• TF2 Random Critical Hits: A Fair and Balanced Discussion
    669 replies, posted
What experience do you actually have? Please don't dodge this very simple question.
Why wouldn't I refuse to answer? It seemed to have been considered ok when other people refused to answer, so I don't see why I can't refuse as well.
Translation: jack shit
well instead of voting down you should tell us your crit experience, assick
It means exactly what I say there. You guys refused to answer my questions, so it seems that it would be ok if I do it in return.
Oh my god this thread is just fucking full of people having pointless discussions about things only tangentially related to the game, please fucking stop with these "ASIC you're bad at arguing" "Oh yeah well where's the proof" circular arguments that go nowhere. Can we talk about the video game maybe???? Instead of arguing about random unrelated bullshit maybe we could argue about random crits? Here's a random crit argument I haven't seen any kind of compelling response to. Random crits reduce depth by taking encounters that would otherwise involve players trying to outplay and outsmart each other, and replaces those encounters with ones determined entirely by RNG. Outplaying and outsmarting the enemy is the meat and potatoes of the game, and both the crit-er and the crit-ee are losing out on that central gameplay when random crits are in play. People have tried to argue that there's depth in random crits because you have to play around enemy crits, but since most weapons can oneshot you with a crit, there's no way to actually play around that. If the enemy gets a random crit you're often just dead, with no counterplay. Crits take away from the central mechanics of the game that make it fun, and replace it with nothing.
If I may, I think the time has come to contact a mod to let this thread, at last, die for good. I mean, it lost its supposed purpose weeks ago and has now entirely devolved into ASIC coming here every once in a while and act like/keep revealing himself as a dumb shit just to gain attention, people calling him out on his bullshit, rinse and repeat ad nauseam. This has even stopped being funny ages ago and we can all agree nothing of value would be lost here
This statement right here tells us all we need to know. This thread is over. ASIC has cowardly turned tail and fled when asked to prove his experience or authority, so there's nothing more to discuss really. On to a better subject, how do you report people or threads again? Newpunch wiped out the flag for mods per post, so there has to be some way beyond @ing the individual mods.
You report posts in this thread: Forum Reports
I have explained this to you before. In the case that you meant something more like "I think we should ignore his ideas because I don't like his motivation", then I will point out that would just be an ad hominem and ask what is the issue with that motivation.
I asked some of them to take that topic elsewhere. They didn't want to. Some encounters will be determined by RNG, but it is an exaggeration to say that always happens with random crits. It's not an aimhack. Now in those situations where it is decided by rng: They take away from the tactical side of things in those cases, but that isn't necessarily the same as replacing the fun of the game with nothing. It's a rather broad statement, given that fun is a subjective thing. There are a lot of people that do like random crits (Why they like it is another question).
Okay why do they like random crits then?
Wow. Asic. Just bumped his own quarantine thread with three separate posts instead of a singular reply, because he wasn't getting enough attention. Inb4 "Can you prove i did that"
I don't know. I like random crits, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I know why other people like them. This is because multiple different people can like (or dislike) the same thing for multiple different reasons. I'm guessing the reason why some people like it could be expressed as "A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one".
But balancing wise, why would it be important if you like them or not? It's all about how it affects the gameplay.
I made 3 separate posts because I do not like to respond to multiple posts in 1 post, unless its about the exact same topic.
Can someone give me a screenshot of the in-game survey?
There is one in the ASIC thread. The asic thread was linked last page.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/912416928327324920/3440D2EA15FA6408470ED2790718FD4C6A7FBFB8/
Certain things are only/mostly going to be about user preference. I'll try to explain. Like in the scenario "Mart Twoodle" mentioned. This isn't a question of whether random crits are unbalanced. Game balance isn't precisely the right term to describe the issue he expressed that he has with them. If soldier had a weapon that did more damage than another one of his weapons, and with no draw back that would be unbalanced. If one class was a notably stronger than another that would be a question of game balance. If a map was lopsided in a way that gave one team an advantage, that would be a question of game balance. This topic he brought up is mostly about something that could be called game impact, or how significant something is. This is related to game balance, but it's not exactly the same thing. The significance of dying on a server with extended (or shortened) respawn times is different than dying on a normal server. The significance of capturing the enemies intelligence is changed if you had to capture it twice as much. In this case it's the significance of player action. Some games place more emphasis on this than other games.
How do we know that you aren't the one lying? Anyways, the thing is that you are missing the point To elaborate: If someone has some real experience in game development means they know how to develop games. It does not necessarily mean they know how everyone else will develop games. As an metaphor: If someone is an experience artist, that means they know how to create art. It does not necessarily mean they know how everyone else might create art.
