Archer's Place in Casual

If you have a forums account and are viewing this, there's a 100% chance you've played CTF long enough to at least see a few instances of Archer stacking in casual that can get out of hand. I know there are like 20 threads on this already, but once again I'll try to introduce a new method of presenting reasons for change.

Archer in Comp
The team scene has gained a massive amount of attention over the last year, and with that there have been several suggested & implemented tweaks to classes to make gameplay as balanced & dynamic as possible. So, the first question arises: How often do you see people begging to change Archer after an official or a PPM? The truth is that you really don't, because most of the time rosters are balanced enough that the archer can only have a large impact if they're truly skilled at the class. You can't just sit there and shoot at whatever you see; Archer requires a great deal of routing knowledge, and a good chunk of normal pvp skill to hold their own against enemy roam. Similarly, the enemy team has to constantly be aware of the archer's position, and be able to push on it frequently enough to disturb their otherwise unmatched ability to mow down scattered offense.

Archer in Casual
This is where everything kind of does a full 180. Contrary to what was said above, casual receives hardly any direct attention. Combined with the fact that game size & class limits are ****ed 6 ways from Sunday, balanced matches simply fail to exist here. However, there are bigger culprits than others when it comes to throwing a game with certain classes, and Archer proudly takes the throne in most cases. I believe that the concept of Archer should indeed be a free class since it's fundamental to the game, but when you have 6 or even more of them raining free oneshots over the map, it becomes difficult to justify. Even without headshots, a new player starting on Archer is incredibly likely to cling to only that class due to the lack of real pvp. If you clicked 4 cps or didn't know how to sprint, you would want to be able to distance yourself from things like Heavy as much as you can, right? And so begins a negative feedback loop, where new players get hooked on the meta of right clicking to solve all their issues, while innately nerfing their ability to learn normal pvp and handle themselves in a competitive match. Sure, with time they will be forced to improve as a default adaptation to getting better at the game, but I'd bet money that 80%+ of the bow goblins you see on casual have never heard the phrase w tap in their life.

What Are We Meant To Do?
If you try to modify headshots in any way, there will always be the argument that it's balanced in comp the way it is.
Adding a bow cooldown of a second only fixes a small part of the problem on casual, and has relatively 0 effect in comp.
If you try to advocate limiting the class on casual for an actually balanced solution, you'll always have some clown defending the oh so beautiful freedom of infinite classes in a 50 player match.

I'm pretty much done trying to tweak the class itself anymore, so once again I'll suggest the far more practical solution: Constrict game sizes to a reasonable minimum & maximum at the very least, and preferably add some form of limit on Archer and other ridiculous stacking classes. This would benefit the meta far beyond nerfing Archer's presence in casual, and every day that this isn't implemented is another loss to any sort of reputation for new players wanting to come back to the hell hole. If you advocate 5 alex skins all shooting the first thing they see like a ****ing T600 then godspeed.

 

Which is why I've been trying to push for this for a while. I can find a new way to whine about a class every 3 months, or the server can become innately less friendly to class stacking with normal limits like any other server out there. 44 Player variability pretty much buries the idea of finding balanced games, and while there obviously can never be a truly balanced game with the way casual works, it would be a hell of a lot better without 25s and 3s. And you are right, the Archer stuff is coming from someone who goes after them specifically at times; But when there are 3 steve skins with an iron will to land a shot on anything they see, it becomes hard to just ignore them and let them gain confidence on the easiest free kill class in the game.