Why Elf shouldn't get buffed.. Why CTF is so hard to balance..

finally....... SOMEBODY posts this....

 

Its teaching them reflexs ^.^

 

speak the truth man ;D

 

"Perfect Imbalance"~ @Tenshirox 2016

 

yee, but elf still needs some adjusting Cx

 

wait.... now i need to mass rework my paladin class concept... (so does all other class concepts)

 

Billhelm has returned and here's his welcome post xD have fun reading all that, I'll just say welcome back.
Welcome back Billie!

 

Alrighty then.

Thank you for making that a whole lot clearer I'm sorry for freaking out a bit in my previous posts.

You are correct if you are talking about instant kills. If you are talking about people who simply play a class that has broken, non instant kill abilities, that is not necessarily true if other classes are available that can counteract those abilities.

That is where we disagree. Like you, I think that instant kills should be removed; however I am not for nerfing many other really strong abilities.

You're right. Ninja is hard to play well. It's hard to get anything above a 0.8 or a 1.o KDR with the class. As such, I agree that Ninja's sword needs a buff but I do not think its mobility should get nerfed. As crazy as that sounds there is a reason for it, as I have mentioned earlier but for the time being I won't go too far into it. Let's just say that I favor a buff of CTF instead of a blanket nerf.

Ideally Elf could counter things with any of the elements/abilities you listed but they are so weak that it makes them largely useless.

Elf's wind element was nerfed so much that you have to use it very strategically for it to be useful and still... it's like glorified Jump Boost II. So no, I disagree with you that Elf has good counter-play because every other class can overpower it and Elf has weak damage, weak armor, and discount Soldier mobility to deal with that. Trying to fight with Elf is like asking someone to kill someone else with a piece of paper. Trying to support with Elf is like trying to cure pneumonia with a heating pad and a thermos. It might be possible but it's far too difficult to do practically.

The only way Elf could become really useful again, without a buff, is if the rest of the game is brought down with it as I'm sure you realize. @pookeythekid (the Elf nerd) is much more knowledgeable about this than I am ^_^

Lets get one thing striaght, Elf's wind element wasn't and certainly isn't an outstanding ability. You rattle off a list of outstanding abilities including Mage's unlimited healing, Dwarf's infinitely powerful sword damage, Pyro's instant kill, and Soldier's infinite wall climb. All of these abilities were quite powerful and the use of any one of them would usually guarantee success in whatever endeavor they were used for. As you said, they are what make the class tick. The reason for this is that each one of those abilities, Pyro's instant kill, Soldier wall climb, Mage's spells/heal spell, Dwarf's sword, Archer's headshot, Ninja's enderpearls, could be used at any time and they were better than any other ability in the game. No weapon in the game is inherently more powerful than Dwarf's sword, and I am talking about how much weapon a damage deals not under instant kill conditions. No class can heal more than Mage. No class has as much mobility as Soldier.

All of those abilities were the very strongest abilities that class had. They were so strong that they made the class truly outstanding at whatever those abilities could be used for. Mage's ability to routinely spell spam and heal for infinite hearts has made it a mid-fielding monster in the right hands. You know that as well as I do. However, to label Elf's wind element which at best was a nerfed version of Soldier wall climb, as an outstanding ability is very wrong.

Suppose there were two enemy ships next to one another in some part of the ocean. One ship had much larger cannon balls and was at least fifty feet longer than the enemy ship. Now suppose it was also quicker than the enemy ship, although the enemy ship was also quite fast and could turn quicker in the seas but it had weak cannon and was very small. Clearly, the ship with the larger cannon has all the advantages, as it is far more powerful than its counterpart. The only advantage that the weaker ship has is that it can turn quicker in the seas, in other words it is slightly more agile.

