TF2 Random Critical Hits: A Fair and Balanced Discussion
669 replies, posted
An opinion is built around experiences and feelings. I have already said multiple times why I think and feel the way I do, if you disagree then fine, I am not going to repeat all my posts again. So my answer is yes, you just disagree with them as that is your opinion.
...how does that have anything to do with what I was replying to?
Either way, of course "damage ramp up" isn't underwhelming, but there's a vast difference between "heh I crocketed half their team and won lol what suckers" and "I sweated out a kritz charge and the satisfaction of finally breaking their hold was godlike". The former is pretty much just "okay then" because it's something that just...happened. This is something that works in single player games because it's to the detriment of the AI enemies but in a multiplayer game it just sucks, and it doesn't justify the little sense of "haha lol" gained by the one dude who got a lucky roll.
give random crits to dragon fury and huntsman and rifles and spy knife
and sentry bullets / rockets and airblast xd
Dying to a soldier when you're full health 100% uber, because you know he can't deal over 150, you will take one rocket then uber. Oops, scrap that, you're dead from a crit. Wasn't that just hilarious.
TF2 has just so much depth and potential in movement and just everything, all that is thrown into the trash with a random crit.
One of the main problems with the random crit debate, is that there are no legitimate pro-crit arguments besides "I find them fun".
Every single one devolves down to "My subjective fun is equally as valid as your evidence of RNG being nonconformitive to a skill based game.
The tf team has stated numerous times, even directly in the Move Those Weapons Up! Blog post, and I quote:
We want players on both the winning and losing sides of an engagement to feel like their skill is being rewarded. In other words, when someone beats you, it's because they played better, either through pure combat skill, or through their strategic choices in selecting their loadout.
That is not an opinion, that is the word of valve themselves, and the reason why crits are being polled and probably removed to unify the game, as Dave Riller said was their intent with competitive during VNN's interview.
Jill has also stated they are on team nocrits already while in his server.
That was back when they first started developing competitive and unified play. And from then until now, unbalanced elements like random damage spread, dumb weapons like the sandman, and uncompetitive strategies like DR spam have all bit the dust, because they, like random crits, are a relic of the past in which they are no longer relevant.
If you for whatever reason enjoy unfair RNG kills that you didn't earn, then your subjective fun comes from something that is separate and antithetical to the point of the game, and is no longer valid when discussing how it should be balanced.
That is the cold truth.
Your opinion is wrong.
Fundamentally, it is incorrect. There are literally no logical reasons for your opinion to be anything other than factually wrong. Multiple people with more patience and interest than I have given more than strong enough arguments. I'm sure somewhere deep into TF2's systems there's some sort of at least half-believable argument for random crits being in the game is anything other than wholly negative, but you haven't given one in any of your posts. And for that, you are wrong. Random crits are nothing except negative.
Discussions can be and have been had on the topic of things in game, like the balance of certain weapons or classes (cough new zealander cough) being too strong or weak, and in most cases arguments can be made for either side. But this is the one situation where there are no feasible arguments for pro-random crits. Opinions are opinions, yes, but opinions don't win arguments, that's not what arguments are for. You can say you like random crits to your grave if you want, but you will take to the grave the knowledge that, objectively, your opinion is wrong.
no random crits because I want a competition of skill not a dice roll simulator
end of discussion
Making one team get an extra bonus because they're losing seems like a huge balancing mistake. Seems like it would make stalemates much worse. Imagine trying to push through a heavily defended area but the more you break their defense, the more damage the enemy does. It'd be particularly bad when you consider that sentries don't take crit damage, so the attackers have a way harder time capitalizing on picks but don't get the same advantage against the defenders if they lose some people.
They're bad, but I love em... they are one of the things that got me into the game in the first place and I'd be very sad to see them go.
personally random crit should only be applicable to melee weapons
hate on em 270 damage crockets, bro
Have them off by default, but have an option to vote to enable random crits (as well as an option for only melee crits).
I'd be happy with this to be honest
Everyone on the server would need to somehow consent, even players who join late, otherwise large parties who join first would just enforce their will at the beginning of matches.
Again, you can do whatever you want on community servers, they're private game rooms anyway. But having pointless RNG deaths being the thing new players encounter in the flagship game experience is one of the things that is slowly killing off the game's popularity.
We're supposed to be competing with the likes of overwatch, and other games that have skilled interactions as a selling point- not a single gibus crocket killing the 5 enemies on last and losing the round.
