Ninja Caping/ghost capping

Do I really need to explain why ghost capping is annoying asf?

 

The main problem I find with ghost capping is that it's very hard to recover off of. Many ghosters will say you can have a buffed heavy but not many people give out buffs and who will cap. I have a few ideas to fix ghosting general.

1) This has been suggested a lot but you can't pickup the flag without the pearl in your inventory.

2) Slight twist of the above, if you don't have a pearl in your inventory, the pick up time can be between 1-3 seconds long. This would make it harder to time your caps.

3)All ninjas take 4 hearts of damage for flag poison instead of 2.

 

Who tf ghosts, prema is the **** man

Instacapping is still a thing doe :3 me, @NotDonald_Trump and @Contortions did it the other day

 

The reason ghost-capping, and ninja capping in general is unhealthy is because of the extent to which it punishes a defense for a second of inattentiveness.


I'll start with ghost capping. This method of capping is counterable, but it requires basically always staring at the flagpost, or just waiting outside to see where the pearl lands. And the thing is, because of ninjas mobility you can try this over and over again, and just one successful landing will result in a cap. From a recovery point of view, the only way I'm recovering off a successful ghost steal is if I immediately pearl toward your flagroom, and even then it's up in the air (ha).

Prema is a lot easier to counter and pull off. You can block the pearl, disrupt it, and hitting the ninja after they steal is actually possible since they can't pearl that far out. On the flip side, they are still getting the crap out real quick, and once again the only viable way to recov of this is to pearl to their flagroom (or cut them off where they land if you get lucky).

Overall, ninja capping is a pain to deal with, because of the ease of which a ninja can try this. Other classes have to actually get to the flagroom to attempt to steal, but ninja doesn't have this problem, so you can try over and over again until the defense just doesn't see you 1/50 times, and boom! cap. As someone who plays ninja and recovers all the time off you ninja cappers, the only reason I'm able too is because of a telegraphed endpoint (your flag). But what's to stop you from just pearling to spawn and switching to soldier or heavy, or anything slightly tankier?

This is why I think ninja capping needs a change.

 

I don't have much issue (given I play offense most of the time), but if I do ninja cap, I prema. As Obi stated above, premas are more counterable but easier to pull off as ninja (waiting for that prime opportunity). Ghosting I'm ok with, though I understand the hate against it so that's why I don't ghost.

Looking at sportyman's post, I do like his idea of taking more time in stealing when the enderpearl is out of your inventory. ("2) Slight twist of the above, if you don't have a pearl in your inventory, the pick up time can be between 1-3 seconds long. This would make it harder to time your caps.")

 

lol
*makes a thread to hear everyone's opinions, gets a massive amount of valid points as to why it's not good for the game, only to say screw all you I'm still gonna do it*
Nice job. Real subtle. I'll give my little two cents later, but I think most of it will be the valid reasons given by others that you have blatantly disregarded.

Edit: Aight. So.

Remember instacapping? It was removed for several reasons including that it ended the games too quickly, was easy to do, etc. It's the same principle, only slightly less.
Ninja capping still ends the game within a few minutes, it's still really friggin easy to do (just requires a defense that isn't constantly looking at the flag), and once you get out of the flag room, it's virtually a cap unless the other team has stolen, a random somehow recovers off you, ooorrr I dont even know.

In all situations, you can simply pearl to spawn and switch classes and usually foil any ninjas that have come after you.

Also: When ghosting, and I have seen/experienced this myself, a ninja can take 3 hits from a heavy and still get across the map quickly for the cap. So lets see. . . Heavy is paying attention to flag. . . heavy hits ninja more than once. . . ninja doesn't take much knock back and still gets out with flag and still captures the flag in less than 20 seconds. Yea. I don't like that.

"But BrandinoB, just switch to ninja and follow him!" That depends on the map. On a map like Lighthouse, that'll work because the capper has to pearl a lot to get ahead of the spawn sponge. However on a map like Blackout, it is virtually impossible to recover on a ninja that has ghosted or even prema'd, by switching to ninja. You'd also have to take the fastest possible route to the flag and also the capper would have to NOT take the fastest possible route, which is a pretty minimal occurra
ence.

"Okay, well then stay ninja!" Well that wouldn't be very fun if I had to play ninja ALL the time just to stop eevvverryy ssiinngggllee game from ending in 3 minutes, now would it? Have some empathy for the other players, bro. Mutual respect. Big thing in life. Gets you far. And ghosting can still render this useless.

"Fine, then just camp at mid and kill the ninja there." Only works if you happen to be at mid, happen to see where the pearl lands, happen to be actually close to the pearl when it lands, and the ninja also has to not see you coming so they don't run away/eggspam you. Not to mention, all the random players at mid that are trying to kill you. So. Not exactly an ideal situation.

