Looking for Feedback: Medic Change, Engineer Rework, & Much More

Hello Fellow CTFers,

The CTF staff team has a quite a few things to share with the community, so sit tight as this is going to be a long one.

Spoiler: Results of Ninja Testing, Freeday Poll, & More Ninja Testing

We recently tested ninja where we removed Slowness I from eggs. The results of the in game poll was spread almost evenly across the board, with a slight lean towards liking it (Average of 3.18 on a scale of 1 to 5).

Concerning the feedback we received from comments, a number of players suggested removing Blindness instead of Slowness. Therefore, starting tomorrow on 12/17/2018 and lasting through next Sunday (12/23/2018), we'll be testing removing blindness from ninja eggs. There will be another in game poll, so go check out ninja once again! After the testing session, we'll compare the two results as well as the feedback given to figure out what to do with ninja, so please participate.

As for the freeday change that was proposed, we got generally positive feedback, so we'll start pursuing implementing that system. If you don't know the freeday change, check out this thread. We plan to change the groups once every game (best of 3 maps). Don't expect it for another couple weeks at the least though.

Spoiler: Holiday Rotation

If you haven't noticed, we are in holiday season, and have therefore started the holiday rotation. We replaced Autumn Spire [390638] with Winter Spire [390625]. We also added the following maps to the holiday rotation (thanks to @pandanielxd and @xxMineSheepxx for creating these maps)

• [Festive] Giant Presents (360999) - pandaniel_ow, xxMineSheepxx
• [Festive] North Pole Outpost (408406) - pandaniel_ow
• [Festive] Snowy Ruins (408408) - pandaniel_ow

Spoiler: Upkeeping: Maps & Event Ideas

A while back, we went through the old CTF maps and added configs to them, so they can now be played in matches/PPMs again! All newly available maps are listed here:

Air Balloons V2 - 871
Air Balloons V3 - 1138
Aquafus V1 - 220
Aquafus V2 - 951
Beaver Creek V2 - 434
Blackout V1 - 435
Blackout V2 - 1244
Castle Cavern V1 - 197
Castle Cavern V2 - 676
Castle Cavern V3 - 1574
Castle Wars V1 - 166
Castle Wars V2 - 312
Clocktower V2 - 271
Desert Strike V2 - 393
Divinity's Reach V2 - 481
Double Cross - 20011
Dragon Valley V2 - 15831
Dragon Valley V3 - 10612
Halo V3 - 100
Highrise V2 - 522 (fun farlands)
Kill Creek V1 - 721
Kill Creek V2 - 65
Kingdom Islands V2 - 255
Kingdom Islands V3 - 473
Lighthouse V1 - 60
Lighthouse V2 - 118
Moria V1 - 1408
Moria V2 - 982
Moria V3 - 13042
Opposites Collide V1 - 12789
Opposites Collide V2 - 12905
Pagodas V1 - 1356
Pagodas V2 - 1550
Pagodas V4 - 11905
Shattered Rift V1 - 1433
Shattered Rift V2 - 733
Shattered Rift V3 - 1663
Ship Battle V1 - 616
Ship Battle V2 - 1198
Skyworlds V2 - 336
Skyworlds V3 - 18430
Sphinx V3 - 606
Standoff V1 - 405
Starlight V2 - 478
Unholy Faith V1 - 80
Valley of Ruin V1 - 1342
Valley of Ruin V2 - 1302
Valley of Ruin V3 - 1533
Waterfall V2 - 400

Unfortunately, due to a Build bug that we cannot reproduce, several CTF maps have completely wiped themselves, including all previous savestates. From how it looks like it is not possible to bring them back. Since there are quite a few iconic maps amongst them, we would like to try and rebuild them as best as possible. If you happen to have any video or screenshot material of the following maps, we would greatly appreciate if you could send it to us:

