Pyro's play-style but leaving it every bit as viable as before. Some of the Chemist changes were also needed (getting rid of the whole 'Armored Ninja' dynamic), Mage's spell range nerf was a good choice, and so was the Soldier Wallclimb nerf (which people like @Ducksfan101 have already proved has not made a whole lot of difference in Soldier gameplay). I'm also a huge fan of the knockback buff on Necro's pickaxe which gives it pretty good, and much needed, crowd control (along with the mobs).

But the alarming thing is how every single time there's something over-powered in the game, the immediate solution seems to be to nerf it (rather than rework it) and keep nerfing until the meta is more or less playable. Take the Pyro double click requirement, the Medic sharpness nerf, the (incredibly terrible) Elf wind element nerf, the several different Necro nerfs, the various Engineer "reworks" (which were really a series of increasingly creative nerfs), or the Dwarf nerf as manifestations of this way of dealing with problems in and between the classes. Pyro's frenzy mode was apparently too easy to use so a double click was activated, which is beyond silly considering how there is no such requirement for Assassin or Archer when they both have more powerful abilities than frenzy mode, and that the requirement is in and of itself nitpicky as heck. Dwarf is obviously crazy powerful in the flagroom, and it still is, but instead of actually buffing other classes (such as Ninja, which badly needs a sword sharpness buff) to deal with it (Assassin is and has been the only viable counter to Dwarf for a long time) it now just takes a little longer for Dwarf to dominate the flagroom (level 10 instead of level 5) than before. The medic sharpness nerf strikes me as another band aid change to make it a little easier to kill instead of actually dealing with the main problem which is its tankiness (and the stupidity of being able to web your own teammates, which is still a thing). The Elf nerf was bad for reasons that @pookeythekid has already elaborated on better than I can. Engineer's three straight years of changes have made it less of a nuisance but its still a nuisance. And finally McPVP's 2013 Necro rework (which was really a massive nerf), the worst of them all, and its subsequent nerfs (mainly nerfing zombie buffs, replacing skeletons with spiders, etc.) have effectively destroyed the class. That said, many of the nerfs in the CTF Tweak Update weren't intended to be long term solutions anyway but they've caused a lot of issues in the short term.

These changes wouldn't be as bad if they were not applied so unevenly. It follows that by nerfing one class, such as Necro, that nerfing another class such as Engineer, Assassin, Archer, Mage or so forth would make sense so that Necro doesn't become useless. But what Brawl has done, which has made the dumbing down of the gameplay even worse, is that they've only nerfed the hell out of a few classes while hardly touching others. Mage, Assassin, Archer, and Heavy have seen no changes (or virtually none) and as a consequence of that they've all become much, much more powerful. For example, a skilled Mage can be almost impossible to take out without an instant kill, and it definitely didn't use to be that way a year or two ago before most of the nerfs I've brought up here were implemented.

The worst thing that could happen to CTF would be a continuum of dumbing down the meta, let alone doing so unevenly, as it only serves to make things less interesting and more frustrating. What I would love to see is more buffs and especially reworks as a solution to serious imbalance in CTF instead of immediately reacting with a series of nerfs. As previously stated, classes like Engineer, Necro, Dwarf, and Assassin need reworks (or a rework and a buff in Necro's case). I don't have a lot of confidence in the staff making a lot of changes like this, since they've already stated that their biggest issue is that no matter what they suggest the forums community will complain, which has made the decision process slower. And they're not wrong when it comes to the complaints. I don't think anyone likes it when their class gets bludgeoned over and over with nerfs. But then again, there are some people who just scream when you do anything.

Sure.

 

Whatever pony is in @BAWSS5's profile picture.

First off, I hope I never end up in that position. Second, I'd divert more time and resources updating and improving some of the current game-modes, especially those where an actual profit can be made, whilst cutting out others, cutting out servers that don't get used 90% of the time (CTF has 3 servers but only 2 are used to capacity at most), and setting more short term project goals that are easily achievable instead of lofty ones of brand new servers and the like. I'd keep most of the staff because those people are invaluable. Also, I'd probably get rid of the Teamspeak requirement for staff and replace it with discord (which is better in so many ways).

Then again, I never want to be "in charge" especially over a server most of which I know almost nothing about (outside of CTF, HG, and Party).

I don't have one.

Mildly upset.

lol I remember that. And no.

A whole bunch of teenagers collectively wasting their time on a little known Minecraft server.

A whole bunch of slightly younger, slightly saltier teenagers wasting their time on a failed Minecraft server.

Gaza from the end of Season 5.

@Lord_Roke. I can respect a man who likes the Hunger Games.

@JaydenChadd.

@wintergreen3 or @TheZombieKat. It's a tough choice.

@randomcitizen1. No question about it.

President Abraham Lincoln.

President George W. Bush, although he was not the worst President in terms of temperament, intelligence or what he wanted to do. He was the worst because he had significant control over the Congressional and Judicial branches which allowed him to get many more terrible policies (PATRIOT Act, giveaways to the drug industry etc.) passed than many of his predecessors.

The 17th century because public nudity was legal.

He's always struck me as the West Wing character with the most integrity. I really respect that quality in him.

 

Nah. You're too dank for me with that avatar m8