Idea Stalemate Solutions

I. Preface

Stalemates are a commonly disliked trend throughout the community, it is fair to say that players would much rather be engrossed in the action of the game rather than be forced to endure a stalemate, which essentially pauses the action of the game and takes away from the gameplay experience. I personally do not believe short stalemates are an issue, but on some maps, they can last upwards of ten minutes or longer, which is boring to be a part of as a player, but also as being a spectator.

I have given this topic some thought recently and decided to write up a few very basic concepts that may help combat the issue of stalemates in the future. I will be looking at the issue from both a casual and a competitive perspective.

II. Past Attempt

The last time the community received a testing session for potential stalemates, it was in December of 2018, since then, the topic has largely been untouched. Here is a quote explaining what was tested in

"Removing flag poison and instead reduce maximum health of the flag carrier at a slow rate. Specifically, 1 and a half minutes after stealing the flag, reduce the health of the flag carrier by 1 heart. After that, once every one minute, reduce the health by one heart. For heavier classes (Soldier, Heavy, Archer, Medic, Engineer, Dwarf, Necro), the minimum the health can reduce to is 5 hearts, and for weaker classes (Ninja, Chemist, Assassin, Mage, Elf, Pyro) the minimum the health can reduce to is 6 hearts."
- Link to full thread
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I was able to play plenty of games and experience this potential solution during the time of the testing. My thoughts were as follows:

1. It was too RNG. When the flag carrier was reduced to its minimum health pool (5 or 6 hearts), the carrier would be too easy to kill. When the carrier is depleted by a substantial amount such as this, it was very easy to lose the flag to a ninja or two, or just any combination of 2-3 players. The reason for me using the term RNG is because at that point, it is simply a toss-up of who wins the stalemate (from what I observed in casual gameplay and PPMs); all form of coordination and organization of recovery is out the window, just send Ninjas and a Heavy, and eventually the carrier will drop because the damage output is simply not enough to keep up with, even if you commit a substantial amount of players on support of the carrier.
2. The tiered system put in place is unbalanced. A Medic being depleted to 5 hearts, or even forced to lose health in any fashion is flawed. Due to Medic timer and the inability to heal in combat, a Medic holding in a stalemate with this tweak was an immediate loss. I understand Medic is not the standard holding class by any means, but when headshots come through or the carrier drops for whatever reason, the Medic is typically the class that would pick up the flag in a stalemate situation. Finally, Chemist is also in the second tier, which does not require explanation as to why that is flawed. Yes, Chemist did not have resistance at the time, but even so, to call it a weaker class even without resistance is not the correct classification.
3. Games ended too quickly. Yes, stalemates are annoying, but that does not mean they need to end instantly. Here is a simple chart that outlines the scenario presented in the thread. Yes, we do not want games to go the full timer with only one or two captures occurring, but the games also do not need to end within a short period of time.

Important thing to note: The thread reads "1 and a half minutes after stealing the flag, reduce the health of the flag carrier by 1 heart. After that, once every one minute, reduce the health by one heart." I have boldfaced the statement which is important to my argument. Think about the map that is played in ~80% of PPMs. Blackout. If you steal the flag and run it straight down mid, it takes ~17 seconds to make it to the standard stalemate spot that we are all accustomed to at this point. Additionally, if you take the common soldier route of xxxdead and past the bridge area, you are looking at around ~22 seconds of travel time. On these own these numbers do not prove my point, but take into account the fact that I am on Build with no interruptions, in the case of an actual gametime situation, it will be much different. I went to my recordings and timed a few samples on Blackout for the time it took a player to capture the flag in a non-stalemate situation. Example 1) Exeadra steals as Elf and eventually makes it to bottom mid, this entire sequence took ~40 seconds to capture the flag. 2) Bloomishly steals as Soldier and takes the xxxdead route past the bridge to capture, this entire sequence took ~53 seconds. The point of me bringing these figures in is to show that once a stalemate would typically occur, the carrier would already be a less than a minute away from taking their first heart of damage. Also, keep in mind, this is on Blackout, one of the easiest maps to traverse and cross, on other maps, travel time could surely be over a minute and thus, the carrier will take their first heart of damage too soon. The fact that you will already start taking damage within ~40 seconds of the stalemate starting is far too soon.
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*Scout was not in the game at the time of this testing phase
*Chemist did not have resistance at the time of this testing phase

III. Ideas

Firstly, I want to revise the tiers put forth in the testing thread and update it to what I think is an acurrate representation of where the current META is at the moment, I will refer to it later. I think the tier system is a good concept and a direction that should be taken.