So let's do a little review all the scenarios:

• Ninja tries to cap. Defense doesn't pay attention. Ninja caps in 20 seconds or less. No recov possibility in situation that the defense doesn't own ninja.
• Ninja tries to cap. Defense pays attention, but ninja is blocking and still gets out. Ninja caps in 20 seconds or less or switches classes/hands off. 20-30% success rate for the cappers.
• Ninja tries to cap. Defense switches to ninja to try and recov. Ninja caps 70-80% of the time in 20 seconds depending on the map.
• Ninja tries to cap. Defense switches to ninja, our team has the flag. Ninja pearls to spawn and quickly switches classes. Ninja is now a much heavier class (i.e. soldier or heavy), recovery team dies easily.
• Ninja tries to cap. Defense has ninja. Capper dies 90% of the time. Cool.
• Ninja tries to cap. Defense is at mid as a regular class. Ninja dies once and changes routes on the next attempt. Ninja caps.
• Ninja tries to cap. Defense has a ninja at mid. Capper dies 80-90% of the time. Cool.

So we have all of these situations, and only 2 of them have a possibility to recover. Only 1 is a good defensive strategy to stop them from getting out in the first place. If you ask me as a defensive player, that's too much in favor of a capping class that wasn't even meant to be capping.

I get that it's fun. I used to do it myself. I loved to insta, I loved to ghost, all that stuff. It was cool, right? Being able to get out so easily, get across the map in less than 5 seconds, have almost no chance to be recovered on. However, I got out of the habit. And I realized that the people who were doing it were, as I've said before, ruining the game for others. People don't want the game to end in 5 minutes. They want to play the game, not walk out of spawn only for it to end. The games don't have a 20 minute timer only for ninjas to end it in 3. Yes, I know I'm exaggerating, I know that not all games with ninja cappers end in 3 minutes. However, I think it's safe to say that that is due to the fact that most regulars such as myself have grown tired of it and frequently take measures to stop it. It quickly changes the pace of the game, and if you don't have the right situation/team, there's nothing we can do to stop it.

So you want to keep doing it, fine. I realize there are selfish people in the world. But when you act like we should be fine with it, I will gladly say bull**** and explain to you why it is a cancer to the game. But I guess in the end you won't give a **** what anyone says and do whatever the hell you want anyway, right? Right.

Sorry that I mouthed off. Don't take it personally, I do it to all the ninja cappers. It annoys me when I have to spend the whole game trying to keep the game from ending extremely quickly. Cuz yknow, it's not how I enjoy playing the game. But I'll do it if I have to.

P.S. the "insults" are to hopefully get you to prove that you can cap with other classes You haven't proven it yet <3

 

@BrandinoB with the essay

 

Well it's not AS BAD on large games, because there's a lot more players, and generally around a quarter of those are in the midfield area, so recoving is much easier.

On small games, however, it does get quite annoying, as there's usually only 1 or 2 people in the midfield, and neither of them are rarely ever going to just happen to be a ninja, which is basically the only class that can efficiently recov against a ghoster.

 

The fact that you couldn't spell the world capping in your title really brings me down a level in thinking about your thread.

 

Just make it so ninja can't steal if the pearl is out of its inventory for like 3 seconds o/

 

You spelled "word" wrong XD



Anyways normally I'm super against ghost capping.unless its 1 of 2 situations:
1: My team has no effective offense or offense at all, in which case I'll try and carry till people start to try and cap.
2. Freeday Dwarf-engi spam
This is just cancer to play against, and I'd much rather end the game than sit and die a billion times to engies and F5'ing dwarves

 

Honestly in my opinion, ghosting isn't as OP as people think it is. Telling you from my POV, it's pretty easy to counter ghost cappers. There is games where there is massive amount of people in the flagroom, and atleast one will catch the ninja. Plus, an ender pearl does 2 hearts of damage. Now, 2, plus if you get hit, lets say by a heavy, thats 4 hearts or 5, thats 6-7 hearts out of your 10. You will have flag poison too. If you have ever tried to ghost cap, you may also deal with good pyro's that tend to occasionally fire their bow towards the flag. And/Or Chemist throwing poison's at the flag or damage. I don't see an issue with that. Prema is also easy to counter, if you are in the flag, you may have the possibility of actually not being able to throw your pearl, which sucks a lot, and has happened to me.

 

A common problem I'm seeing on the messages on this thread is that you can can 1/30 times or something like that. But isn't that true with every class?


Another problem I find with ninja is that it can evade all damage due to its mobility when even tankier classes usually require a medic at some point while ninjas can escape without taking any damage (except flag poison).

 

The 1/30 is because with ninja you are basically guaranteed a shot at stealing because of the invisibility; it's a lot easier to get to the flag. Other classes can't do this, they have to get to the flag first.