Archer is annoying

funnyyyyy NOT.

o man an essay A+ u can graduate now

 

Anyone else notice how the topic is about punch II, but 90% of the comments are arguing about instant kills?

 

First off, your rework is a snowball because Archer's power increases along with the XP bar, although it is different than the way Dwarf snowballs. Second of all, keeping instant kills in the game requires a lot of nerfs on them so that they don't make everything crazy (which I'm sure you realize) and that is so pointless when true damage reworks are not only powerful but do not make the game stupidly uneven.

Anyway, yes you are indeed arguing over a lost cause. Here are three reasons why you are wrong and why keeping instant kills is bad for CTF:

1. Instant Kills make CTF less friendly to new players and are a major limiting factor in its popularity.

2. Instant Kills take away teamwork from CTF, which makes the game even more unfair.

3. Instant Kills both ruin and limit the type of maps that can be built.

I strongly suggest reading some of - or all if you can - my logic behind these arguments if they do not seem sensible at first. But beforehand, go get yourself a cup of coffee or maybe a Snapple or if you're on a phone get on a computer and take a look at it without hurting your eyes.

Before I get into my main arguments I want to take a moment to cover three things:

1. Some of you might wonder what the point of this post is when Instant kills have already been so heavily debated. The reason is, a consensus needs to happen about how CTF should be reworked. However, because instant kills are a huge part of CTF and for a rework to occur they will have to be addressed in one way or another. No rework can be made without a decision about what to do with instant kills. Because of that, I have created this post as an impassioned plea for their removal as the only way to really start on the path to making CTF a much more balanced game.

1. Secondly, I want to debunk the popular argument that instant kills should not be removed from the game for fear that it would destroy the game. This argument has been disproved before but it is still being used as a reason why instant kills shouldn't be removed, which is why this fore-note is necessary. Anyway, I digress, the problem with the argument is that it is based entirely off of the appeal to ignorance fallacy, that CTF could never be practically remade without instant kills. Of course any argument based on fallacy is automatically wrong so this one is likewise debunked.

3. Instant kills fundamentally unbalance the game. It’s very funny to me how some people claim that instant kills are balanced or can be balanced because there is nothing remotely fair about being killed instantly. I think we can all agree that in combat terms, balance is all about finding that equilibrium, where each side has an equal chance of defeating the other. However, the trouble with instant kills is that they deny that chance; they slant everything towards the Pyro, the Assassin, the Archer, or even the high level Dwarf in combat because these classes are all given the advantage of being able to instantly kill their target(s). It doesn't matter when or how often a class can instant kill an enemy. The very fact that it is possible, at some moment is what makes them unfair and ridiculous. Some of you may ask the question, so why does this matter? CTF is still a fun game after all, so why is it so urgent that the instant kill mechanic be removed? Perhaps if you are the person making this argument you might find that instant kills make the game fun and invigorating, for instance.

First, I want to make it clear that I agree with all of the above. To a certain degree, instant kills do make the game fast paced and exciting for those playing instant kill classes since there can be nothing quicker in combat than being able to instantly blast the enemy to kingdom come. Nevertheless, most people who argue or have argued against removing instant kills state that their removal would make the game slow and boring. That argument is flawed in and of itself.

Indeed, it begs the question of how can anyone state that CTF without instant kills would be slow and boring when such a version has never existed before? To make such an argument is to commit the slippery slope fallacy and naturally that is illogical in and of itself.

Now that it is established that CTF without instant kills is possible as a fun, fast paced game I shall point out three key reasons as to why instant kills hurt CTF more than they help it aside from what I have already said about balance in the above section:

- Firstly, instant kills in CTF make the game less noob friendly and limit its growth in popularity. In my topic On: Instant Kills I examined the primary arguments in favor and against removing instant kills. @BAWSS5 composed an interesting response to my argument which you can read below:

Spoiler

“Since I'm the one who originally said it, let me answer this question...

What's the total number of players brawl has on at any time, across all game modes? Let's say about 1000. That's 1000 players... across all game modes. Of that 1000 potential CTF players, only one server at a time is ever truly full, and of the other three, one is usually about half full, and the other two have a few players. So, rounding up, that's about 100 players of CTF on average. AFTER THE BRAWL BOOM. After we were presented to a server full of prospective new players, we can barely manage to fill up one and a half 60 player servers on a regular day.

Now, keep in mind that CTF classes can only be bought once per player, and with each class costing 2.50 a piece, and being generous in assuming that all of the 100 average players will purchase every class, nor have they purchased any classes from MCPVP that were transferred. That's 3250 dollars profit for CTF on an average game. Total. That's not that much. No matter how you slice it, CTF is not a profitable game mode without a constant influx of new players.

Add on top of all this the fact that the classes are unbalanced to the point where new players are just likely to rage quit as they are to stay at all, and you've got a CTF that's only really going to survive on the strength of its own player base and their constant support.

So, how many players of CTF do you think will move on to new games within a year or two? Probably quite a few, and while there will obviously be new players joining the veteran community, with the age and staleness of CTF, there's very likely going to be 2 or 3 leaving for every new joiner from here on out.

If you take all of this into account, the point I made becomes clear. CTF's time to thrive, to generate profit and as such allow for brawl to justify spending considerable time fixing it, is only going to run out. Maybe it will live for years to come. However, unless there's a massive update that revitalizes the entire game mode's playability, CTF will only continue to be a hollow shell of the life it once had.”

