TF2 Random Critical Hits: A Fair and Balanced Discussion
669 replies, posted
There is a difference between making sure the player always knows what they did wrong, and giving the player information so they can figure it out their self. The game doesn't have an AI that tells you "you should not have done this", it gives you information and you have to connect the dots.
The two things are similar, but they are different*. That is because not everyone connects the dots (maybe because they can't, maybe because they don't care to).
*I am pretty sure there are games that outright have the first thing.
The thing is that TF2 is a game where certain information is hidden, so you can only make the best possible choice with the information you have. And sometimes the best possible choice is still kind of bad.
I gave 2 examples of a situation where you can die without making any mistakes, in the post you quoted.
Here is another 2:
Going to spy check one person when another enemy spy is flanking you. (You can't spy check them both*. No matter who you choose to spy check, you will end up dead.)
Existing in the spawn when a kritboosted demo man shoots his load inside.
*Well, I guess the jungle inferno pyro spinbind could do it.
In both those situations death is easily avoided, you don't need to turn your back on one spy to spycheck the other, that's ridiculous. Back away from both of them and shoot. You have ranged weapons in this game for a reason. If you're not aware of one of the potential spies, you should have been keeping a closer eye on your surroundings.
If a demo has just had kritz popped, and you're in spawn, just...wait 8 seconds and THEN leave spawn??? Most every spawn room in the game has windows, and many have multiple exits anyway. If he tries trapping every door in the spawn room, just wait for a teammate and leave through a different door than your teammate. He can't detonate doors independently. You can also sneak out as spy to backstab him, airblast away the stickies, bait him into detonating by pretending to leave, ubering out with a medic (particularly relevant for the beginning of the round on, say, payload or a/d offense), or detonating the stickies yourself with ScoRes/Quickies. If you weren't even aware that a kritzkrieg medic/demo pocket had pushed all the way up to your spawn and just walked into crit stickies obliviously, you need to improve your gamesense.
Moreover, if they've pushed all the way to your spawn, you've ALREADY made a mistake. If you had been playing better, a single player could easily damage a medic enough to force them back to a less aggressive position.
More-moreover, even if you did come up with some contrived scenario where death was completely unavoidable, that would simply represent a design flaw equivalent to random crits, which ought to be fixed as well. If some particular map has a really easy-to-camp spawn, where death can be just as unavoidable as random crits, that doesn't somehow validate random crits as reasonable. It means that the map is poorly designed. To say "random crits are acceptable because they're equivalent to this awful gameplay scenario that everyone hates" is to admit that random crits are a big old pile of poop.
What do you think about the tomislav example?
In the spy example I mean both spies are on opposite side of you. This example is not as good as the other ones, as it requires a more specific type of map layout (a less open one).
When I say he shoots inside spawn, I don't mean he is waiting outside for someone to come out. I mean the spawndoors are open, and he fires a critboosted grenade or sticky inside your spawn room.
Here is another scenario for you.
You are in a 1v1 situation fighting someone. An other enemy sneaks up behind you, and kills you. How do you pay attention to what is behind you, when you need to pay full attention to they guy in front of you?
Is this particularly contrived?
I would say there are a few things that really make unavoidable deaths possible:
You can't see all the events on the map, so you can be surprised.
Similar to that one, you are limited by how much information you can humanly process. You can't take every possible outcome into consideration. You are going to have trouble focusing on your surroundings when one thing demands your immediate attention.
You are only one player, so there is a limit to how much you can do. It's a team game.
Do these reasons make sense to you? Are these design flaws?
Do you think the best TF2 player in the world with a normal team play a match against a normal team* without dying once? I'm not saying the worst possible team, because then they wouldn't do anything except stand there.
If there is evidence, then gather it, show it to me, and explain how it shows that I am a "bad poster".
It is not my job to find the evidence for your accusations.
no
Yes but you can't predict random crits because it is already affecting your action of what you are doing. That action could be predicted, but not the hidden factor which makes that move more powerful.
