TF2 Random Critical Hits: A Fair and Balanced Discussion
669 replies, posted
Let's use this thread to discuss whether critical hits are good or bad.
They're bad, because it's good for the team with the greatest skill and/or effort to win. Since it's unlikely that each team will get an equal number of random critical hits, the team that gets more is receiving an advantage though no virtue of their own. This may be enough to decide a winner in the case of teams of similar skill level. This creates a result wherein it is unclear whether the the winners performed better than the losers. This is undesirable in any form of competition.
They are bad, because RNG is not something affected by skill, and the argument that crit chance increases is null because its still RNG. And most of the players that actually wanna play a shooter and not a slot machine are interested in testing their skill and not their luck.
They are bad, even if ASIC wants to argue otherwise.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/185890/db6085a9-83c7-4938-b1c9-8033e55770e3/20180402190915_1.jpg
Is this new? I've never seen this screen with the golden competitive logo
Random crits cannot continue to exist in their current form, but I wouldn't go as far as saying RNG and skill are mutually exclusive, or that RNG has no place in any kind of competitive game, and outright saying that FPS is incompatible with RNG is myopic (seeing as both comp TF2 and CS:GO have RNG elements). I wrote about this a lot on oldpunch and I'm not going to do it again, so here's a resource dump instead so you can do your own research.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSg408i-eKw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD7iUTA8_Mw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qfFEP_-LkI
How to use RNG in Competitive Games
To expand on the above comment, rng mechanics can work if players can plan around it beyond "hoping the next shot from the enemy isn't a crit". A good example is the new Dragon objective system in League: There are 4 potential Dragons that can spawn in the objective pit, each with a different bonus given if you kill them. However, you are informed of which Dragon will spawn at least 5 minutes before they do, giving your team time to plan around the objective - is the bonus this dragon will give going to be worth it? Should we give it up to gain advantages elsewhere? et cetera.
This is why card games work - you may not know ahead of time what your opponent will be playing, but since the entire crux of the game is a deck of cards shuffled at random, it's an inherent factor and you have to plan around what you do know.
A game like Tf2 which is almost completely based on mechanical skill and mental coordination having a completely random (pun intended) mechanic introduced that can, at any point, drastically change the outcome of a fight (to the point where literally any class can die in one stray random crit hit from a Soldier or Demo) is not good game design in a competitive sense.
If you have a specific suggestion for how you think random crits can be reworked then tell us, but I really can't see any part of them that's salvageable. Fundementally random crits swing the balance of an individual encounter in the favor of one side for no reason other than to give new players a free kill once in a while (which shouldn't even be necessary now that casual has glicko). The idea that RNG can hypothetically be good in a competitive game is all well and good but if you can't actually come up with a way for it to be implemented into TF2 then we don't really have anything to discuss on the matter.
Tangent, but the only thing I like about random crits is that there's occasionally a moment where you drop a stickybomb, it's critical, and you now have to decide whether you want to forgo using your stickybomb launcher aggressively for a moment in hopes that somebody will go near the stickybomb. Like yesterday, I was jumping down to below mid on badlands trying to escape somebody, and got a random crit on a sticky I had stuck on the side of the mid point platform. So instead of running away, I watched to see if somebody chased, and sure enough got a kill on them with it. That once-in-a-blue-moon situation is just about the only case where random crits seem to increase depth rather than decrease it, by giving the demo a meaningful gameplay decision to make. I wonder if that sort of mechanic could be salavaged by giving demo a stickybomb launcher unlock that had every like, fourth stickybomb do extra damage (20% extra?) so you have to make a similar decision.
Well more consistency and more transparency would be a good start. Currently you have between 2-10% chance to get a crit with a ranged weapon, depending on your damage done in the last 20 seconds. This is trash, because it's hard to keep track of your damage done, 20 seconds is too much for short-term memory, and 10% is too unreliable for a maximum crit chance. And when you do get a crit, neither you nor your opponent can do anything about it, so it's a bit of deus ex machina.
A way to combat this would be to tie crit chance to an easily visible game element, such as number of teammates alive (less = higher crit chance), and yanking it up to like 40% max. This would make crit chances of all players obvious to everyone on the server. Then, crits could be made to arrive with a bit of delay. Say, your gun gets a particle effect a few shots prior to the crit coming out. This way the guy on the receiving end can arrange a nice fat dodge.
This should still give the leverage to the disadvantaged player while still keeping an air of uncertainty, but also not straight up hand the win to them either.
Random crits are a problem because of their random nature: you can't account to someone firing a crit because neither party knows when they're going to crit and that surprise crit can sometimes have a big impact on the game (it was a novel idea back in 2007, no other game had such a feature and back then, you didn't have a ton of unlockable weapons and the like)
Something happening by pure chance is not a fun mechanic because it can lead to you either proccing that random effect many times or not at all.