First off, before I respond to @BAWSS5’s post, I want to point out why it is relevant to the argument that instant kills limit the growth of the player base. @BAWSS5’s post is relevant because it notes the point that all classes are unbalanced to the point that new players are likely to quit just as much as they are to keep playing the game. Of course, this unbalance is by and large due to instant kill classes, although classes like Chemist have issues of their own.

As for his post, @BAWSS5 is correct on multiple accounts that CTF is not and will not be profitable without a constant influx of players to make up for the low prices of premium classes. Furthermore,@BAWSS5 is also correct that CTF has a low player base, one that has not grown since 2013 and will most likely not see much life for very long without a major update.

Some people have said that it is the so called ‘condescending’ community or the fact that CTF’ers seem to be more closely knit than other communities that turns outsiders away, but that is a bunch of nonsense. CTF's community is no more rude than any other community out there, on Brawl or otherwise, and is a good deal kinder than some.

In fact, what makes CTF not a noob friendly game is primarily is its ridiculously unbalanced game play. @BAWSS5 stated that people are just as likely to stay as they are to leave and I think there’s some truth to that. Instant kills wreak havoc with CTF because if someone logs in to the server and gets headshot a whole bunch of times within a few minutes not only does that situation scream imbalance, it happens all the time. If someone gets instant killed even one time in game, that situation is exceptionally unfair. It doesn't matter how many times someone gets instant killed, the fact that it even occurs makes game-play far too unfair. In fact instant kill classes not only make the game far too unfair because they provoke people to use very OP non instant kill classes as well, such as Mage, Chemist, and Soldier, in order to counter their effectiveness and this is also bad for the game. Just imagine the situation when someone logs into CTF as a Heavy and is suddenly confronted with a bunch of people shooting at him as Archer, pot spamming him as Chemist, lightning him on fire as Pyro (and so on)! That doesn’t sound like a game that is particularly receptive to new players to me. Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating for total balance as that is never possible no reasonable, but I am merely restating that removing instant kills must go if we are to make the game fairer.

Think about it, if instant kills were removed the last free class counter to Chemist (Archer) would no longer be very effective against it, which would naturally force a comprehensive rework of Chemist. This would be great for the game for two reasons, first a broken mechanic would be gone from the game and secondly Chemist would be far more balanced and not the ‘jack of all trades’ class that it currently is. I do realize however, that removing things from the game to force reworks of broken classes more broken is a bad way to do things but the example was merely to prove the point that classes such as Chemist are as OP as they are to counter instant kills.

Moreover, I think that if we stopped the counterbalancing juggling act between super OP classes and the instant kill classes and balanced out the classes we could draw more players to CTF. Generally speaking people like a game that is fun but dying a whole bunch of times because you don’t own the right class – such as Chemist or Mage – or because you’re getting headshot all the time is not fun at all. It’s hard to believe for those of us who are CTF regulars and have been for years but some people get put off by getting killed very quickly by a headshot or getting their flag stolen by a soldier for the umpteenth time. After all, wouldn’t the game be better if there were no more spawn camping Pyro’s killing a bunch of your team-mates? Or if you didn’t get head-shot the instant you jumped off the sponge? Or if you didn’t lose all your levels as Dwarf after getting 1 shot by an Assassin?

I think we can all agree that a game where death wasn’t extremely fast as it is with instant kill classes would make the game more fun to play. Right? Right.

Thus the issue with instant kills causing CTF not to be noob friendly is actually twofold:

Firstly, instant kills cause a fundamental imbalance in the game that is filled by a whole bunch of broken classes. Or instant kills are added as a band aid to make up for bad class design such as how Assassin was created to be – more or less – a counter to Dwarf. In this situation - as I have already explained at length - it makes the game too crazy and too unfair, and this is a big problem because it does not readily allow for more balanced competitive gameplay.

Secondly, instant kills create vastly different gameplay experiences. For example, the person camping as an Archer might have a great time in CTF but the guy trying to get one kill with Necro isn’t going to be too happy. The problem is, it’s almost too easy to get kills sometimes with instant kill classes such as Archer, Pyro, Dwarf – and sometimes Assassin – and that causes the gameplay for those classes to sometimes be vastly more enjoyable than that of non-instant kill classes. However, the issue with instant kills creating various levels of enjoy ability in gameplay cannot simply be boiled down to the statement that instant kill classes are better than non-instant kill classes because you can get instant kills. That is fallacious as some non-instant kill classes are far stronger than some instant kill classes such as Assassin.

No, the issue rather, is that gameplay with instant kill classes is either extremely good or extremely terrible for both the person playing the class and the people playing against it. Instant kills create a situation where skill is – to some degree – irrelevant because there are times on various maps where you walk out of spawn and are headshot and immediately killed. How do you respond to that? You can’t really. Make no mistake, there are plenty of skilled Archers out there but that the fact that they are so skilled at what they do makes the skill of players playing other classes irrelevant.

The trouble with situations like this in game is that people like to think that if they are skilled at a game they can do really well at it. Think about it, even if someone is good at strafing or combat PvP there is nothing they can do if they get headshot or axed, or one shot by an Assassin or Dwarf, and this is not only frustrating but it is not fun. I mean, what is the point in trying to capture the flag or playing the game in general if I am just going to get headshot a whole bunch of times or get killed by a rampaging Chemist?