Desert Strike V4 18884
Getty Gardens V1 659
Getty Gardens V2 1036
Getty Gardens V3 960
Getty Gardens V4 359
Halo V1 ---
Halo V2 ---
Highrise V3 1578
Moria IV 102
Pagodas V3 1671
Platforms V2 1572
Platforms V3 18397
Platforms V4 18398
Serpent's Lair V1 ---
Serpent's Lair V2 ---
Serpent's Lair V3 ---
Skyworlds V4 ---
Sphinx I 848
Starlight V1 ---
Starlight V3 ---
Starlight V4 ---
Waterfall V1 ---
Waterfall V3 1662
(V1, V2 etc correspond to the Roman numerals I, II we are using today)

Additionally, using footage from old hclewk videos (kudos if you still know that name) we reconstructed two maps that are older as the 'original' Blackout and Airlock:
Biosphere (Classic Airlock) - 415827
Classic Blackout - 408779

The difference in those maps are most of all the original enclosed spawn with iron door, before spawn blocks were a thing (still has a singular spawn block to be compatible with todays CTF). Biosphere is also lacking some crucial side tunnels, Classic Blackout has the original wooden bridge balcony back. Feel free to have it played in a PPM, if you can handle the inevitable spawn abuse!

On a smaller note, we're trying to get some more events going, and would like some variety to our list of events. If you have any ideas for events, we'll very much appreciate seeing those ideas.

Spoiler: Medic Change

Medic has a very interesting place in the CTF meta currently. It has a crucial role in support, but its support ability is noticeably over-powered. So, we have tried to balance medic by changing its support ability. The remaining parts of the class, however, will stay the same (same armor, weapon, steak, webs). The specific values that are below are not set in stone, as we can only predict how well this class will be, therefore if you believe that some numbers should be higher/lower, let us know.

Hitting a player that does not have full health will give that player regeneration IV for 5 seconds (no change). Once that player reaches full health, they will no longer have regeneration IV. At the same time, that player will start automatically regenerating items, including steak, over the span of 15 seconds. What this means is that you will get back items at a rate such that your items will replenish in exactly 15 seconds. For example, if you are an archer, you will get about 8.53 arrows each second for a total of 15 seconds. Note that the rate is based upon the max number of items you can have, not how many you are missing. So in the archer example, even if you have 64 arrows, you will still get 8.53 arrows per second.

Now, there is a chance for enemies to interrupt the healing ability. If an enemy deals damage to the player being healed (eggs, webs, fall damage, etc doesn't count), then health regeneration and item regeneration is halted. Due to the change in regeneration, slower item regeneration, and enemy ability to interrupt, there will not be a cooldown. If a medic does hit you while you are still regenerating items, that medic's hit will not override the current regeneration (meaning you cannot spam hit them to give them more steak/items). Furthermore, due to slower item regeneration, medic teaming should no longer be useful. Therefore, accompanying this change would be removing combat medic teaming restriction, so medics can heal each other in combat. Some further details, any items that automatically regenerate will not be affected by medic's item regeneration (medic webs, elf arrows).

Spoiler: Engineer Rework

Engineer has been a very touchy class for the longest time, and hopefully we can bring Engineer into the CTF meta. To do this, we took the approach of making engineer an active class, instead of the campy class it currently is. The following rework draws on many community ideas, so I want to say thank you for proposing so many ideas for engineer, as that made this rework possible. Similar to the medic change above, the numbers below are not set in stone, so if you think the numbers should be higher/lower, let us know.

The armor and steak will stay the same, though we are considering changing the armor and steak so that it has the same total health, but a little tankier. The diamond pickaxe will stay, although without the super annoying knockback I enchantment. Now there will be 3 items with engineer, which correspond to the main damage dealer, mobility boost, health support. We have two different ideas for the mobility boost, so give your feedback on which one you would prefer, or if you have another idea.

Grenade Launcher (Credits to @obikenobi21):
The grenade launcher will be the main damage dealer for engineer. It shoots an entity and has a range of 10 blocks (meaning it will be pretty affected by gravity). When it lands on a block/player, it explodes, and damages players within a radius of 3 blocks. It does 4 hearts of true damage at the center of the explosion, and scales down as it goes farther from the center, and the explosion deals regular knockback to the players affected. There is a cooldown of either 4 or 5 seconds between shots, so you will have to use your shots wisely, although there are infinite grenades.