You should stop spreading lies and slander about me.
You should probably talk about random crits in the random crits thread if you want people to take you seriously tho
Responding to this post: TF2 General Chat and Speculation Station V6
>>thats because those who are vocal agaisnt random crits are precisely those who have way more experience with the game over the years to be able to tell why they're inherently bad and have been bad in the long run.
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So what are you basing this view on?
Why do you believe they are inherently bad?
Can you backup any of what you said?
You've already had pretty much everyone in this thread answer the latter two questions, not really worth asking anymore
Ultimately random crits are anti-competitive. It would simply be idiotic to try to argue that random crits improve the actual gameplay other than in very minute and unimportant ways.
However, a large amount of the TF2 fanbase does not want to play competitively. A large amount of the fanbase is not trying to constantly improve or get into good gameplay habits.
They just want to casually have fun playing the game. And one thing random crits do do is give a casual feel to the game.
Deaths feel less important if randomness can be blamed for them. But kills usually feel just as good even if you only got them because of randomness.
And in general it makes a less skilled player feel like they have a chance to kill even a high-skill player if they get lucky enough with crits.
All of these things are bad in an environment that is trying to nurture the development of skill and good gameplay habits, but as I said, many people don't want to play in such an environment.
So I think crits should be the default for casual mode, disabled on competitive mode, and be optional on community servers.
The casual mode is already different enough from competitive that random crits aren't going to further the divide, and anyone who wants to play a game where they can truly test and improve their skills against other players can play competitive or on a community server with crits disabled.
And of course competitive mode in general needs to be fixed or even given a real overhaul if the TF2 team wants their game to be truly competitive.
There are a few achievements that require random crits, like the Soldier one. Or could you get that with Kritzkrieg? Not a huge reason to keep crits either way
Even if there is a problem with them for Soldier specifically, they could be solved by changing the requirements to be crits or mini-crits.
If valve quietly disabled random crits forever I dont think anyone would notice for weeks
STOP MOLESTING CHILDREN
From how much Medic I play in Casual, I would notice in like a few minutes at most
Theorycrafting, in an attempt to actually make random crits an addition to balancing rather than a detriment: what if, instead of a default 10%/15% random crit chance, every weapon had a 0% crit chance, but certain weapons offered ways to gain more crit chance, like in MOBAs?
Hell, just fucking turn the crit system into MOBA crits, where damage is only doubled. There are no weapons or mechanics that would be mechanically different except for Shield charges.
Valve has changed achievements before so that's not really a big deal.
It makes no sense to have any method of enabling a chance for one of your shots to do even double damage. Nocrits or bust.
I am here to debunk common pro-crit stances that don't hold water yet people regurgitate anyway. If you cannot refute all of the points in conjunction you've not actually formed a pro-crit argument.
They've been in the game since release
This is an Appeal to Tradition (aka argumentum ad antiquitatem, appeal to antiquity, or appeal to common practice) which is a formal fallacy. The crux of the fallacy is that it falsely assumes that the past justifications are still relevant today and that the decision made in the past was correct in the first place.
They are there to help new players
Statistically, random crits help new players die more often than it helps them kill. This is mostly in part due to the fact that bad players have not yet developed gamesense, advanced movement, or mechanical aim. They are statistically more likely to miss their crit attacks entirely and they are statistically more likely to fail to dodge a sparkly projectile coming their way.
Layering on top of this, the way random crit chance increases with recent damage done means that good players will get more crits and hit with them more often. Taking this mechanic into account, random crits are actually there to keep a killstreak going. This specific point is reinforced by the developer commentary:
Critical hits are one of the features that resulted from our focus on pacing. The Critical hits system attempts to slightly influence the highs and lows of the game by increasing the chance of a Critical hit based upon the player's recent performance. In summary, the better you're doing the more likely you'll continue to do well. This helps create those rare high moments where a single player goes on a rampage and gets three or four kills in rapid succession.
The game has outgrown this decade-old mentality, the playerbase has surpassed the developer's expectations in both skill and in livelihood. The community birthed a competitive scene where the TF team thought there would be no drive for one. It's the exact same sort of passion that inspired the TF team to create nocrit so players can have a more-fair game to play at the server owner's discretion.