This is a good point that I wanted to pause to address. This post is not advocating for raising the skill bar anywhere near the level of HG, nor is it advocating for making kills very hard to come by. I agree that easy kills keep people playing but quick deaths from an instant kill do the absolute opposite when you're on the receiving end of one a lot.

I know that was a lot of text to read through but I hope you can see what I am getting at. If you didn’t here is my final point of this argument in a nutshell: instant kills make CTF – in its current state - less attractive for new players to play because they cause massive imbalances in game in game play through the power of the classes and their disregard for skill – to a degree - of other players.

Therefore to make CTF more friendly to new players more skill must be incorporated into the classes so that if someone happens to own Chemist, Pyro, Mage, or mains Archer they do not have a total advantage over you. Yes, they may have an advantage in certain areas and that is fine but the issue occurs when they are too good at what they do and that leads to extremely unbalanced gameplay and a bad time for the countered class.

To reiterate @BAWSS5:

“Add on top of all this the fact that the classes are unbalanced to the point where new players are just likely to rage quit as they are to stay at all, and you've got a CTF that's only really going to survive on the strength of its own player base and their constant support.”
2. Furthermore, the second reason why instant kills must be removed is that they take away teamwork from CTF gameplay. Take Assassin for example. No matter how much teamwork you have you cannot outdo the Assassin or the Archer in killing the flag carrier (at long range) because both classes are simply too good at what they do in that role.

Another way to think about this is to look at all the best defenses and offenses. All the best defenses have a Pyro, Assassin, or Dwarf and many of the best offenses have either a Pyro or a good number of Archers. You may find yourself asking this in response: well if all these classes are fun to play then why is a rework even needed?

What is key is that a rework is needed so that the game is fun to play for the players who are up against classes like Pyro, Assassin, Dwarf, or even Archer. It is simply a bad way to run a server if the game is extremely skewed in favor of people who use certain classes for whatever role they choose.

Indeed, to some degree instant kill classes make CTF a little like a pay to win server. Obviously, this comparison isn't completely true as Archer is a free class and classes such as Chemist are non instant kill but are extremely strong on their own. However, there is some truth to it for several reasons.

As I have already established in the previous argument, instant kill classes force non-instant kill classes to be very OP in order to adequately counter them or non instant kill classes were previously very OP, creating a need for instant kill classes to counter them. Because of this, classes like Chemist, Soldier, and Mage are quite strong. Soldier is extremely mobile. Chemist excels in all roles. Mage is one of the strongest midrange classes in the game. Therefore, CTF is made somewhat pay to win because many of the strongest, most versatile classes are either instant kill premium classes or instant kill/non-instant kill free classes (Archer, Soldier) and most of them are premium classes.

@Quarrelt made a great point about Solo-capping in a related thread and how that is, more or less, the norm in current CTF.

First off, I agree, this is a very valid point, which is why I want to address it.

As I have previously stated the issue lies in that instant kill classes such as Pyro or a lvl 20+ Dwarf can almost entirely defend on their own, or how a Chemist can run into a flagroom on their own - potspam the hell out of everyone and get out and can only be stopped by a Pyro or a Dwarf.

In other words:

(*Yes I know I was the person who posted the End the Tyranny of Teamwork thread and that was a joke @furtles )

The third and final reason why instant kills should be removed is that they can ruin maps as well as limit what kind of maps can be built. While it is true that some maps are poorly designed - such as Unholy Faith - in that they are OP for classes like Soldier, Archer, Engineer, Mage, Pyro, Chemist (etc.) instant kills not only magnify the problems with these maps but also make potentially good maps bad as well. For example, most open maps are taboo or not very fun to play on because they end up being Archer OP.

Furthermore, instant kills make it to where you cannot have maps that are too closed in because they end up being Pyro OP, or Dwarf OP, or Assassin OP. If this was not the case and instant kills were removed – thereby forcing a rework of other highly unbalanced classes – CTF map making as well as reworks would be made easier. How so? Because there would not be so many ridiculously unbalanced game aspects to have to compensate for while building that could break the game if it isn’t made just right.

There is one final point to note in this argument though. Most maps have been designed to admit instant kills the best they can. What would happen if instant kills were removed and many of the classes were suddenly reworked?

I think it would force some maps to be changed but at the same time it would make some maps easier to play on. For example, with less crazy or harsh gameplay in a game without instant kills or with classes that are less OP maps such as Blackout would not be as overwhelmed by sniping Archers and the flag-room could possibly be more easily defended with a nerf on Soldier's mobility per removal of Pyro's instant kill.

Conclusion:

For the sake of not repeating myself too much I'm going to keep this short and sweet.

There are a lot of good games out there that do not have instant kills. Not a single base ability (not including AP or AD) in League of Legends is an instant kill by itself, yet it's an extremely popular game.
CTF can be more popular, but to do so it simply needs to be more fair, not totally balanced but not so insanely imbalanced. That's really all this post is about.

If any reworks are going to happen on CTF the biggest cause of its imbalance - instant kills - need to be removed so that the other ultra OP aspects/classes of the game can be fixed.

Anyway I apologize for making this post so long, I only did so to thoroughly explain every single one of my arguments the best way I can.

I know CTF is not a priority game mode but its broken and needs a fix, and I think removing instant kills from every class that has them is one step towards a solution.