First mobility boost idea, Speed boost pad (Credits to @BrandinoB)
Places down a pad on a block that isn't restricted. That pad will stay there for 5 seconds, and any ally can use it as many times as they want in those 5 seconds, meaning no cooldowns. The pad will give that player 3 seconds of Speed II. Once the 5 seconds are over, the pad returns to the engineers inventory, and the engineer cannot place the pad down for 5 seconds (so a 5 second cooldown).

Second mobility boost idea, Short range Teleport:
Shoots an entity, with a max range of 15 blocks. Wherever the entity hits, as long as you are not in a restricted area and the block the entity hits is not restricted, a teleport pad is created between where you were standing when you threw it and where the entity hits. The teleport pad lasts for 5 seconds, and has unlimited amount of uses for those 5 seconds. However, you cannot go from where the entity landed back to the original spot (so only one directional as it is now). If a player wants to use the pad, they need to stand there for 1 second (to prevent trolling/allow some chance to counter). Similarly to the speed boost pad, once the 5 seconds is over, the pad returns to the engineers inventory and the engineer cannot place the pad down for 5 seconds.

Healing Pillar (Credits to @obikenobi21):
The healing pillar is a regular structure, meaning it is permanent. If an engineer goes 15 blocks away from the healing pillar, the pillar despawns and returns to the engineers inventory (credits to @Lewka). The healing pillar acts as a small beacon, so any ally player standing within 4 blocks of the pillar gets constant regeneration 2 (maybe 3), and once they leave the radius they lose that regeneration.

That's the engineer rework, and there's alot to it. I want to emphasize that the numbers are not set in stone, so please give us feedback, and if there's anything that we can change or add let us know.

Spoiler: Swapper Class

A while back we suggested an ability to evolve into a class. That ability is to swap positions with another player, and you can read what was stated in this thread. We have added a little more so that it has a rough outline of a class. However, it still has a while to go before being in a good position.

We want it to be fairly squishy, around that of elf or even less, so not much armor and around 2 steak. It would have an iron sword, or something close to that, and also has passive speed I. Now in terms of the actually swapper item, it will act very similar to ninja eggs, with it only having 5 swapper items (non regenerating). Since it is squishy, it shouldn't last too long anyways, but if we might add a very slow item regeneration (though probably not). We're thinking of hurting it's capping ability due to the power of the swapping ability, so perhaps limit its hearts when it holds the flag. As I stated, its in the rough stages right now, and it needs to be refined, so give some feedback please.

Spoiler: CTF Staff Team Revamp

As @MerryCoolmas21 alluded to in the recent Brawl News, there's been a little bit of reorganization within the CTF staff team. At this point everyone has noticed the lack of updates, things being planned, etc within the past year. When I was trying to address this problem, I noticed a key issue within our current staff system. There is just one channel to discuss ideas, which leads to multiple problems.

1. Discussions take a while to happen, since it depends on replies which might not happen for a few hours. That really hurts efficiency as well as discourages all staff since anything they want to discuss gets very little attention.
2. Bad documentation. Anything we do happen to discuss gets lost in hundreds of messages, and sometimes we completely forget about what we discussed, and so we lose perfectly good ideas.

To address these two issues, I decided to setup a system so that we, the CTF Staff team, can efficiently and effectively produce ideas, look at community feedback, and deal with anything else related to CTF. In terms of improving discussions, we have weekly meetings in a call, with set meeting topics to discuss at the meeting. Having these weekly meetings are a massive improvement to what we were doing, and it's so much more encouraging to us. If you noticed, our efficiency has definitely improved, though we are still working on having better community communications, and producing good ideas. We also set out to make sure we document whatever we discuss so we know what we talked about in detail and when. Furthermore, we also record all our meetings so that if we forgot to document something, we can just go back to the actual discussion (which can take some time because some meetings were 4 hours long).