Because if something in the game becomes easier to execute, it reduces having to learn how to do it, and reduces how good players are rewarded. Why would anyone find it necessary to learn how to look down, shoot at their foot, and jump at the same time to learn how to rocket jump when you could literally press a button to do the whole process? That is the equivalent of random crits making encounters a simple click of your mouse because the game made it easier for you.
And it relates to fairness as being able to do something easier than someone else makes things a lot more difficult for the other person to succeed in a similar way. You can't always succeed off of random crits, and even if you do, someone else is either behind or ahead of you, because of how random it is. There is just no way to find the 'fairness' or even competitive nature within a random factor that the player has no control of. That's why it's unfair.
Also please stop asking questions and just understand what people saying please. "ok but how am i not understanding what you guys are saying?????"
You think that I shouldn't say "Can you prove that?" in response to accusations. So if I shouldn't do that, then what should I do instead? Some other people are saying that as well, so this is directed at them too.
Here's a hypothetical example:
Let's suppose, ASIC (me) and optionally several other people named after computer chips, went on accusing you of things for about a month. What would you do in that circumstance?
when people tell you you're a fucking idiot then you take a step back and realize what you did wrong so it doesn't happen next time. this is what any functional human being does.
obligatory "what makes you say that? prove it, post followed by @-ing people from unrelated posts
What's the tomislav example?
Yeah, I know you mean the spies are on either side of you. Just walk away from both of them.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/257085/a8a6e38c-7956-406d-93fc-09ef466501db/HeavySpy1.png
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/257085/e8d312be-fdb0-4666-a534-d3bf36b9e221/HeavySpy2.png
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/257085/0d69fb22-ccd1-4dbc-b7be-dcfd86a1c82e/HeavySpy3.png
Walk to the side, kill one, then face the other. Any class in the game can kill two spies (or damage them enough to force retreat) before they can close the gap easily. Spies have very low health and are pretty ineffectual if you actually know they're there. I mean shit Heavy vs Spy is one of Spy's BEST matchups, and he can still easily take two down before they close the gap if he knows they're there. If you're playing Soldier or Scout there's no contest, you have an enormous amount of mobility and can just leave whenever you want. Demos can drop stickies in their wake to stop the spys' approach, pyros obviously just airblast one, spray fire around, or use one of their many mobility options, even snipers can equip a razorback or simply quickscope on of the spies and even the odds before they close the gap.
And of course any situation where you're in a bad spot because you're outnumbered is a situation where you probably should have stayed with your team. Having another player around to kill the other spy makes this simpler.
Again, if you don't know that a kritzing demo-medic combo has pushed up ALL THE WAY TO YOUR SPAWN then you have horrible gamesense. Most spawn rooms have windows as well. Plus they start screaming "AAM GONNA BE ALL OOOVAH YA LIKE SHEENGLES" when they pop. You should absolutely know they're there. And if they actually reach your spawn then you've already made a huge mistake by allowing this to happen. Forcing a demo-medic to pop prematurely or retreat before they reach your spawn is very easy. It's a long way from the point to spawn (on well-designed maps: if you're thinking about harvest or nucleus then that's just a matter of bad map design), and you have plenty of time to stop them from getting there. Moreover, even if they're in that very specific situation where a teammate has obliviously walked through the door giving the demo line of sight to you, now you've got a teammate blocking the demo from hitting you. Enemy projectiles can't pass through your teammates. That gives you time to escape through the other exit and flank them. If a spawn room is so cramped and people spawn so close to the entrance and there are so few exits that there's no counter to kritzing demos, then that's a very poorly designed spawn room.
Getting snuck up on is absolutely avoidable. First off you should have enough gamesense to know whether being snuck up on is possible. If the enemy has been pushed back and you know nobody's around, you can let your guard down. If not, you should always be thinking about your surroundings. If the enemy can flank, don't turn your back on the flank route for a long enough period for them to get the drop on you. You have to consider which class you're playing and how much of a risk a flanker is. As soldier or scout, flankers are pretty easily avoided, because you can be constantly moving. As heavy or medic, you should ALWAYS be thinking about the flank routes. You should be checking behind every couple of seconds. And of course if you were communicating better with your team you'd probably know if someone was flanking anyway. If you're completely balls-deep in the fight, and have no opportunity whatsoever to keep an eye on your backline, and your team isn't present to check your backline for you, and none of your teammates are close enough to inform you of flankers, then congratulations, you're overextending. Don't do that.