This example with the ships is like the relationship with Elf and Soldier before and after Soldier's nerf. Elf is weaker in every category than Soldier. Soldier's armor is two and a half times stronger, it is much better at melee PvP than Elf, its health pool lasts much longer. Furthermore, Soldier used to be able to have infinite upward mobility and now it can climb up around 50 blocks on a full XP bar whereas Elf has never been able to climb that high. Therefore, Elf's mobility is or rather, used to be much better but it was not outstanding simply because it allowed Elf to sometimes get away with the flag, or because it actually allowed it to use its other ranged abilities without getting destroyed in melee. Indeed, while Elf's viability depended a great deal on its wind element it has not wrecked as a class although it has made the class a good deal harder to use not to mention weaker. However, that did not make the wind element an outstanding ability considering that Elf was/is dependent on all of its elements (mainly the pure, earth, and wind elements) to some degree to actually have some success.

Point is, while some people may have 'abused' the wind element people picked Elf because it could be really fun to use because it actually had the mobility to counteract its bad armor and to make better use of its other elements. It wasn't just for using the wind element. People used Elf because you could actually do fairly decent with support and capturing with it. Being able to do use a class for that is not egregious. The wind element was not an outstanding ability simply because it gave Elf the mobility that made the class more useful rather than inherently useful. Elf was not incredibly strong by any means before its wind element nerf and now it is unreasonably difficult to use. As someone who created the class you know this as well (probably better) as I do.

As such, there was no good reason to give Elf a massive nerf to its mobility without buffing it other than a desire to try to balance everything. Having a good ability that gives some advantage over other classes but is not so over powering that it breaks the game is not wrong. Elf's wind element is not comparable to Soldier wall-climb as an outstanding ability just as it is not comparable to Ninja's enderpearl or the instant kills as outstanding abilities.

Personally, I would like to see Elf have an outstanding ability, possibly something for support, so that it can really be able to fulfill some role in the game fairly well. Elf's problem is that it doesn't have an outstanding ability in the first place, which makes it harder to use and weaker since it cannot do anything particularly well. All the weak or mediocre abilities turns what should be a fun class into a class which you practically have to have a PhD in trick-shotting to play really well.
Furthermore, simply buffing Elf is a much better option than nerfing the entire game for the sake of fairness, as that leaves nobody satisfied.

But that is besides the point. The point is, outstanding abilities are not a detrimental thing like you make them out to be. Being able to get some kills or do really well on support simply because your class has an ability for that is not inherently bad. You say they are the essential cause of imbalance in CTF. I agree with that. However, imbalance is not a bad thing. Great imbalance is not a bad thing. Imbalance and screwed up abilities that are too powerful is what makes gameplay fun, which I'm sure you realize. The problem with imbalance occurs when certain classes are so powerful that playing them with virtually no effort yields massive benefits, which you have pointed out and I agree with you on that. Keep in mind, what I mean here by massive benefits is that a class (Archer) can get a massive kill streak simply by utilizing some ability they have. However, the issue with too much balance occurs when classes are so even in comparison to one another that skill ends up being the dominating factor, benefitting a few people and screwing over everyone else. I am sure that you are aware of that as well.

I disagree. I want to see some classes that are just strong, no matter how skilled you are. I'm not talking about keeping instant kills. I am talking about keeping classes in the game that are just naturally stronger than some other classes and this is so that everyone, no matter how good you are, can get a good result. What attracts to new players to this game, at least in part, is being able to have fun with whatever class they're playing and usually that only happens with classes that have some kind of outstanding ability.

I know you don't want to make every class take as much skill as Elf or nearly as much skill as Elf. You're completely right that doing that would be nightmarish. But I do not think making classes give massive or great rewards (i.e "string as hell if used correctly") is good for CTF, as it inevitably slants things towards skilled/experienced players.

Some people here have told me (@obikenobi21) that skill isn't an issue here because further balancing! I disagree. Whenever you try to balance anything skill always becomes more prominent just like how when you provide easy to use unbalanced abilities skill tends to become less relevant. What I worry about is that making CTF increasingly balanced may be bad for the game, just like how increased imbalance is.

The reason for that is increased imbalance, like with instant kills made skill less and less relevant, which allowed lots of people who were playing instant kill or other very OP classes to rack up huge kill streaks. It allowed for an absolutely insane meta, and you have hit the nail on the head there. However, increased balance could very well do the same thing. I mean if every class automatically required more skill, just a little bit more, that would automatically shift the game in favor of the most skilled players. The next thing you know, people are complaining about Pyro being too OP or some other class being too weak because some really good players are stomping on everyone else. The irony here is that by trying to balance the game out too much you have created further imbalance by making the classes reward skill too much. Imagine, anyone who knows how to use a class really, really well could just run around and get kill streaks or captures or whatever in regular games if there are not any other classes with outstanding abilities to counter that. Oops!

