Looking for feedback - Necro, match terms and more stuff to test!

Hello fellow flag enthusiasts,

For this weeks feedback thread we have five fresh topics for you to choose from:

- Previous poll results
- Plans for Necro
- Clarification on match cancellations vs. forfeits
- Testing Topic I: Chemist mana tweak 3
- Testing Topic II: Flag carrier max health tweak 2

Previous poll results
We kick off the thread with the latest poll results, one Google forms poll about Chemist as well as a discord reaction poll about Chemist and the flag carrier health reduction change:





TL;DR:
As you can see, the Chemist permanent Resistance I addition was favored in both polls, while the mana reduction was generally disliked. The flag carrier max health reduction had a moderately better score but was still mainly criticised.


Plans for Necro
Among the most requested changes are major reworks for Necro, Engineer and Dwarf. The following is a proposal for a Necro rework, which is based on Chaos' popular suggestion. In short, you spawn with all three mob eggs (zombie, skeleton and cave spider) at your disposal, which you can use to turn into said mob, change your armor and inherit its traits and downsides. The three different mobs ideally represent three playstyles (defense, recovery and offense). You may change back into your human form using a book item before switching to another mob (possibly with a short XP bar cooldown inbetween to prevent insta-switching). While being a mob you may also spawn up to two of your respective minions as wingmen.

Our main gripe with this is that it feels like cramming three sub-par classes into one, where you could go Ninja to recover, or Heavy to defend more effectively. You might already have voiced your opinion on this concept back then, perhaps you have anything new to add.


Clarification on match cancellations vs. forfeits
This topic appeared in the CTF Teams Discord chat, at which point an official match is counted as cancelled and when it is forfeited. The following is a proposal on which we'd like some of you more teams-savvy people to have a rant against:

- A match is cancelled if both reps agree on it, before or during a game.
- A match is cancelled if only one team drops out but the match has not yet started.
- A match is forfeited by a team, if the match has started (20:00 min left on clock) and one team cannot meet requirements, the other team wants to keep playing however

Cancellations do not count as a played match, a forfeit is an instant win to the remaining team. This means, you can cancel the match if it is scheduled for 2 pm EST and you drop out at 2:17 pm, but before the match has started. After this you forfeit the match if you can't keep your players on but the other team wants to continue playing.

This was proposed to not have an entire team quit on the others and cancel it mid-game. This is a rare case but it helps against teams feeling betrayed if they have put time into gathering the team and can meet the requirements.


Testing Topic I: Chemist mana tweak 3
Considering the latest poll results, there will be another attempt at tweaking the mana cost for damage and health pots for Chemist. If you now are having trouble keeping track of all the tested changes to the mana amount (as we had most of the time), here's a summary. One full mana charge achieves:

Original Chemist: 3 Damage/4 Health pots in a row
Chemist-1: 7 Damage/7 Health pots in a row
Chemist-2: 6 Damage/6 Health pots in a row
Chemist-3 (new): 4 Damage/5 Health pots in a row

The testing and ingame poll will end in two weeks from now.


Testing Topic II: Flag carrier max health tweak 2
Last testing included a slowly decreasing max health pool after 1.5 min of holding the flag by 1 heart per minute (down to 5/6 hearts max depending on your class). The following is an alteration that takes longer and does not reach as low as before:

New:
2 minutes - 9 hearts max
3 minutes - 8 hearts max
4 minutes - 7 hearts max
5 minutes - 6 hearts max

The timer starts when both teams have the flag, timer still runs if flag is dropped. This will affect all classes equally. The testing and ingame poll to this will also end in two weeks from now to allow for a more thorough testing and playstyle adjustment.


We await your judgement,
~ CTF Staff

And no, no drinkable potions Abtruse