Thanks for your time and rekt m8,

-Admiral

(most of the above was copied from a previous thread of mine so that's why it's more of a general response than a direct response to your post @1337Noooob)

 

aye, glad you agree. In fact I still had at least some doubt about my own idea because of course I'm not the most experienced with reworks, but another mind with the same idea feels better. A minor stun mechanic might seem like kind of a good idea, but then it could also turn into engineer >.> So yeah maybe not.

Because people like us prefer to bicker about a problem that hasn't been solved in years rather than a tweak that could improve the game instantly

(@Admiral_Munson will read & respond to that ^ later, I was typing this as you posted it)
Re-edit: done with reading your post after a couple days' interruption, and looks like I'm not done with this thread >.>

 

@Admiral_Munson
And most of that post was built off of my initial argument that CTF was bad.

Still, you gave sufficient credit so I won't sue.
... much.

Yes
Just like one of the other threads on CTF is 'about' imbalance but has a whole bunch of goat-related humour.

Topics of conversation change, love.

 

bully

 

First of all, I just wanna say I'm responding using my phone, so if there's any formatting issues, I apologize.

Wew, that's a load of stuff to respond to. I like having someone as knowledgeable and in-depth as you to discuss things with, because I really get to see the whole other side of the story. But without further ado, let's get to the topic at hand. I'll ignore some parts of your post because it often restates itself, but I'll cover all the main points you made.

First of all, let me get the definition of the Snowball Effect from the Cambridge Online Dictionary so we can be clear on this:


"a snowball effect:

a situation in which something increases in size or importance at a faster and faster rate"


Let's first examine a class that has nothing overly special to charge, like a Heavy or Soldier (I guess Soldier has to wait for its Wall-Climb to RE-charge with the new nerf, but meh). If you were to illustrate their power on a graph, it would look something like this:



The moment they take damage, their usefulness decreases due to less Steak, unless they get healed by a Medic, in which case they will be back up to full.


Dwarf is a snowball. It starts off weak, and quickly grows in importance until it becomes an unstoppable monster. If you were to illustrate the power a Dwarf has over a single life, it would look something like this:



While leveling up, its increasing Sword damage outweighs the pains of losing Steak, but getting it restocked doesn't hurt. Once it hits its level cap, it loses effectiveness over time, much like Heavy or Soldier, but again can be restocked by a Medic. The only difference now is that the Dwarf has this humongous power level that it averages at.


My Archer rework is not a snowball. It uses an exp bar to illustrate a charge, much like Dwarf, but this charge works completely different. As I've said, it's as if you could draw your bow further back than usual. Elf has to draw its bow back to apply the Pure Element and deal more damage, but you wouldn't call it a snowball. My Archer rework is the exact same thing as pulling a bow back, except instead of using the bow as a visual indicator it uses an exp bar. If you were to draw Archer's power over a single life, it would look something like this:



In fact, that's very similar to the power graph of a class like or Elf or New Pyro, who also have to charge up certain abilities or weapons. They charge up their abilities and use them once, and have to recharge them from the start again. If you were to simplify the graph, it would basically be identical to Heavy and Soldier's.


In a certain way, all types of things you have to charge up are a kind of snowball, but since they deplete after use, it's not really the same thing. Use the ability once and it's gone. Now you have to recharge it. Dwarf can keep getting stronger and stronger, as long as it crouches. It's not losing all of its charge or anything, unless it blocks, but that's not to the same degree as the Archer, Pyro, or Elf losing "charge".


For fun, this is what Mage's would look like this:



Since the class can use its spells indefinitely and recharges everything by itself, it doesn't have that same sense of decay that other classes have.


Okay, now that I've established that my rework isn't a snowball, let's move on to the bigger thing: Instant Kills.


To get it out of the way, let's look at this. I know it's not a huge factor of your argument but it's the easiest to tackle so I might as well:

League of Legends and the majority of MOBAs lack Instant Kills and they end up being very balanced team games. I play a bit of DotA (Although I'm terrible at it) and I think the game's fun despite its lack of Instant Kills.


But the difference is pacing. League and DotA are slower, more tactical games. Team fights can often go on for 20 or 30 seconds without a single death. The lines between team fights and the player rotations can be blurred themselves, so in a way a team fight may be initiated a minute before the action even really starts! It takes a long time to traverse the entire map, and a lot of the skill is being able to control the Jungles and Lanes to rack up farm and buy more equipment so you can do well in the late-game (which happens around a half an hour into most matches).


CTF does not have any of these elements. There are no towers, there are no level ups or gold (besides Dwarf), and you don't spend 40+ minutes on a single game. The pacing is completely different, and so is the general idea of both games. In LoL/DotA, you click things to have your character interact with stuff, and have to destroy the enemy's Nexus/Ancient. In CTF, you directly control your character, and your objective is to get to the enemy's base and back with the flag. These are completely different games.


Here's a game that serves a much better comparison: Team Fortress 2. TF2 isn't nearly as popular as League or DotA anymore, but back in it's day it was one of the most popular shooters behind Counter-Strike: Source and some of the Console Shooters like Call of Duty (Yes, CoD is on PC, but after CoD 4 the PC CoD community kind of died out). Not to mention, TF2 used to cost actual money back then. I hate the argument of popularity, because it has nothing to do with the actual balance of the game (unless the game is super unbalanced to the point where it's unplayable,). There's marketing, price, progression (Games with progression systems, like MMOs, are more likely to hook players, for example), and genre (fast-paced casual shooters like Call of Duty will appeal to more players than a more Niche Game like Chivalry). Balance and gameplay isn't the sole defining factor of a game's popularity. It helps, but there are plenty of gems that have lower player counts and games that are objectively unbalanced but still really popular (For example, Star Wars Battlefront. Gameplay is considered stale by most but it's fun because it's fun to fly around as Darth Vader and rek some kids).


