THE CTF RANT

just fire all the staff and appoint new mods, clearly no one in power knows what they're doing with this game

and rollback the crappy holiday update, game was much better before those garbage changes and very clear bias towards certain classes

 

I disagree that the holiday update was "crappy". Clearly pyro was changed, and it annoyed a large number of people. Appreciating the new version of class as it is, it's still able to be used to great effect and with a great deal of fun (I have actually tested out the new pyro, don't be cynical about my opinion just because I don't usually use it). I think people are just hung up on the fact they can't instantly 1 hit someone, and now have to hit 2 or 3 times to kill something when it's on fire! However, I do agree that there was clearly some bias towards certain classes in the update, which is why they need to correct other classes at the same time in order to make it fair (why dwarf and necro weren't a part of that update I have absolutely no idea for a start, necro is quite literally a joke as of right now)



The thing that astounds me most about the staff

That's right, in the server ideas section of capture the flag alone we have 771 threads and over 9500 replies to them. If this doesn't show we're willing to offer our opinions about the way CTF should be going, I can't imagine what will. Hell this server ideas section is bigger than the entirety of the skywars section, the hardcore games section, the minecraftbuild section, and also bigger than the kitbrawl section It even goes as far as the minestrike AND minecraft party sections PUT TOGETHER. I literally can't understand why after all these ideas and map submissions (which by the way take up about a third of all posts in the ctf section as well) we've only had a few changes in the time we've been on brawl. It wouldn't be a bad analogy to say we're swimming in ideas, and whilst not all of them are good (as with any ideas section, there are a lot of duds) hybridising ideas to get the best out of everyone's opinion is more than possible with the amount of ideas available. Instead, what we have right now is 1 class rework (pyro), a couple of small tweaks (chemist and soldier, with an even smaller tweak to mage). Doesn't really seem adequate compared to the amount of ideas that have been put forward, no matter which way you look at it

Don't worry though because we have had two map waves! Except these maps, on the whole are pretty atrocious. Brawl has decided to go aesthetics over gameplay. Aesthetics are by no means a bad thing, but the first priority should be the gameplay. I have great respect for the people who are able to build fantastic structures, as I can't match those abilities. However, in terms of balance, I'd much rather have a map usable for the game in the long run rather than a terrible map that looks prettier. Of the first map wave of brawl, I can't think of 1 map that's survived between the next, which is ridiculous. Some of the maps we have now have survived all the way from mcpvp, and yet all of the first map wave couldn't make it through 1 wave. The way this second wave is going, it seems not much better. Some of them don't in my opinion even live up to the aesthetic standards brawl is trying to adhere to.

After all this, it seems difficult to see how brawl is really listening to the community. It's really rather sad because the community is what keeps brawl alive in the first place. I get that the ctf community can be vocal and rude sometimes (some will consider what I'm saying as rude I'm sure) but if this carries on, and brawl continues to ignore the community to this extent, people will just leave. There isn't an argument in that, no "nobody ever truly leaves ctf". They will leave, because the game isn't what it used to be. Sure, it was unfair, had a lot of flaws (which people weren't afraid to point out then either) but at the very least we were listened and responded to. I get the feeling with brawl, that properly listening to their community isn't really on the agenda

 

My issue is not how pyro was nerfed, it's how we were promised that soldier would be nerfed alongside it. The soldier "nerf" is an absolute joke and it's downright offensive to mains of the classes who actually got hit hard (pyro, elf, chemist to an extent). Like, does our soldier main coder consider that some people only enjoy playing certain classes in this game, and nerfing some classes severely while others of the same power level get an inconsequential little tweak might possibly piss some people off?

And if you're playing defensively on a lot of maps against soldiers, you'll know that it's pretty much impossible to score 3 hits on those bunnyhopping buffoons. Pyro is supposed to be the main counter to a soldier capper, and now it's mainly "are you lucky enough to have other players run in so you can farm up your frenzy so you stand a chance at stopping the soldier", rather than the hard class counter that soldier v pyro is supposed to be.