That doesn't sound very fun. In fact, that sounds kind of similar to what game-play in extremely imbalanced games such as CTF is like.

Also, before anyone points this out I do realize that outstanding abilities can be easily abused by more skilled players to be even more powerful. But the point of having them there in the first place is that they allow anyone to counteract those skilled players by using their own classes' outstanding ability.

Skilled players don't need any more help.

One of the benefits to instant kills, or just easy-to-use OP abilities/aspects in general is that they counter skill which can be good in a game like CTF where the skilled are constantly pitted against new or less skilled players. That is why I disagree with you here. As I have said, we'd all like to have a more even game and less OP classes but at the same time but you can't make everything slanted towards making classes increasingly skill based without making the game less friendly to new and lesser skilled players. Players who are not on some elite team like Delta Force or who do not play all the time do exist, as I am one of them.

I agree that instant kills are in need of removal and should be removed. They are cheap and screw up the game in so many ways. But that does not mean that every ability deemed too OP should be nerfed for the sake of getting even somewhat near balance. It does not mean that doing well with classes should depend more on the skill and abilities of the player to use all their classes' tools in the exact right way instead of using that classes' most powerful ability when necessary.

You're right that most of the class abilities are too strong and that the easiest tactics are usually the most rewarding ones. However, as I have said earlier, and will say again, some OP abilities need to stay in the game so that everything is not slanted towards the most practiced players. The hard road should not always be the most rewarding one. Heck it shouldn't be the most rewarding one most of the time (which another reason why Elf needs a buff) and that is where we disagree.

I'm glad you want to relax sometimes in games. But you can't really do that when every class is more skill based. I don't want every fight to be a fair fight, or even remotely fair.

I hope that made sense. Not sure if I explained my viewpoint very well

@Billhelm I've edited this post a couple times just so you know ^_^

 

this should be another forum post.... not a comment

 

l0l where did I say that. I said that "skill needs to be a factor" in laike the first sentence of my post.
What I meant with the fact that skill wasn't an issue (in da pm I'm assuming), is that the topic of the post isn't skill at all. The point is for the game/ability design to be like Elf, with multiple options and not something like Medic just having a resistance to pyros fire because medic. He wanted more counterplay with abilities concerning Elf's shield, and he was also defending his design of Elf.

Now, what I don't get is that you want more OP classes for the less skilled players, but wtf happens when a skill player picks it up? They may counter skill if played by unskilled players, but you can't assume skilled players won't touch it. A class that levels the playing field for noobs by being OP will not work in CTF because skilled players exist. You need to design abilities that's effectiveness depends on how skilled you are, kind of like what Bill's saying. Now, the minimum skill needed for it to do crap you can mess with and make it easier to pick up for new players, but making one class inherently OP is really not going to work.

Some classes being better or countering other classes is fine. In fact it should happen. What puzzles me is the vendetta you have against classes taking more skill? Wats wrong with that? Just because classes take more skill doesn't mean they're suddenly useless and a new player is completely skrewed over. It's just that a pro player will be more effective with it, which should happen because they're better. You can't completely level the field with a good player and a bad player. You can give the new player more fun abilities and options that are easy to use and easy to learn (mage is a good example of this imo).

 

When you design a class like that, where it isn't really inherently strong, it ends up taking more skill to play really well. How do you not see the connection there?

There you go about skill based effectiveness again.

Taken from my post:

I do realize that outstanding abilities can be easily abused by more skilled players to be even more powerful. But the point of having them there in the first place is that they allow anyone to counteract those skilled players by using their own classes' outstanding ability. (i.e. instant kills)

My 'vendetta' which is actually an opinion if you'd like to use less inflammatory language, is that I believe adding more skill to a game that throws new and experienced players together is bad. It is bad because it will benefit skilled players more. Sure they are better and deserve to do better in game but I do not think that they should automatically have the upper hand in practically every scenario because of that. That is what I see getting proposed here, that every class should operate on a similar basis to Elf, and I object to it.