TF2 is probably the closest thing to CTF that you can get. To take the immersion to the next level, I'm going to say that MCCTF was heaviliy inspired by TF2 CTF. The objective and pacing is the same: A gamemode where you have fast-paced gameplay in the middle of the map, and a slow and steady defense on both sides, with the offense players either trying to clear out the flag room or sneak by and steal the flag.


Then we look at the class parallels: The TF2 Scout is much like the CTF Ninja, being fast and having high damage output but being easy to kill. The TF2 Soldier can use the knockback of Rockets to fly off of surfaces and climb up high structures, much like the CTF Soldier climbing up walls. TF2's Pyro sets things on fire and deals extra damage to burning players with their axe, like in CTF. TF2's Heavy is extremely tanky and does a lot of Damage, but can't maneuver around the map very quickly. Kinda like the CTF Heavy, although I'll admit that the differences are fairly evident (CTF's Heavy isn't hindered by mobility, but it doesn't have any special abilities to make it stand out). MCCTF's Engineer is literally exactly the same as TF2's, having a Turret that can either shoot automatically or be overrided, a Dispenser/Regenerator that can heal health, and a Teleporter that can transport people from Point A to B very quickly. The TF2 Medic doesn't hold many similarities to the CTF Medic besides healing and passive regeneration. The TF2's Sniper is deal Instant Death from afar, much like our very controversial Archer here, and the TF2 Spy can sneak behind enemies and Instant Kill them with their Knife, much like the Assassin sneaking up on enemies and Instant Killing them with the Sword.


TF2, at least back then before they added a ton of crazy new weapons, was an extremely balanced game. I'd still say the game is really fun, and many competitive leagues ban the new weapons that hurt the balance of the game, but I'll admit the vanilla experience has been damaged a bit. Although to be fair, a lot of the new weapons and balance changes have actually served as a nerf to Instant Killers like Sniper and Spy.


Anyway, TF2 uses Instant Kills and it's still a fairly popular game despite its age (Almost 9 years now! Most games would be dead by now, but TF2 still thrives!). And I'd say the CTF Gamemode for TF2 has very similar pacing and structure to MCCTF.


In the rest of my post I'll likely bring up details from TF2 to help further points, but for now I'm just trying to demonstrate how while there are some games that succeed with Instant Kills, there are others that succeed with them. Instant Kills aren't necessarily an Instant factor of whether a game is good or not. It's simply a design choice that can be made to fit into certain situations. And in the case of faster-paced games like CTF, I think it can fit very nicely.

What am I necessarily "wrong" about? We're talking game design here. You can take multiple directions in how you want the game to work. Your vision is very different than mine, which I respect, but at the same time you need to realize that different design choices are not necessarily wrong. Anyways:


1. I'd argue that while Instant Kills aren't the friendliest thing for a new player to grasp, there are a lot of other things in the game that are "unfriendly". You can't say new players are going to get blinded by a Ninja and have any idea of what happened, or be shooting an Elf with a sparkly green sphere around them and suddenly get shot by themselves. In the case of an Instant Kill, it can be quite obvious. Get Headshot by an Archer and you'll literally be notified in chat that "You were Sniped by xxmlgpro (Archer)". Get killed by an Assassin and you'll see "noob was killed by xxsneakybeakyxx (Assassin) with Iron Sword". You'll pick up on these instant kills fairly quickly, and learn that this class will kill you in one hit. I'm sure a new player could grasp these things as fast as they would grasp that Eggs blind you, or that the Green Sphere reflects all projectiles.


When I was new to CTF, I wasn't dissuaded at all by Instant Kills, and believe it or not I was a Soldier main back then! I started to understand "Okay, these Archers are killing me in one hit at long range, but up close they only seem to be knocking me back. Take cover when far away, and try to get up close". With Assassins, I wasn't actually aware you could block them (I actually didn't know this until I rejoined CTF a month or two ago), but I knew to exercise caution and try to get away from them if I saw a piece of Redstone in their hand. And Pyros, I figured out quickly to find sources of water when fighting them and to keep my distance unless I could sneak up on them.


And just because a game isn't noob friendly doesn't mean it can't be popular. Look at CS:GO. Counter-Strike is one of the most unfriendly shooters for new players, behind ARMA and Insurgency. Guns have crazy recoil, the damage scale is super high and you have to control your movement extremely well to land a single precise shot into the enemy's face. Yet that game has tons of players and is growing every day, slowly creeping up behind DotA, which itself is slowly creeping up on LoL! And speaking of DotA and LoL, which you were previously using as an example for your own arguments, they're very unfriendly to noobs! You can spend 100 hours on most MOBAs and still not have a clue about what you're doing, because there's so many characters with completely different abilities, so many different items which could completely change how a character works, and in the case of League there's all these runes and masteries and stuff. Even with 500 hours, you probably won't be able to fully grasp the metagame that revolves around all the different characters and their abilities. Most people who consider themselves good often have 1000 or more hours in the game, and they can just dominate all the noobs they want if they do unranked games.