We want to thank the community for putting up with us for so long when we were doing practically nothing. Now we hope that this change has made things better for the community, as it certainly has made things better for us.

That basically concludes this episode of "Looking for Feedback". The previous episode (yes I'm calling it an episode I don't care) can be found here. We are very thankful for all the feedback we got last week, especially that related to dwarf. We are slowly going through all those ideas, and hopefully soon we'll have a rework idea ready.

Happy Capping, TANG TANG, and Happy Holidays,
- The CTF Staff Team

 

So for medic, how does this sound.

If a medic hits a player, they will get regeneration IV either until either they reach full health or 5 seconds have passed. At the same time, item regeneration begins. Items regen excactly as it's proposed in the OP, save for taking 10 seconds instead of 15. If the player that got hit by the medic goes more than around 15 blocks away from the medic, the item regeneration stops. There wouldn't be any consequences from an enemy hitting that player.

I've seen the vast majority of people wanting necro, dwarf, and engineer to be changed. In my mind they are equal priorities, and as such we are working on all of them. It just so happens engineer had more ideas from the community that works well.

We also have soldiers which can apparently climb walls and medics which are half spiders shooting webs. The general principal of an engineer is still there, creating structures for teammates to use. There are many problems with trying to keep the turret.
1. It generally encourages campy play. That is undesirable in an active game like ctf.
2. Having a balanced damage dealer without being too annoying or OP is practically impossible.
Therefore, we went with the grenade launcher idea.

Yes, the teleport should be crappier than ninjas since you'll be able to teleport any amount of nearby players to a location. If we gave that ability the same power as ninjas enderpearl, that'll be way to OP. We could look into a slow item regen, though it would encourage campy gameplay which we are trying to avoid.

 

There would be a restriction, but the question is how will it be restricted. I think we can do it in one of two ways:
1. 15 second cooldown after you hit them.
2. 5 second cooldown after they eother leave your range or they get full item restoration (or after the 10 second timer).

Part of the goal is to remove insta heals, meaning instantly giving back all items back. I think it makes more sense to slowly give back items during a period of 10 seconds rather than giving all items back after 10 seconds.

The current medic regeneration is regeneration IV (if I'm mistaken, and it is regen V, then I'll change it). The reason mage needs regeneration V is because it is super squishy. I also don't believe engineer should have regeneration V.

Yes, it is arbitrary, but so is: archer headshot range, pyro frenzy range, elf water element range, mage damage spell range, engineer turret range. The point is, as long as you let the medic know when the player that they hit left their range in a message or something, the medic will quickly understand what a 15 block range looks like.

I disagree that it encourages camping. Its based upon the medic, who can move. Meaning if you're on offense, you'll probably be moving in the same direction, so you wouldn't have to (and shouldn't) camp. If you're playing core defense/stalemate, you're already camping so who cares. If you're playing with someone who's roaming around mid, then as a support class, it makes sense that you'll have to stay with them. You don't have to stay still to continue healing.

I will be addressing this soon, in a reply to your new thread. I do want to say that
1: we literally just got lucky with engineer and found good ideas that worked.
2: Necro has a few hidden issues right now such as really, really, really bad Mob AI.

For 2, this really matters, because depending on how much we can fix with mob ai directly affects 99% of those necro reworks because most necro reworks uses mobs. What mobs can do, and how good they'll be at stuff directly relates to the quality of the mob ai, which right now is practically nothing. So we can't make a well design rework that utilizes mobs until we first of all create a good mob ai, and then understand the capabilities and limits of that mob AI.

To address the necro reworks that don't utilize mobs such as Chaos' rework, we are looking into those, but there is a reocurring problem with them. Since it usually tries to fill multiple roles, it falls into a similar trap as elf. What I mean is, it'll be weak in multiple roles, and therefore nobody would play them because there are other classes that fit those roles much better.

Addressing both of these issues takes time and thought. Engineer didn't have these problems, and since there are enough well designed ideas for engineer, we could compile a rework that we believe would suit the game.