 

That makes no sense. You said that insta-kills are bad, and yet now the design process is good? And when I mean skill based effectiveness, I mean the design should be that good players can use them better. I never said anything about bad players not being good at them, they just won't be as good. It's impossible to design an ability that a bad player will be just as good as a pr0 player at (unless it's laike a passive like medic).

And for that matter, I don't understand how that would work. If that's what you want the current design system of CTF is perfect. You have classes that take skill to be effective, and then things like engie. You argued against OP things like insta-kills allowing huge kill streaks somewhere up there, but now you say that it's good for the game, which I don't understand at all.

I can't seem to figure out what exactly yur talking about with skill. Because it doesn't matter what you put on a class, a skilled player will simply be better. The only wat you can really do anything about that is with the old insta-kill pyro, but we all know how that turned out. And I don't see how adding more skill to a game in the form of more creative abilities is bad in any way. Nerfing OP abilities and buffing weak ones doesn't even mean that new players will be completely rekt by their apparent badness, it just means that they have more tools to play with. In fact, you can even help stuff by making one of those abilities do a crap ton of damage easily, but with many different ways to do that.


I see Bill's proposal completely differently. What I'm talking about is the design of the abilities, where you have multi-use stuff like Elf's shield, and then stuff like assassins redstone (one purpose, one use). In fact, I wouldn't even have mentioned skill because that's not the point I'm trying to make. Just because an ability can be used multiple ways doesn't mean that new players won't be good, or that the ability is even weak because the relative strength of the ability is not wat I'm talking about.

 

the classes opness depends on the skill and the main role of the player.... but why is it that good recoverers are insane defenders? and good recoverers are decent cappers? the same goes with classes.... so the only thing that determins a classes opness is the skill level of the player... i havent read the post all the way so i dont know if this was talked about ok?

 

That is also what I mean by skill based effectiveness. The issue here is that what I see Billhelm proposing is something that simply enhances the skill divide. Inherently OP abilities with classes tend counteract that. In either case you are missing the entire point of what I'm trying to say about OP abilities, which is that they can SOMETIMES lessen the skill divide. For instance, Dwarf counters skill because no matter how skilled someone else is it is very difficult to kill a high level Dwarf without Assassin. That CAN be good for the game because it lessens the skill divide.

When did I say that Instant kills could be good for the game? When? You really need to read my posts before making assumptions like that and then bashing me for an assertion I did not make.

I said that OP abilities can be good for the game, but not instant kills.

I am talking about lessening the skill divide. Meaning that CTF should not put a much heavier premium on skill to gain some reward like what @Billhelm basically said in his original post. And if you don't think that makes sense than I really don't know what to tell you because I read Billhelm's post like 20 freaking times and I still see his proposals widening the skill divide in CTF.

That is honestly not at all what I got from @Billhelm's post. Lol.

@misterslime skill is one of multiple factors determining how OP a class may be at any given time.

 

k here's my whole take on dis. As always, I've read literally every word of the thread before formulating an argument for it. For a massively simplified tl;dr, read the last paragraph of this post, though I strongly ask that you read as much as you can of the whole post because I wrote a bunch of interesting stuff ^-^. At least read the section about CTF classes if you're not interested in elf.
(@Billhelm you wanted some replies, here ya go xD)

I shall first fulfill my role as the elf nerd, I suppose. ^-^

Anyone who has played elf has found it quite obvious that the class is soft or hard countered by literally every other class in the game due to its squishy armor and skill-requiring damage output. Elf even counters itself with one or two good combos with the wooden sword. However this does not automatically mean it is in desperate need of a buff. Indeed, one just needs to find any thread about elf in which I've posted to find me saying that elf needs to be more powerful, but I've only done that for two reasons: to be playful and joking, and to argue in favor of players who are entirely new to the class. But elf was fine how it was before the wind element nerf, and here's why.