Like, honestly, what class can you tell me legitimately counters soldier cappers, apart from archer (which counters everything but is still less effective against soldier due to its vertical mobility)? Soldier can just fly away and be out of reach of the majority of classes in this game, leaving a select few that either have weak armour or have to rely on range to kill them.

Soldier is broken on a fundamental level, and yet the last update works to make it even more powerful. If that isn't a soldier main making his class more powerful, I don't know what is.

 

All of those huuuuge comments

<insert textwall here>

 

hence why I spoke up about the lack of change. It's stupid but given we've had very little change to begin with, it's not just soldier thats the problem. Maybe pyros dealing bonus damage to soldiers would help, though Im not sure how well the "chemist vs archer" balance would apply in this context

 

@iMuffles I doubt @NomNuggetNom is even allowed to have any personal bias in the changing of classes in the first place. He is paid to do his job correctly, after all, and one coder probably won't do much to change Chap's decision to remove instakills from CTF, for example (no offense, Nom <3).

@Admiral_Memeson Thank you for recognizing the great importance of my relentless ranting about the elf nerf and the general underpoweredness of the class. I would like to confess, though, that I'm quite afraid that if I or a staff member put out a poll--before the nerf or right now--asking about whether the wind element should have been nerfed, I think there would have been an overwhelming answer of "yes." As you've said many times, the only real problem with the nerf is that other areas were not buffed or reworked to compensate, but the fact is that elf relied too much on its only rather powerful ability.

Yes, I just had to write an entire paragraph about elf just because I could. But addressing the actual topic here: an Idea Board (or what was it called) would be quite nice to have here on Brawl, for a couple of reasons different to your OP. Well actually I lied about the first one: the first reason would be--if it worked how I'm imagining it (not to say that this is probably how it worked on MCPVP)--to allow a greater democracy in CTF. The second reason, though, would be to restrict a full democracy.

I'll have to agree with that one dude you quoted, some people are not very smart. And a lot of the time, most people have no idea what they're doing. But then, a great number of people know what is obviously good and what is obviously bad, i.e. a buffed necro versus the current dwarf. The forums, as you said, are a good representation of these people, if not a better representation of those who know what they're doing, since as I see it there is a fair correlation between forumers and regular game players who have rightful input based on their knowledge of the game. In these forums, threads which suggest ideas are posted, most of which get large amounts of feedback, either majorly positive, negative, or generally neutral and controversial. Assuming Brawl listens to community feedback, the threads with the most positive feedback would be most heavily considered to be implemented into the game. That's pretty much basic democracy.

But I suggest a middle point between complete democracy and Brawl's implementation of ideas: the Idea Board. Its function is basically to take popular ideas among the community, make rational changes to them which will most likely play out better in practice than the original ideas (or maybe just leave the ideas alone if they're good enough), then submit the final products to Brawl administration. This is composed entirely of in-game regulars who are known well for their good ideas. Let me make this clear: this would not be a popularity contest. In fact, I don't even think these people should be chosen by the people themselves, but rather, as moderators are chosen by Brawl based on their actual moderating ability, moderators should choose members of the Idea Board based on their actual constructive input in the community. For example, someone like @MightyCharlie who suggested the democracy thread you mentioned would be considered a more Idea Board-worthy person, while the more meme-y side of you which makes funny troll posts and rants less constructive than this thread would be deemed less worthy. Your Memeson self might earn more popularity among the community than Charlie's thread which is nothing but a long debate about somewhat boring politics, but alas, memes do not make good changes in CTF.

So yeah this is mostly off the top of my head at 4:49 am, but it seems to me like it works. Let me know what you think.

 

Regarding your input about the CTF community. I can assure you that there will be an event soon. I have the data from the thread you mentioned. And I will go in order based on what the community wants.

Please please please. Do not blame the staff. Why? A moderator's job is to moderate the server, not to update it. Nom is the one who updates the server and keeps it going. He does hand pick a few mods to help him, but it is not their fault.