Of course there's always going to be uncertainties on the map, but if you're not oblivious, these aren't decisive uncertainties. You might not know exactly where their scout is, but if you're paying attention, you at least know that you don't know where their scout is, and can keep an eye on the backline in case he shows up. You might not know where the pocket is, but you do have a rough idea of their uber % and you can use that to know whether they're going to be able to push in with an uber soon. The most important information you need to know is available to you. If you can't make use of that information and know what you need to look out for, you have bad gamesense.
If a player made no mistakes and did everything in the best possible manner, then yes, then they would not die once. I'm assuming your talking about fighting a normal, average pubby team, because of the examples you gave of fighting two spies at once, which is of course ridiculous if you were talking about a competitive scenario. The average pubby team would be no match for the best player imaginable who never makes any mistakes. Hell I'll sometimes get dozens of kills with only like three deaths in a pub game, and I'm far from the best player imaginable. Keep in mind that the best player imaginable who never makes any mistakes doesn't actually exist. Even the best of the best player in TF2 right now has room for improvement, which keeps the game from getting stale no matter how good you get. That's what we call a high skill ceiling. The best player in the game right now can still die and see where they made a mistake and work to improve on that.
The game has been designed so that you can always avoid death by out-playing the enemy. Now in a competitive environment, where you're not carrying so hard and other people are at a similar skill level to you, sometimes you don't WANT to avoid death. Sometimes your life isn't as important as your objective in the game. You're far better off jumping in and killing the fully charged medic, even if it means you're going to die. But you've still accomplished your goal. Swapping kills with a fully charged medic is a win, not a loss. That's not frustrating, it's satisfying.
When people are repeatedly "accusing" you of doing something, chances are you're probably fucking doing it. Even if you aren't, you should identify what it is you're doing that's agitating everyone else and change your course of action. Judging by the fact that you're constantly defensive when people call you out on your behavior, you don't like being treated this way. News flash: we don't like the way you're treating us, which is why you're getting all of these "accusations".
Also, dude, it's not a fucking courtroom. Nobody is obligated here to prove your intentions or repeatedly explain their own. People are "accusing" you of doing things like responding to everything with questions because that is literally what you do. It's what you're doing now. And even if people are somehow horribly misinterpreting you... guess what! You're still doing something that is causing that reaction! Stop!
It's funny you direct these questions at me, because it's not too long ago when I was one of the least-liked people here. I kept picking fights with everyone and getting into extended debates where I would get unnecessarily sharp, bitter or condescending.
My actual opinions haven't changed much, but I've learned to stop picking fights every other day and... here's the important one... talk to people and explain my positions without coming off as condescending or overly aggressive. My opinions didn't change all that much, but I responded to criticism so I could be a better member of this community. I changed my behavior because I don't want to feel like public enemy #1 and I mostly like it here.
I'm not perfect, obviously, but I'm much better today than I used to be.
Accept responsibility for your actions, how they effect the people around you, and if you don't like what you're getting in return fucking listen to people and stop doing the things you're doing. It's genuinely not that hard. Socializing 101.
Opinion:
You're all wasting a lot of your otherwise limited free time typing out huge lengthy posts in reply to someone who is clearly, utterly, and in every way an uneducated troll.
Which is exactly what he wants.
And you keep doing it.
And he keeps making the same fallacious replies because he likes all the attention and opportunity to sound smart and out-logic you.
If people stopped replying, this thread would die.
It's only alive because you are wasting time on the village idiot.
Stop giving the village idiot a soapbox.
I wasn't just directing the questions at you, its all of you.