People like @Admiral_Munson have tried elf, legitimately tried to get good at it or even find its role in the game, but failed miserably because the ridiculously high skill curve proves too much. And I'll admit, the sole reasons I decided to start playing a seemingly underpowered class was 1. because it was gifted to me, and 2. because I felt that I was skilled enough with archer to take on the challenge. Also, as @Billhelm stated in the original post, kills with elf are just so dang rewarding, especially with such a stark contrast in skill-to-reward ratio between elf and archer. Of course this higher reward, as with anything in life, comes with more difficult work to achieve it; in CTF terms, more difficulty per kill means more underpowered-ness for the class, which I'm sure many can agree to in the case of elf.

But! Training elf is not at all or in any way a lost cause (double emphasis for double emphasis!). In fact I just played a few elf games in CTF today after not playing for a week due to homework death, and I even surprised myself with the quality of those games; I earned a fair number of recoveries or otherwise flag-carrier-kills, got in a few flag stalemates (rip in no caps though ) after escaping an actually moderate defense, and I found that I could very consistently kill most of the people who approached me. This is all because I've spent "hundreds of hours" (@Admiral_Munson) practicing the class and doing my best to find its full potential--and I will say I believe I'm up in the ranks with pure element skill, though I'll forever be a not pro capper xD--not to mention the other hundreds of hours I've spent playing archer.

I may seem to be horribly destroying my argument that (pre-nerf)* elf is fine, and I wouldn't blame you for thinking so. (Read that spoiler below for more info on this: ) Elf may be extremely difficult to use, but it can be learned and mastered to be played effectively but not overpowered-ly. The following (after the spoiler) is why I agree that elf could be just fine without being buffed, but also why I despise the nerf (I forget if a point about the nerf was argued in the original post, but I'll state my point anyway).

Spoiler: *

I haven't had a ton of time on my hands ever since New Year's, but in the elf time that I've played so far, I've been able to much better understand the function of flying from structure to structure with wind element instead of traveling great lengths away from a defense once you have the flag (@Nohox, addressing your post in some other elf thread [I think it was the one I created xD]). As a matter of fact I could even learn to live with the nerf, but that is only because I've learned to play elf strategically, efficiently, and skillfully. Most people rage quit the class entirely before reaching this point.

Although the nerf greatly limits the possible abuse of the wind element, it also severely lowers the maximum skill involved with the class. Elf may have been designed as a support class, though it fills that role quite poorly (just bein' honest @Billhelm). Elf's class design, regardless of how you nerf or buff it, is flag capturing (that is, if you keep its general abilities and don't nerf wind element into further oblivion). It is for this reason that elf is the most balanced class in the game in my firm opinion--since it's practically useless in other roles with pyro, archer, and mage all very effectively dominating defense and midfield (I'm using other arrow classes for fairer comparison), and with the feature of increased mobility not being very useful for much else, elf finds its role in capping. Its weak armor and limited (not just nerfed, but limited in the first place) mobility with its incredibly slow regeneration time makes it a very killable target; its damage output does not send you flying back a hundred blocks, nor does it kill you extremely quickly; and yet skill can still be applied to often deal with (not evade) these problems. Even so, not all of the time is one successful in staying alive. This is all something of an elaboration on @Billhelm's original post's point that elf is a great example of a class with a decent skill curve without an insane damage or capping potential; it's just that that "decent skill curve" happens to be very high.

Of course, many have had many varying opinions on the power of elf, most of them based on ignorance and how many times they died while playing the class or easily killed others who played it, and then the other few are from educated people who have actually spent a large amount of time playing and learning about the class before blabbering about their viewpoint on it. Whether from the upper or lower of those two classes, I find that three opinions stand out the most: elf is under-powered due to the combination of its difficult damage output and low armor; elf is overpowered because of its ability to practically fly across a map (which of course is currently impossible); and elf is simply a class without a role which can from time to time succeed in keeping itself alive. Personally, I prefer to combine all three of these I to my own fourth argument.

Elf is a powerful class in its own respect, not in the way that CTFers on these forums seem to define power. For reference, here's my view on how you people usually define power: if a class can kill anywhere between 80-95% (God forbid 100%) of its targets, it is considered overpowered, at least in PvP; if a class can steal a flag and make it back to base more than 10% of the time, it is considered overpowered in flag capturing. These are opinionated estimates here, so bear with me.