 

blame the mods! blame them all!
@Lozzylouise @Nezzr @18kss u suk

 

I'd start to play daily again if assassin gets changed. But I don't really mind the classes. I just want interesting maps, gameplay wise. They don't need to be aesthetically pleasing. We're not making "Capture the Flag: The Movie". I loved maps like Castle (The first 2.), Getty Gardens (I thought this was called something different), and the original Halo. Halo did have some issues with dwarf but nothing a good assassin couldn't fix. I suppose that's another problem with the classes. Having to only play one class to counter another. Oh well. I'm on leave right now.
EDIT: Unholy Faith was also a good one, but my heart will always be Air Balloons.

 

UGH. AIR BALLOONS. WHY

 

Brawl is a business, not a democracy. Nothing you say here will change the minds of the mods.

Actually want to change some? Learn how to code and make your own server. Stop playing Brawl if you dislike it this much.

 

Sorry, I tend to stop paying attention in the middle of massive walls of repetitive texts. And judging by the lack of response from anyone else, most people feel the same. Great use of your time. Enjoy your night.

 

Brawl is a business, and if it wants to keep it's consumers, it has to produce goods and services people want. If you don't do your market research (*ehem listening to the community and implementing things they want) that is exactly what's going to happen. People will leave, the server won't stay in profit and will shut down, bye-bye brawl's business. They have to change, innovate and improve the quality of their product in order to stay relevant to the playerbase and therefore survive as a business. That's economics 101, and that logic means that the quote there is total rubbish.

 

Yes, I am sure Chap's exact instructions were "hello Nom, please nerf Elf and Pyro to hell and back while keeping Soldier still extremely powerful! love, chap"

No, that's bs. It's either personal bias or he's too dumb to see that his "nerf" changes nothing. And I put the mods at fault too, because they were either too dumb to see that his "nerf" changes nothing, or they were too scared to confront him about it.

So confirmation that literally one person runs the show? I was under the impression that there was a mod committee, with Nom, that discussed updates. If it's just one person doing it, I can see why the update was so awful.

 

Between Jayden's quote and what you say, I realize that perhaps Chap does not very directly run CTF. But to be honest, nerfing elf and pyro to hell and back is basically what Nom was told to do (personally I find the new pyro more enjoyable, but I also understand why the nerf is easily hateable). Leaving soldier as powerful as it still is, I do question the reason behind that, but I very much hesitate to resort to personal bias. I'm not saying any of the holiday updates have played out particularly well, I'm just making a point that Nom didn't exactly dream up his own class nerfs and put them into action by himself.

If you've tried to run or do run your own server, cool, then you know this. But if you've never tried, allow me to point out, it is unbelievably difficult to get a consistent player base of so much as five people, let alone the three hundred a day that Brawl has online. Developing your own plugins takes great time, dedication, and skill, and once you have completed and debugged all of your own unique plugins in order to develop your own unique and fun games, you're still yet to find out if you have utterly wasted your time after making the server public--a ridiculous advertising budget will serve you well, but most people don't have two hundred bucks a week to plaster their server's name on the head of advertising sites. This is all, of course, assuming that you had the patience or even helping friends to get the server functional in the first place. I don't exactly care if this was the actual point of your post, I'd just like to put this out there so that you don't use it as an invalid excuse to get people to stop playing Brawl again.

 

if only there were a whole bunch of better suggestions made by the community on these very forums! unfortunately whoever is in charge of these decisions seems to believe themselves to be far above the idiots who try to contribute to the server's wellbeing.

it sucks, really, because some people in the community are actually doing staff's jobs for them, it's just they seem a bit too proud to accept that help.

as i said, the soldier thing can be explained in one of two ways: either nom wants to preserve the power of his favourite class, or he was not intelligent enough to realise the changes made are horribly inconsequential. either way, he completely failed at balancing the update (you'd think a game as broken as this one would be hard to screw up even more, but apparently not).