Gee it's almost as if I have a reputation on facepunch as a developer of a game very firmly rooted in TF2's history. Sure not everyone works the way I do, but having over 10 years of experience with game development and professional experience as a software developer would give some credence to things I offer as sentiments.
Ignire this quote,. Newpunch is still fucked on mobile after months Any encounter where one player gets hit with a critical is going to give a massive, nearly always decisive advantage to the person who fires the weapon. It's literally the entire point of crits. The only case where crits don't give a massive advantage to one player is where a player misses altogether or does tiny chip damage, in which case they might as well not have gotten the crit in the first place, so it's not relevant to the discussion. It's not like doing big crit damage takes any skill, there's loads of high damage AoE attacks in this game like rockets, stickies, and (I'd argue) shotguns. Ultimately, crit encounters where one player is dead before they can react are by far the most common crit encounters. They by and large objectively reduce the depth of the game. Yes, some players might like reducing the depth of the game, just like some people like 24/7 trade_Minecraft servers. That doesn't mean the main game should be balanced to match this." Some people like it" isn't a compelling argument, because "some people" will like anything. The game needs a focused design philosophy based on what will improve the game long term. The main game currently has a focus: Valve wants the game to have a focus on skill. That's why they've added casual mmr, that's why they've been balancing weapons for comp, that's why they've added a comp mode. This is the focus of the game, and it makes sense. Balancing for players that want a game based on luck is balancing for people who don't want to to explore the full potential of the game's depth. People can get random deaths in any game. If you want a long term, dedicated playerbase, you need to build the game to focus on something that actually has substance long term, something that players can improve on. No other game has movement and mechanics that are the same as TF2. Sacrificing that depth in order to appease the players that like it when they shoot the gun vaguely toward the bad man and the glowy ball comes out that makes the bad man go boom pushes away the most valuable players: those who would otherwise want to stick with the game long term to explore it's depth.
So it's not part of game balance.... ...but its part of game balance. I'm sorry i just fail to see your point here.
He has none. Or experience or qualifications to speak so broadly on game balance either.
I have never seen this before, that's odd
I mean i can't say i do either but i'm still throwing my hat in the ring and hoping for a bit more clear answers.
And you don't really need to to like, talk about the game and your opinion, except when you're using an an authority appeal to firm up your statements, which is one of asic's many crimes. Which he usually responds to by asking people to dig through his immense shitpost history for specific examples to which he then denies his intent of despite doing exactly that. That's basically how this thread has gone for the past month.
Let me try to clarify. Suppose we have a rocket launcher that has twice as much damage and ammunition as stock, and no drawback. This is a notably stronger item than the stock rocket launcher, so this is overpowered/unbalanced. Suppose we have a CTF variation where you need to cap intel twice as much to win. Can you call this overpowered/underpowered in comparison to normal CTF? How would this be unbalanced? The words doesn't really fit that well when used to describe those things.
You're looking at random crits from the perspective of overall match effects, while ignoring individual encounters, which is where random crits are actually relevant (random crits theoretically could exacerbate stomps on the whole-game scale, but it's hard to say to how much of an extent that actually happens). But look at things on the individual encounter scale. You've got a game with an enormous amount of mechanical and tactical depth. The entire game is designed so that both players have a reasonable chance to do well. Even if the enemy counters you, you can still outplay the enemy and escape or even kill them, regardless of the matchup. A medic can surf off a close range rocket, a demo can two-shot a scout with pipes, a spy can out-aim a When you die, the game is fundamentally designed so that you always know how you can improve so that you don't die the same way again. This is a fair encounter. Except random crits mean that there's a small chance of either party just dying, throwing every bit of that out the window. When one player gets a random crit, the other player gets an enormous disadvantage, not because they made a mistake, but because of RNG. The person hit by the crit does not have a fair opportunity to prevent their death. Even if a medic does everything right, if jump just right to make sure they take minimum damage and have the maximum maneuverability, they still die instantly, with no possible opportunity to do anything about it. That's not fucking fair. If a soldier's fighting another soldier, and one gets a crit, even if the other player did everything right, they now have no reasonable opportunity to win. That's not fucking fair. You've taken a balanced encounter, and made it unbalanced. You CAN'T just tack a rare, utterly decisive game of chance onto a game overwhelmingly based on skill. Imagine you're playing a tournament game of chess, matching wits with your opponent, and you're just starting to gain the upper hand. Then, confetti comes out of the ceiling to indicate that a computer just selected your opponent to receive a random aluminum bat, which they can then beat you with until you forfeit. Would this be fair? I mean hey, you both had the same chance to get the bat!
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