Now, let's compare elf to soldier, ... (tl;dr: soldier is much better than elf in terms of climbing to the tops of structures.)

Spoiler: for in-depth info

... which is of course quite a common class comparison in CTF with the similarity between wind element and limited wall climb--this comparison is made especially often now that the soldier nerf is in effect. In fact, for effect, I'm going to compare the nerfed versions of both. Soldier can climb anywhere between 21 and 30 blocks or so (idk correct me if you have better numbers) with its mana, the latter number accounting for the regeneration of mana during the time of the climb.

Elf, on the other hand, has ten arrows to start out with; with one vertical wind element jump equal to three blocks (I've tested it, don't worry; refer to my elf guide), and five possible uses with the initial supply of ten arrows and two arrows being consumed per jump, that's fifteen blocks perfectly vertical that elf can fly. Add in the arrows regenerated during flight time at one arrow per three seconds, with about a half second per wind element jump for maximum efficiency, and that's supposedly 2.5 more arrows, worth one more jump. Six total jumps equals eighteen blocks high.

Even if you doubled that amount [of elf's wall-climbing capacity, which is 18 blocks,] to the pre-nerf value, that's only just beating soldier [~30 blocks, after nerf]; and please take note of the fact that soldier's mana regenerates much faster!

Not to mention, elf requires the same fuel as the wind element for ammunition in combat, very, very often limiting its mobility even further. Quite obviously, its leather armor (without a helmet, but one armor point hardly matters) is very inferior to soldier's iron armor, making it more difficult to get out of flag rooms alive while being pummeled by core defense.

Again, I seem to be beating down my own argument in favor of elf, but here's the silver lining. For once ever, MCPVP (*ahem*, @Billhelm ) decided to give a class its uniqueness not by specifically hardcore-countering another class nor by making it a blanket band-aid for several classes, but rather gave it its own unique set of not-overpowered abilities. They created a class that did not harm the game--albeit the most positive impact it had was to make veterans less bored and gave them a new class to train with, but the important thing is that it's a set of unique and somewhat useful abilities which, with some training, could be used in a fair and balanced way.

I believe I've already covered my point on why I "despise the nerf," which is because the already difficult class was made near impossible to effectively use for anyone who hasn't trained for tons of hours with the class. Elaborating on this:

Of course, as @Billhelm argued, the "outstanding ability" of elf was the wind element; though I also agree with @Admiral_Munson that the "outstanding ability" did stand out for the class alone, but in the view of the rest of the game and the classes that are up against elf, the wind element hardly stands out as an effective ability (that is, in combat; I less agree in the case of capping, since horizontal mobility is a key aspect of elf that no other class save ninja has to offer). Whatever you make of it, elf's most useful role-filling ability (i.e. capping, while the pure element is most used for combat by those who can effectively operate a bow) has been nerfed to half its original effectiveness, while it was not overly effective in the first place relative to other broken classes in the game**.

Spoiler: **

However "broken" elf's wind element mobility was before the nerf, it is absolutely under-powered at this point when put into the current game. I fully understand the eventual need to nerf the wind element, and in fact I don't believe I would argue all that much against a full elf rework, but the elf nerf was a complete disaster of priorities. The major trio-rework of chemist/pyro/soldier had been done, but there are still important matters to deal with like fixing ninja (which I have no solid opinion on), buffing necro, hopefully reworking engineer, and reworking classes accordingly in order to welcome the changes. One thing that would have been really nice to have with the elf nerf is compensation for the removal of the class' key ability, i.e. a pure element tweak/rework, or expanding the minimum radius on the water element (WHICH IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM!!).

What do you know, that's a nice segue into the broader topic of the thread, which is the question of the impact of a more skill-based CTF rather than having potentially abuse-able or too-OP-when-mastered class abilities do all the work for us (if I'm correct on that, @Billhelm). Since I've already wasted so much time and thread space and a few thousand bytes of Brawl's web server storage on the topic of elf, I'll keep this relatively short 'n' sweet.