Dota's a decent example to use here: They used to have RNG passive abilities, that have been phased out to Pseudo-RNG (Everytime the ability doesn't trigger, it has more chance to trigger, simply put) because it lead to a case of a player going in and either having their random ability trigger numerous times and absolutely demolishing the other player, or said player goes in and the random ability does not trigger a single time leading to their deaths.
Dota also has its random crit business but only some of the heroes you can play as have a random crit on their skillset while other heroes would have to get gold in order to unlock the same (and the majority of these crit-wielding scumbags are melee range heroes)
With this in mind, you can kinda see why TF2 tied the random crits into damage dealing: You get more of an idea how the random crit works and with that in mind, it isn't a true random crit (since you can influence the outcome) but the impact of that diceroll is why people have had gripes with it for 10 years now (it also rewards players going for high-risk maneuvers like pulling out your melee weapon and beating the shit out of your enemies should the crits flow your way)
Knowing how Valve has already addressed this issue back in 2009, I don't think they're all that willing to just remove them alltogether (they may prove me wrong on this, depending on how the poll ends, collecting data about the effects of random crits is a bit harder than seeing items and their equip rates)
But if they don't just remove random crits, is it possible to retool them into something less frustrating? Or is the mechanic itself inherently flawed? Is it possible to rework the random crit mechanic into something that rewards player performance without making them feel too 'exclusive' to a winning team?
How is this constructive at all?
I still am yet to be persuaded that they are bad and should be removed, other than people get sour when they lose an encounter they feel they would have won otherwise, which of course happens on a two way basis.
They are fun moments in a fun game, for one side of every encounter. They add that level of no matter what happens, you can still win or lose any encounter.
I am not keen on the idea of watering the game down to a 1=1 basis of pure skill. There are other games that valve themselves have made that do just that.
...Did you think it was meant to be constructive? There has literally never been an actual constructive discussion over random crits here. Every time other people provide actual arguments, people like you and ASIC ignore those arguments just to say how you still haven't been convinced and they still aren't that bad to you. It's an endless loop of "I don't want to be wrong even though people have statistics and data to prove that, on a fundamental and objective level, I am wrong, so I'm going to keep asking 'ok but why?' and 'ok but that's not actual proof, where's actual proof?'".
How about Random Crits stay, but the probability percentage is lowered to such a varying degree, that you would have to be extremely lucky to get one.
Have it so that, you have a better chance of unboxing an unusual than getting a random crit
I just think the comment was unnecessary seen as this is an entire thread dedicated to the topic, not needing shit slinging when he hadn't even posted.
My point is that, I and many others enjoy them despite the points you bring forward, for me and a lot of other people who have played this game for the last 10 years, they are a staple and fun element of the game-play, so why should they be taken from us because you and others don't like them. If this was a discussion about adding something like this to the game I would be entirely on your side, but that is not the case. This is about removing what I see as a significant part of the game that has been in it for a decade. I am all for taking it from competitive, but not the rest of the game. There are countless more issues within the game due to balancing and maps etc than just random crits, pulling them from the game does not fix a whole lot for making it entirely fair. Again if this was Counter Strike then fine, but it isnt. Why remove something people enjoy about the game since its birth that is an iconic part of the game-play.
Multiple people have already gave sound, un-countered arguments. All the bottle, child molester, and asshole ratings in the world won't change that, nor will growing up with the game's outdated and objectively unfun mechanics.
objectively unfun mechanics.
Being contrarian will not change objective to subjective.
It is and has been a staple part of the game since launch. It is a mechanic that other people enjoy and have continued to play the game for, among other reasons. I don't understand how it's such a huge negative impact on game-play, yet the game has flourished for over a decade.
Again, this is taking something away from the game, changing it into what it is not and was not.
Spy having default movespeed has been a staple part of the game. So has not having cosmetics, being a game you pay to own as part of a bundle, Soldiers and Demos having 50+ reserve ammo for their main guns, Pyro not having Airblast, Medic only having a Medi Gun, no Kritzkrieg, Territory Control, Engineer only being able to upgrade his Sentry, there only being stock weapons, no trading......
Find a new argument. "It's been a part of the game for years" is not an argument. Times change.
In TF2, no matter what happens you CAN win any encounter, if you perform better than the other player. The sheer level of control you have over your movement means that if you outplay the enemy even a Medic can kill a Heavy. But with random crits, you take away that depth (when the random crits trigger ofc) by making an entire encounter depend on RNG. When you're outplaying the enemy, dodging all their shots, going ham with the ubersaw on soldiers, only to die because that rocket you tried to expertly surf off of did 300 damage due to RNG, that's just fucking bullshit. But more than that, it's not fun to GET random crits either. I mean come on, do you really feel like you won an encounter when you get a random crit on somebody? Is that actually satisfying for you? That you just randomly killed the other person because of pure RNG? You didn't do anything, the game just decided to kill the enemy. When I get a crit it means that I don't get to enjoy that fight, to try to outplay the enemy. That's the gameplay of TF2, and you're just getting an RNG chance of having less gameplay. If you play the game to PLAY the game, rather than just trying for a shallow increase to your killcount number, then random crits are annoying when they kill you AND when you kill with them.