2. Instant Kills, in their current state, do take away teamwork from CTF. However, with proper implementation, they can actually improve the game. As it is, Archer is overpowered because it's essentially unstoppable. Any good Archer can outpvp a Ninja, and the only real counter is Assassin. Because of that, you have Archers who reign free upon the map and loose death upon all who pass. However, if you make them more vulnerable, you can change that. In my rework, not only does the Archer lose access to the bow for a second after shooting, but they have to charge their bow to Instant Kill and lose all their charge if they stop holding right-click. Now, you can send in Ninjas to distract the Archer. Since Archer can't bow spam to hit invisible Ninjas, it'll be harder for them to fight back and knock the Ninja away. Secondly, even if the Ninja loses the fight, the Archer has to recharge their bow to keep on killing. By sending in a Ninja to distract or kill the Archer, you can allow your team to safely pass. Or you can rush the Archer so he can only take out one or two of you at most. And if an Archer is going after your flag carrier, you have to make sure you stay close so that in case they get Headshot, you can pick up the flag before it gets recovered. Again, this improves teamwork, as the capturing team has to always watch out and be prepared. It doesn't matter if the Archer kills the flag carrier if the flag gets picked back up again.


At the same time, there's now team work for playing Archer. Your team has to protect the Archer and stop people from getting in their face, so the Archer can focus on charging and shooting arrows to Instant Kill people. Lone Wolf Archer won't be as effective anymore, since you can't shoot Punch arrows at close range to knock people back, and you can't just spam arrows in the open and expect to get kills like that. I'd argue that you should also lower the Archer's armor or Steak count to make them even more vulnerble to Ninjas, but that's a different topic for a different day.


3. Instant Kills limit the kind of maps than can be built? True, but so do other abilities. You can't build maps with tons of tall buildings like Slums, or else they become Soldier OP. You can't build maps that have a lot of open spaces with no way to cross, because then they become OP for classes that can traverse these "uncrossable" gaps like Ninja and Elf. You can't build very large maps because then Engineer teleporting becomes too good, etc. All class abilities limit ways maps can be built. It's just the nature of the game. If Archer lost Instant Kills and had True Damage + Bleed, would that mean Archer OP maps wouldn't still be OP? No! Archers would still be able to land True Bleed shots from across the map. The fact that Instant Kill classes limit map design isn't because Instant Kills are OP, but rather because the classes are OP.

rip, i read and am replying to this entire thing on my phone without a cup of coffee or snapple

I agree for the most part that the fear of removing Instant Kills because it would destroy the game is stupid. Anything can be reworked to include or exclude a mechanic. Obviously I am for keeping Instant Kills because I legitimately think they're valuable for the game, but I gotta agree with this point here. Argue for something because it's good, not because the lack of it is bad.

Balance isn't about finding the equilibrium, where every class has an equal chance of killing each other. Classes serve different roles. Some support their teammates, others ward away enemies, some capture flags, and some kill people. Balance is about making sure every class has a role in the game. Some classes may be slightly stronger than others, but as long as they have a sufficient weakness that requires them to have teammates to help them utilize their strengths, it's okay. It would be unreasonable to expect a class like Soldier or Medic to be winning fights when that isn't their role, just like Archers aren't supposed to be capturing flags. Although I have to agree that Archer’s Instant Kill is very hard to counter, and that's why I suggest the reworks that I do. Make it so Archer has to charge their bow to Instant Kill, so that if they miss once you have an opportunity to run past them or get close.

At the same time, how can anyone state that CTF without Instant Kills would be any more fun than it is now when such a version has never existed before? I can apply that logic right back at you. The truth is, we can't completely anticipate everything that will happen, but we can predict. In any game, stalemates will exist no matter how you balance games, and Instant Kills will be the main way to remove one. Look at DotA, LoL, TF2, CS, Starcraft, whatever. If you have two strong teams, chances are there's going to be a stalemate, where pushing and attacking will be disadvantageous. In MOBAs, no one can play the same character so usually one team wins out in the end, but you obviously can't use the class pick and ban system from those games in CTF. What happens if you have equally good players all playing the same classes?


TF2 uses Instant Kill classes like Sniper or Spy on enemies like Medics and Demomen (basically he does a ton of damage with explosives) as a high-risk high-reward play in the case of a Stalemate to give their team an advantage. If the Instant Kill fails, they're down a player and will likely lose, but if they can secure an important kill, they'll be able to deconstruct the makeup of the enemy team and overpower them.


No matter what, Stalemates will happen, and Instant Kills are the best way to deal with them. I'm not sure why other people say the lack of Instant Kills will slow down the game, but those are my reasons.

People always say a huge update will bring in more players, but this simply isn't true. People who wouldn't play CTF in the first place wouldn't play it after an update, because huge updates only make in impact in the game's community itself. Unless the update is so huge that it can leak into other communities (for example, there was a huge CS:GO update that was so big that people made Reddit posts that exploded and made it to the front page of Reddit). CTF doesn't have the already existing fanbase to become bigger because of update hype. Large updates only make a game larger if the game itself is already large.


And I've already explained that noob-friendliness is not required to keep a game popular earlier, so the argument that a huge CTF update will make the game more noob-friendly and therefore make the game more popular is not necessarily true either.