A balanced network of CTF classes does seem like everyone's greatest dream, and in fact I myself thought that it was the optimal solution to fixing CTF until I read this thread. My new opinion, however, actually favors the side of the argument that involves powerful classes with somewhat hard counters to other classes; this, however, is safe to say impossible to do if the goal is to give each class unique abilities, every class countering and being countered with no baseline class (i.e. heavy) to start out with and compare to. In fact most debates about such a CTF would seem quite pointless with the comparison of apples and oranges.

Elf, though, despite its fair amount of abilities, is a good baseline to model other classes off of in a new CTF (in favor of @Billhelm's argument), not just because it takes skill to use to its full potential while not having a ridiculously high skill cap, but also that it does indeed counter other classes (supporting @Admiral_Munson's proposal), especially pyro in a flag room. None of elf's counters are really offensive attacks (maybe except for the occasional dwarf kill), but rather are both self-defensive and supportive (such as using the water element on teammates from a distance [although sometimes ineffective]).

I'm not arguing that all class counters should be non-offensive, but rather I am proposing that there would be more apples to pair with apples, and more oranges to pair with oranges. For example, there is a relationship between medic, pyro, and soldier, which is mainly fire. Medic is fireproof, soldier can often evade death by non-professional pyro if used correctly, and pyro can still deal damage to each of the other two no matter what (am I wrong in that the pyro's new Frenzy ability even sets medics on fire? Maybe I was hit by a dwarf when I first noticed that...). Now take elf, a potentially reworked archer, and a nerfed/reworked mage (after all, we're talking about a new CTF here); obviously they all have mid- to long-ranged combat in common. Elf, up against a reworked archer, requires above average skill to defeat the archer, but still has a chance (a ridiculous amount of skill is required to defeat the archer in both classes' current state, but it's still possible); archer can potentially get up close to a reworked mage and melee them to death, or otherwise (nerfed-ly) headshot them from a distance, as it could do to elves; mage of course can be quite effective in killing each of these classes with a bit of strafing and damage shooting.

In each of these systems, we have completely different relationship concepts per individual system, though each of them have something in common: their classes keep each other in check (although this example is only a little bit more complex than rock paper scissors, @Billhelm), and each system has one class that can potentially be fun and powerful if anywhere from moderate to advanced skill is applied, thus agreeing with @Admiral_Munson's idea of players' attraction to power without complete overpowered-ness. In the first system, the wildcard class is pyro; in the second, it's (reworked) mage, or you could even argue that it's archer, but both potential wildcard classes have fairly hard counters to each other anyway.

Also, we mustn't forget that each of these classes are still a part of the same game. Again, since this is a "new CTF," at least a few reworks are necessary to keep order. So, once reworks are applied, this system of CTF should result in something of a set of distinct groups within the game. For example, if soldier had its mobility altered to something harder to shoot at (perhaps even horizontal motion, which may or may not involve an elf rework), archer and soldier--which are in two separate groups--would interact with each other less than classes within their respective groups would, and their chances of winning fights against each other would then be more up to skill with their abilities being different but not necessarily counteracting.

Make no mistake, especially as an archer main (and elf main but I'm more useful as archer in matches ), I understand very well the necessity of one or two inherently powerful classes in either the current game or this new game's concept. In the current game, archers and assassins (indeed they're instakillers, but I'm referring to their general power right now) are relied on as powerful recovery classes against anyone carrying the flag as whatever class when all else fails; in my new version of CTF, such safety classes (though I would prefer as few as possible) would have a rather heavy impact on every class in the game.

As a matter of fact, a safety class should be long-ranged--archer, in other words. Very great mobility to catch up to a flag carrier at the last possible moment (i.e. ninja) requires high vulnerability in combat to make up for its ability to always catch up to you if you run away (which also demands high damage output to get as much damage in as possible before death, which is why I often see assassin as an instakill ninja). High vulnerability, however, is quite ineffective against a flag carrier's support team. The best alternative, as demonstrated in the current CTF game, is a long-ranged attack which requires at least moderately high skill to make up for lack of vulnerability. To preserve the class' balance, the long-ranged attack must be somewhat difficult to use, otherwise the class would be virtually untouchable (which, with Punch II and some skill, is the current archer >.>). Please refer to my response to @iMuffles and @1337Noooob in the thread linked earlier in this sentence, as well as @BrandinoB's post in the same thread (for a kind of objective argument on the topic), for an optimal long-ranged attack which is equally damaging to all classes in the game. In short, it's a powerful long-ranged attack if landed from a distance (preferably more than 30 blocks) which is not an instant kill, but can kill a person in one shot; two shots usually guarantees a kill.