Yes I was asking questions in that post. I kind of needed to. The thing about this:
is that there are only really two ways to figure that out how you guys would react in that situation.
I actually go follow you guys around for a month, while insulting you and making shitty accusations(that I refuse to justify). This is so I could see what happens in person.
You guys tell me what you would do in that circumstance.
Yes, the first method doesn't involve asking any questions, but I am fairly certain that all of you would prefer the second.
So I'd like you guys to answer this. What would you do in this circumstance: trade insults, trade accusations, ask them to leave, ask them to explain themselves, or something else?
It's an incomplete list, I haven't thought of everything.
how much free time you have to compile and categorize everything what you said in a thread just to feel right
dont you have school or a job
I think it was about 18 minutes.
(I didn't quote your full post, even though I am responding to it. It was too long).
The tomislav example was basically what is sounded like. A revved up heavy with a tomislav who is waiting for someone to come around the corner. The things to note are that the Tomislav doesn't make any noise when revved up (so it's a surprise), and it will basically kill any class in less than a second at short range.
You can't be in multiple places at once, if there is something else that demands your attention you can have someone going to your spawn without being able to do anything about it.
I am fairly certain that a lot of spawn doors are wide enough for multiple people to exit, so you can shoot in to them without hitting the guy in the door way.
I think I saw a video of something similar to this happening.
The thing about this bit
>"You might not know exactly where their scout is, but if you're paying attention, you at least know that you don't know where their scout is"
is that they may not necessarily have a scout at first. Someone can switch to scout, or they may have more than 1.
It's the similar with the medic charge. Unless you know when the medic spawned, you basically have to guess their charge level. There are multiple types of mediguns, as well. Knowing that there is a medic doesn't automatically tell you which one he uses.
Your overall solutions to these problems seemed to be basically "Don't get in the situation in the first place", rely on your team, and pay attention to multiple things.
Not getting into a situation in the first place requires you know what the situation is ahead of time.
Some actions are always bad ideas.
But somethings can seem like good ideas, because you don't have perfect info, or the risk of not doing it is worse than doing it. If an enemy stole your intel or is capping or so on, and your team is distracted by whatever, then you are going to have to stop the enemy.
Your team can make mistakes, even if you don't. They can be bad at the game, they can refuse to communicate and so on.
Most TF2 players are human. Humans are not good at multitasking or paying attention to multiple things at once. When trying to multitask humans can't do multiple actions at once, they swap between one task and another rapidly. When humans focus on something, they tend to miss things happening in the background.
An example of this in action is car accidents, a notable amount of which are due to humans using cellphones while driving.
Your first sentence here does not seem to be coherent. So I can not understand what you are trying to say here.
You talked about how things being easier makes things require less effort. That is an obvious thing. However, reducing the skill floor is not the same as lowering the skill ceiling.
If I get an advantage after the game starts due to something, I will still be ahead of other players and be able to do things easier than them. That thing does not only apply to randomness.
You are basically saying getting an advantage after the game starts is unfair, but still you haven't explained why it only applies to advantages gained by random crits.
There are a lot of competitive games that have randomness.
THe nature of that randomness is different than how it is with random crits in TF2. I explained how it is that way with dota 2
Advantages gained after the game starts tends to be caused by mistakes from 1 team or just the fact that one team would be better then that other team and can find and abuse weaknesses for their gain. While advantages don't only apply to randomness, the players are atleast in control of that element and as such the next time around the other team might not be able to abuse it due to a new understanding of the situation. Where as with RNG elements like random crits you can't really detirmine when they will be in play and therefor have no control of how that situation plays out.
Sure other games have elements of randomness, but they handle it in a way where the user is still in control. CS:GO has random bullet spread which would be unfair if that was always on. But the bullet spread can be controlled through your movement, allowing players to be more accurate the slower they move. Giving them the abillity to take control of that randomness. This does not apply to random crit as no player can control outside of doing enough damage/healing to get upto a higher crit chance, but even with that its unpredictable. You can expect somebody in CS:GO to be fully accurate if they are tapshooting and are stationary or moving slightly. You can't expect somebody to crit until it happens, but by then its too late.