They are fun to play around
Aside from Demoman, there is literally no way to play around random crits because you have no control over them and neither does your opponent. Pull the trigger and that's it maybe you deal big damage maybe you do normal damage who's to say otherwise. Demoman is the only exception because he chooses when stickies detonate but everyone else just has to take a crapshoot.
If anything, the presence of random crits means you have to take every encounter as a potentially lethal one, even if you're at range where you shouldn't feel threatened by their damage output due to damage falloff or if you have enough health that you can consistently tank a shot in order to secure your survival and/or their death.
They give melee purpose
Melee isn't supposed to have purpose aside from being a last-ditch to defend yourself because you were caught in the middle of a reload, without ammo, people are too close for you to use your other weapons effectively, or to humiliate someone. The only melee weapons that matter are for Engineer, Demoman, Sniper, and Spy. Everyone else has weapons that more than overpower the concept of melee combat so it's no surprise that the item additions over the years have favored utility melee rather than combat melee.
They help break stalemates
Yes, sometimes they will do that. But the more likely outcome is that they prevent a stalemate from being broken. A player taking a flank to ambush the enemy is not actively dealing damage, thus his crit rate will be lower than the people he's trying to take by surprise. His attempt is more likely to be stuffed and everyone resets back into a Mexican standoff while he respawns. A team pushing into buildings not only isn't dealing player damage, but any crits they get are nullified by the building's crit immunity, the defending team has a crit rate advantage purely because they have an effective 200-600hp health pool that is snubbing the attacking team's crit rate and damage.
It creates little moments that give TF2 it's charm
TF2 has plenty of charm. Where else can you have a mouthy punk beat you to death with a fish while covered in urine? How many makeshift conversations can you have when you encounter an opponent with just the voice menu at your fingertips? This is a game where people are encouraged to taunt into the killcam because you can. This is a game where you can get run over by a train in the middle of combat because you weren't paying attention. This is a game where Trespassers will be violated. This is a game where the goal of the most popular pub mode involves blowing yourself up in the final fanfare.
If you think random crits are what makes TF2 have charm, you're very blatantly missing out.
Well. I like them.
No one asked for opinions. Form an argument, don't give me a reddit/twitter poll, form an argument like a functioning adult and maybe people will treat you like an adult.
They make people mad ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Go away.
i like the shield charge mechanic because it gives you something to earn crits instead of diddly-do-here-a-crit-for-you
not frontier justice tho, it feels wrong
You aren't all the same person, so that's why I asked him as well. He may have a different opinion.
I'm basing this view on the people who has posted on facepunch, my own experience, the experiences of those i frequently play with, those i don't frequently play with, those who moments of shine have been ruined by a random crit.
I can back them up agaisnt the only vocal people so far that consider crits as a valid mechanic in a fps, basically you.
They are inherently bad because its not a factor you can posibly rely on, nomatter what you do. even if you outperform every single enemy and both you and them have the same base chance to deal a crit attack whoever sits at the other end of the RNG will feel that his death was either unwarranted and/or undeserved. this is particulary relevant in a game where damage fall off forces players to close the game and aim their shots while taking the same risks of being killed in the process, so unlike in games like the old MOHAA, Halo CE, and UT where a dude using a rocket launcher doesn't have the uper hand agaisnt someone using a shotgun just because you happen to be outside the shotgun's effective range, and both are forced to get close and personal in order to effectively kill their enemy before they do instead of shooting a rocket in a general direction and expect someone unaware to walk into the projectile and die from a direct hit or by the splash damage. that kills any kind of progression and aiming the game could sk you to develop and hinders its own replay value.
let me answer your question with another set of questions: why are none of your arguments an actual argument? is it just because you expect to collect data to contrast it with your own perception of the issue? is it just to deflect and generate a reaction of hostility towards you for the sake of validation? are you really going to start your reply to this queston making yet another question that yet again deflects your turn to actually elaborate on a reply that actually replies to the question that I made you after you answered with a question? do you feel entitled to deny any kind of debate in lieu of the removal of random crits purely because is it based on anecdotic information, despite the only ind of information avaliable to us and part of the inherent nature of a debate on own personal experiences? is it right for you to deliberately take the context of a topic and direct it towards another subject a valid way to explain why your point is right and ours not? do you happen to do this for the sake of or you genuinely see random crits as a integral part of tf2 and ca not describe a world without them, and are set firm to believe that nothing will change your mind on the subject no matter how much you've enforced others to believe your own point of view just because it is yours?
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