Tier I (Tankier): Chemist, Dwarf, Heavy, Necro, Soldier
Tier II (Mid-Tier): Archer, Elf, Medic
Tier III (Vulnerable): Engineer, Pyro
Tier IV (Squishy): Assassin, Mage, Ninja, Scout

Solution 1: Decrease the amount of steak over time

This may seem like a pseudo version of the last stalemate testing, but I do not want a player's steak to disappear entirely. To compensate for things such as death tag, issues would arise if steak was completely removed.

Tier I: After 2.5 minutes, the flagholder will lose one steak ➡ After another 2 minutes has elapsed, a second steak will be taken from the holder's inventory.

- Chemist will follow the same format, except in the form of health pots.
- After testing the amount of damage each class takes from common recovery classes, each class will be in a similar situation.
- Necro (on the surface level) would appear to have an advantage, however, Necro support has become commonplace in the game today, so Necro does not overly benefit from this change because of their skulls and subsequent absorption hearts.
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Tier II: After 2.5 minutes, the flagholder will lose one steak ➡ After another 5 minutes (after the previous 2.5 minutes), a second steak will be taken from the holder's inventory.

- Increase time due to lower armor classes holding the flag.
- After testing the amount of damage each class takes from common recovery classes, each class will be in a similar situation.
- Medic does not benefit due to combat timer.
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Tier III: After 2.5 minutes, the flagholder will lose one steak.

- Losing one steak is hindrance enough for these classes.
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Tier IV: Unaffected, no changes.

Solution 2: Increase Medic timer

Make it harder for the carriers to receive healing and restores, increase the chance of death. The current Medic timer for every class is 15 seconds. To ensure this does not alter non-stalemate gameplay, restore timer on flagholders will only increase after 2.5 minutes.

Tier I: 22 seconds to fully restore a flag carrier (1.5x base)
Tier II: 18 seconds to fully restore a flag carrier (1.25x base)
Tier III & Tier IV: Unaffected, no changes

*Increasing the Medic restore timer for the common holding classes would provide more recovery opportunities and force the flagcarrier to use steak effectively, and the Medic to correctly time heals and restore.

Solution 3: Graduated flag poisoning

Force carriers to take larger amounts of flag poisoning as time goes on. This will again start after 2.5 minutes have elapsed.

Tier I: After 2.5 minutes, the flagholder will take an extra heart of flag poisoning (2.5 hearts in total) ➡ Every 2 minutes after that, increase the amount of flag poisoning taken by half a heart ➡ Maximum amount of damage capped at 4 hearts (equivalent to a direct Engineer TNT blast)

Tier II: After 2.5 minutes, the flagholder will take an extra half heart of flag poisoning (2 hearts in total) ➡ Every 2 minutes after that, increase the amount of flag poisoning taken by half a heart ➡ Maximum amount of damage capped at 3 hearts.

Tier III: After 2.5 minutes, the flagholder will take an extra half heart of flag poisoning (2 hearts total) and will remain that way infinitely.

Tier IV: Unaffected, no changes.

IV: Conclusion

- These are three very short, simple ideas that I thought of off the top of my head. These ideas no doubt take away the RNG aspect of the previous attempt because the flagholder and Medic support will have the ability to control their steak/heals as necessary rather than be forced to play down a certain number of hearts at all times.

- All numbers used in this were used to what I personally thought would provide balance in the game, feel free to critique the values and point out any inconsistencies/issues with the numbers used.

- I decided to make this thread to spark discussion about an issue I see a solid number of community members complaining about. I think it is an important topic to address because of this, and, furthermore, needs to be revived as the last time this topic was brought up was over one year ago.