Agreed. There are tons of more hostile Minecraft communities, and other multiplayer PvP type games often have even more toxic communities, with death-threats (even if used jokingly), racial slurs, and more being common-place.

Explain how getting Instant Killed once in a game is unfair? A death is a death, a kill is a kill. As long as the person teleports back to spawn, that's all that matters. A situation where you have an Instant Killer getting constant kills, or ez pz kills on flag carriers and instantly recovering, fine, that's a problem. But that's not an issue of the Instant Kill. Any class that can constantly kill players with very few or no counters is a design issue, if it's an Instant Kill or not.

I get that this post is old and therefore some stuff is outdated, but if Instant Kills were removed the Archer would still counter pre-nerf Chemist because 9 hearts of damage is a lot of damage. Chemist had its nerf coming, no matter if Archer had Instant Kills or not. Archer didn't really counter a capping Chemist as much as it countered any other class. Chemists kind of had to be careful to not be shot, but you could say the same about any other class. I would like to see Archer's damage multiplier on Chemist be reduced though, now that Chemist can't heal as quickly.

Instant Kill classes are not OP because of Instant Kills, they're OP because they're OP. You're trying to categorize Instant Kills into their own section of imbalance because MCPvP designed them poorly. Let's look at Sniper from TF2. His Sniper Rifle deals 150 damage to the head, and can be charged up over 3 seconds to deal 450. 5/9 classes have 150 or less health, 2 have 175, 1 has 200, and the last one has 300. These classes can go up to 150% of their regular health, so best case scenario it's 450 health. Therefore, a good Sniper can stand still for a few seconds and kill any class in the game instantly, from any range. And bullets travel instantly, so it's literally unavoidable. But the TF2 Sniper is nowhere near overpowered. It's probably the 4th or 5th best class in the game if you really want to ranks classes in a team game like that, and only if the person playing is really good. The reason why the class is balanced is because it's extremely vulnerable at close range, losing to every other class in CQC.


Look at Archer: Full Chainmail, 4 Steaks, Stone Sword, and a Bow that can knock enemies away and can be spammed easily. That's nowhere near the definition of vulnerable. Most classes are similar to TF2 are usually pretty in line with the strengths and weaknesses of the TF2 equivalents, but Archer is way stronger than Sniper.


Pyro, even pre-nerf, was bad at anything but flag room defence, where it was OP. Spawn-camping Pyros weren't the issue, flag-defending Pyros were. And they were overpowered because you literally could not avoid them if they were next to the flag and they could spam it as fast as they could click.


Headshots on sponging players. The maps that are easy to Sponge Snipe on incorporate Sponge as a way to compensate for classes with poor mobility or as the main way to get around the map. This is poor use of sponges and is a sign of poor map design, because Sponge limits where players can travel. Unless you lag and get a double Boost from the sponge, you'll always land in this spot with a Sponge. There's 3 maps I can think of, Woodland, Platforms, and another one I can't quite remember the name of, but it had 2 castles and lots of trees, with a gravel path in the middle of the map leading to 2 short bridges hanging over the void. Anyway, those maps have sponges near spawn that bring you straight to the middle of the map, meaning all members of the team get there at the same time, regardless of their mobility. This is bad because it reduces the usefulness of more mobile classes, and it's things like these that encourage Archers to sponge snipe. Sponges shouldn't be used as a handicap for slow classes, and they certainly shouldn't be forced onto players to use. They should be elevators or alternate pathways, a shortcut that lands you in a dangerous place but could be beneficial for risky plays.


And the fact that Dwarves have levels in the first place is dumb. As you've said, snowballing is bad. The fact that Assassin counters a snowball isn't bad. The fact that the Snowball exists does.

I can't really comment much on this. All classes play extremely differently, and will be fun for different reasons. It may be frustrating dying to Archers and Assassins so often as Soldier, but just wait until you capture that flag. Who's going to be laughing then? Instant Kills can dominate in the department of Kills for obvious reasons, but every class is satisfying in different ways. Killing an Assassin isn't going to give you as much satisfaction as the Assassin gets for killing you, but doing your other objectives and winning the game for your team with a clutch flag cap will.

The fact that 9/13 classes are premiums is what makes CTF P2W.There's too many different playstyles and roles that the Premium classes have that the Free ones don't. Free classes let you cap (Soldier, Heavy & Medic), Support (Medic), Mid-Field and Recover on SOLO-Cappers (Archer), and defend a bit (Heavy). The premiums can do so much more, and without then your versatility is harmed.


And anyway, there's only 1 premium Instant Kill class now, 2 if you count Dwarf. Considering the Instant Kill to Non-Instant Kill ratio for free classes, there's actually a higher saturation of Instant Killers in the free classes than there are in the premiums now. Even when Pyro was still Instant Kill, it would've been 3/9 compared to 1/4, which isn't terrible.


Conclusion:


So yeah, that's all I have to say, I skipped some parts, especially towards the end, because sometimes it was just rehashing and summarizing earlier parts of the post or was unrelated to Instant Kill.


Instant Kills as a concept aren't nearly as broken as you're saying. Their implementation is obviously poor, but that's an issue of design and balance, not the Instant Kill itself. Instant Kills should be easily counterable, so that an enemy on the lookout for one can easily avoid Instant Death, but if caught off guard gets to bite the dust. This allows complex strategies to exist in the game, where you can set up distractions with or for the Instant Killers, and also forces enemies to work together as a team.