So to wrap everything from this post up in a very small space: elf doesn't necessarily need a buff, but it needs to be un-nerfed, and CTF could use a kind of social order with the classes (so we have classes of classes, AHAHHAHAHAHH!!) so that the individual, nearly unrelated groups are easier to balance within each other, while one or two monarch classes (well, I guess it wouldn't be a monarch if there were two ) keeps every single class in check, as opposed to the current CTF where the juggling act of every class in the game is simply impossible.

 

also... the reason ctf is hard to balance is cuz dwarf... its 34% of the cause

 

I really believe that in order to get a balanced game mode, CTF just needs to be built from the ground up. It's a mess with instant kills and classes that require you to stay stationary in a fast paced game. Or, a genius can come along and figure out how to put "soft" or "hard" counters on almost every class to make gameplay more interesting.

 

Your are right billhelm:
Many classes got reworked so they need new abilities.
I remember the necro was one time very powerful. A chemist was able to buff the zombies,
so that ninjas and assassins had no chance to pass through them.
Than many said necro should be nerfed, that means his monsters cant be buffed anymore.
Instead of that sometimes a zombie spawns with a little buff or armour.
Can you make the same kills? No.
The monsters kill sometimes an enemy but when I played necro one time
I didn´t get the next monster (skeleton) because the zombies are underpowered

Now the elf:
The shield is in the right moments very useful.
You can support your teammates, make easy kills and more fun things.
When you have bowskills you can kill enemys easily with the pure element.
If you are good in close combat (pvp) you can kill many people.
I only saw one elf doing this and he made so many kills. That was just wow...

The newest Reworks:
The pyro isn´t so op anymore so it is much easier to cap and ninjas get more op.
I saw some videos and in my opinion the pyroclass is dead.
Chemist was the main problem the pot spams, not the pots.
Like you said, not many players know how to play chemist.
The soldier rework is ok because now he cant wallspam so hard.

Good reworks (these are reworks which I saw in my 2 years of ctf):

• The Ninjapearl update was really good because you weren´t able to instacap but you are still able to ghosteal :/
• The Headshotrage of the archer got reworked from 25 to 30 blocks. You don´t notice the difference
• The potspam got nerfed by using the xp bar
• The wallspam got nerfed by using the xp bar
• The redstonenerf of the ninja. 414 got a bit more difficult
• The engineercake can´t refil your inventory
• The cooldown of the medic sword

My opinion about this reworkthing:
Too many reworks.
Some reworks were good and you were able to fight fair
but some reworks were just stupid and destroied a class, instead of reworking it
and giving it new/other abilities.
I don´t know how the classes were before I joined ctf.
The only thing what I noticed is that CTF was going to make suizide.
The old maps were great to play (many play on a server with old maps ) because in my
opinion they were not op for only 3 classes.
You were able to play with all classes and had the same chances to kill someone.
At the moment the maps got ****.
Some are only soldierop and in my opinion most of the maps are ninjaop.
I think thats one of the reasons why I saw so many ninjas in one game
The classreworks got more and more ****.
Only little reworks like the engicakenerf or the ninjapearlnerf were good.
When I read dwarf reworks it seemed like that many wanted to make
dwarf an offence class.
I don´t think that dwarf is designed to go offence.
He is designed to defend the flag.
Before a rework many don´t think what will happen to other classes.
They just think how the class can be nerfed so that they can kill
the players easier or don´t have much problems to cap.
To be honest: I was also one time like that.
If we were able to play the classes like they were two years ago and start this
rework**** again, than I think maybe we don´t just nerf a class, we rework it by
giving it new abilities like you said billhelm.

Thank´s for reading
Have a good day