You listed things that I don't think anyone in any kind of majority wanted to keep? Or they added functionality, not took it away? Cosmetics and trading are not a game-play element? A game without crockets is not TF2.
What argument do you have for keeping them in casual? What do they add to the game that glicko doesn't do far better? I see only negatives to keeping them, besides the "New players never get kills" thing that the new glicko should eventually fix.
You're right, a game without crockets is better than TF2.
Saying "but they're not random crits!??!?!" is also not a valid argument. You said random crits have been around since the game's release, I gave other products of the game's original release that were changed over time. Nowhere can you say "but what u said isnt random crits?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? theyre different stuff" and have it be an actual valid argument. It's factual random crits have been around since 2007. It's factual that other factors have been around since the game's release, nut were taken out of the game. What isn't factual is that random crits is a special case because it's random crits. It's not something you can argue. Saying "i bet everybody wanted them gone!" means literally nothing.
I only want crits for melee weapons because the amount of suicidal spies in casual is unhealthy I would like to keep one-shotting them if possible.
They are a fun unexpected moment that no matter what can shake up whats happening in game. It means I can't always predict whats going to happen and that's fun, not feeling like I am seeing the same thing all the time. This isn't even about a new players versus old players idea, just a burst of excitement or dread at a random moment, pulling you in, making you suddenly rethink whats happening. Non-calculated fun.
That's already included by the very nature of TF2 gameplay, though.
And that doesn't even make sense, since a random crit is just the exact same gameplay except weapon does more damage woah
Why do you have to tear apart what other people enjoy and have done for years, the experience you clearly desire exists in hundreds of newer and older alternatives, so just because "I wanna" doesn't me you get to pull apart the game people have known for years. If you don't like it, why stay? Ohhhh but they changed other stuff so they can change anything! isn't an argument either. If you wanna compare it to other game-play changes then go ahead. You yourself think they are such a HUGE glaring issue, so you yourself know that they are a significant change, not comparable to balance fixes.
You're just devolving into "but why are you arguing this?? what has it done to you?? is it because *insert x i said to try and make me sound sad*? oh! maybe its *y thing i said to try and make me sound sad*!" which is a clear cut case of you literally have no other argument to make. Exaggerating what I say does nothing. I play the game just fine with random crits. I don't get heated in these discussions. I don't mind them in the game, but I also accept that they have no place in balancing and would be better gone, even if people like you would try so desperately to argue otherwise.
Do you or do you not have an actual argument to present to any of us that random crits benefit in the game in any way other than "i have fun with them on! they've been in the game forever!"? If you do, give it. If you don't, stop trying to argue for something that you have a nostalgic appreciation (and nothing else) for.
What's fun about randomly dying/randomly having your opponent die? It's just less gameplay for the killer and bullshit death for the person who dies. Maybe it's funny for your first like, 100 hours but pretty soon it becomes mundane because it happens all the time. idk about you but I have fun by actually making use out of the depth of the game, because those interactions are actually constantly changing and always varied. Random crits are always exactly the same. One person gets crits, other person loses most/all of their health, and dies. That's a lot less varied and interesting than the demo whose realized a new goofy strat where they can stickyjump up and axe people from above with the parachute, or the scout dodging 5 enemies and taking them down one-by-one, or the spy back-capping to save his team that's pushed up to last, or the heavy jumping out of windows onto people's heads for surprise ambush kills, or any of the vast number of different gameplay situations that come up in this game. This game has an enormous amount of options and depth. Random crits only take away from that but cutting all those encounters short just from RNG.
Man I haven't been the one depicting the other person in the discussion as a baby, that's all you, I'm trying to have a discussion and your replies are mostly 'argument invalid because I disagree' and hey that's fine, I have the right to enjoy and think what I think about the state of the game and I will do my best to get my thoughts across, if you really haven't taken anything I said in then fair enough, rather than change your mind I had hoped to open your mind to the other side but fine, I haven't even had the mindset of NO THEY SHOULD BE IN ALL THE GAME, as in the highly competitive area of the game would benefit greatly. You haven't put forward anything to change my mind either so I guess I'll call it there. Good talk, also I'm sorry that the use of the ratings may have been seen as a low blow but I am very used to just clicking them.
My mind is open to the idea of random crits. Do you, or do you not, have an argument for keeping them in the game? An actual, valid argument that doesn't resort to your nostalgia and personal feelings? Stop trying to argue about everything else in my post and answer that one, simple question.
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