-1337Noooob

 

Skyworlds. The map you are thinking of is Skyworlds.

Also, my word, that is a Munson-like essay and a half response. And written on a phone....

 

I mean, I was thinking enemies would be put down to half a heart independent of their previous health, but I suppose you could even afford to one-hit kill someone below 5 hearts if you wanted to, and I doubt many people would be unhappy with that (I refer to it as a one-hit kill rather than instakill because there's a difference, only thing is that Chap might not see the difference with all of his CTF knowledge).

And dealing at most 9.5 hearts of damage to one enemy from range doesn't mean you get a kill, but it can cripple a flagcarrier and a team's offence in a real game. You may not get as many kills but I think you could still help your team plenty by bringing down health bars (and of course, getting kills off people not concentrating, or noobs).

 

This is very similar to @Admiral_Munson in his rework where he does a certain amount of damage initially and then additional damage over time to kill provided they don't steak or whatever. In this instance I find his more potentially effective in that the initial damage in yours is so high that any source of damage from anywhere will kill them. This makes the chance much smaller that they'll be able to get out alive. With the other rework, it's still effective but not so that even a bit of fall damage will kill you before you can even react. It doesn't solve every problem with archer given it's kinda powerful short range, but at least it makes it somewhat fairer long range.

With the rework of this thread in particular, I like the idea of trying to cut out bowspam. I just think a better way round it would be changing the escape method of archers so that instead of being less effective, bowspamming wouldn't benefit the player. It would also avoid this complexity of increased punch and power which isn't beneficial to a free class. People just come on and play it so it needs to be kept simple after all!

 

My personal opinion is archer is OP already with 25+ range headshot. I personally do not think that "balancing" the instant-kill is hereby balancing at all. It should be removed and added with powerful damage, and with what Admiral said, a DoT feature is interesting, but then the pure damage would be reduced otherwise you'd need super reflexes to steak. How about adding a blindness effect for 5 seconds? That is just an idea.
As for the punch II, it should be removed because (Not only is it extremely annoying) but is considered a noobish act in my eyes. Any person can knock back the melee-range guy chasing them, run away. Punch II itself is already overpowered for an archer.

 

Not gonna lie I looked at this text wall and I was like "My god he actually made a text wall that's even bigger than my text wall". That's pretty impressive especially since you typed this on your phone so kudos to you for that.

I think we need a @BAWSS5 opinion on this.

It could be a little shorter but sure

That is where your are wrong. It is a snowball because it requires some action to gradually increase Archer's power, maybe for a very short period of time through a snowball mechanic, which makes up the vast majority of Archer's attack capabilities.

Heavy has nothing to do with this

Yes. I was not arguing that your Archer makes it the same kind of snowball class as Dwarf. However, it is still a snowball class because it requires some kind of charge-up over time to use its most powerful ability. I would say that your Archer rework makes it more of an instance snowball where it has periodic power spikes whereas Dwarf is more of a traditional snowball class where it continues to get more powerful over time.

You haven't though You literally said that "all types of things you have to charge up are a kind of snowball", meaning that your rework is basically a different kind of snowball class.

No, they're not balanced at all lol. They just don't have built in instant kills, which makes them seem a heck of a lot more playable. But, I digress.

Popularity correlates a lot with the state of the game actually. CTF is literally one of the most rage inducing games out there because the meta is so ridiculous. As such, not a lot of people are going to play a game that is hostile to new or unskilled players, except the regulars and extremely skilled/team players because the design of the classes and of the games is very slanted in favor of the regulars.

Yup, more or less.

You admit that Archer's instant kill is hard to counter yet you propose keeping the instant kill? That doesn't make any sense to me. Even if the instant kill is harder to use, why not just get rid of the instant kill?

No you can't, because we have never had a CTF without instant kills before. You cannot question the unknown.

Some level of noob friendliness is required to keep a game popular. That is literally how you get new players. Will respond in depth later.

How is it unfair? It is unfair because you got killed instantly. The fact is, you do not have a point here. You're just saying that instant kills aren't unfair because "it's just a death! Look you respawned, no big deal!" and while you are correct that a single death isn't a big deal, that is not an argument against something being unfair and stupid. Balance, or some form of it is about being able to have a chance in combat. I know you argued against that earlier but you are wrong. I'm way too tired and busy right now to make a nice in depth argument against that so I'm just going to leave this post here.

The fact that most classes are premiums is not what makes CTF somewhat Pay to Win. The fact that many of those classes, like Assassin (an instant kill class) are so strong at their one main role (recovery) is what makes CTF a bit pay to win because none of the free classes (or many premiums) can do recovery anywhere near as well as Assassin.

That is ridiculous. Seriously lol. Instant kills are a feature! They are a broken feature! They do not need to be in CTF! We don't even know whether or not CTF could be better without instant kills. I mean, tell me, what's so wrong with trying to remake CTF without a BROKEN and STUPID mechanic instead of trying to do this crazy balancing act to fix their "poor implementation" when that is not even possible! I'm in favor of having OP mechanics, but why in the name of Merlin's saggiest left trouser leg should there be instant kills? Because the game was based on freaking TF2? CTF is an abstract concept revolving around capturing a flag for cripes sake!

Anyway, like I said I'm going to respond to the rest of this later. I need to take two aspirin and do my Calculus homework