Which post of mine were you responding to? It does not really make sense to me if you were responding to the post right above yours.
You earn those power spikes through decisions and good play in TF2 as well.The thing about those random abilities is that it's not hard to get them. It is harder than TF2, but not by an extreme amount. Like with PA, all you have to do is get to level 6. That is something that will happen in almost any game, it is not a high bar to pass.
Some RNG is really easy to get:
Stout shield is a RNG item you can buy at the start of the game. It doesn't matter past early game, but if you are lucky it can be significant at that time. Some rng abilities you can get at level 1, like void's bash.
There is also random stuff that is not specific to any hero. Like the: runes spawn, jungle spawns, uphill mischance, or damage variance (this one only really matters early game).
That is a bit like saying, "Imagine if you had to buy a slot each game to equip your melee and secondary weapon in TF2".
The thing about what you are saying is that the games are going to have differences. TF2 doesn't really have RPG elements, such as farming*. You start out with all your abilities unlocked.
In Dota 2 you don't start out with all of your stuff unlocked each match.
*Well, discounting MvM.
Picking heroes is still a game decision you make, and the RNG elements are still limited in scope to those heroes. Those heroes come with sacrifices of their own you make to earn their abilities, like X hero has a poor early game, etc.
You seem to be equating the control a player has over the game, with the fairness of the game.
You can predict crits to an extent. This is easier with melee, as the chance tops out at 60%.
Why would random bullet spread be unfair in CS:GO if it was always on?
Nitpick. You are not fully accurate in CS:GO even when tapshooting standing still:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0rlCJ047Ds
Picking heroes can be a very important part of the game, but that doesn't mean that players will necessarily put much thought into it. Choosing vs choosing wisely.
One could say that deciding to shoot in the direction of the enemy is a decision.
Crits in tf2 are an ability everyone normally has, its noted when something doesn't have them. In dota 2 it is the other way around.
It's like a blacklist vs a whitelist, in a sense.
An example of when a hero lost an ability everyone normally had was Tiny, well a version of him from an earlier patch in the Dota mod for warcraft. Tiny had 2 less inventory slots than everyone else. They were occupied by an item that was apparently called "Tiny's Asscheeks".
Well I guess I need to spell it out then.
Action that person does = can be predicted.
Action that person does with random crits applied = only action can be predicted, not the random crits.
The advantage off of random crits is unfair due to how incredibly powerful your action becomes from the effect being applied randomly. Again I will simply explain it.
Soldier is going to kill an Engineer, that has 125 health as usual.
He is using the stock Rocket Launcher, meaning that only two rockets should kill the Engineer from direct hits, meaning he should now have an ammunition count of (2/20)
However, if he got the random crit, now he only needed 1 rocket and only still has 3 rockets left to fire, meaning he now gained an advantage even after the random critical hit.
Please tell me, how in that situation, it is fair. Do not even factor whether or not the Engineer was moving, he was being healed, or even if he was shooting the Soldier. Just think of it on a simple level. Just literally: How is it fair for the Soldier to kill the Engineer with a single rocket at random, rather than killing the Engineer with 2 rockets normally?
On an aside note: quoting posts doesn't seem to work properly when those arrows are used.
We know how the chance to get crits work. So shouldn't we be able to predict their occurrence to some degree?
There are other ways an engineer could die from one rocket. The soldier using the direct hit. The engineer having taken damage earlier. (mini)critboosts from another source. That example is as fair as those.
Also, the engineer would drop an ammo box when he died.
Sure I'll just do the fucking math and estimate how much damage he's done and memorize the crit percent rolls based on the specific damage thresholds on what in the end is still an extremely unlikely occurrence . Also the soldier still has to reload, which is more significant, and literally all of those things you mentioned are predictable things you can account for because they're deterministic.
Using other reasons that you could die is a lackluster excuse. Moreso because you wrote off scruffys example senario just to try and include more points.
In the case of a direct hit, its on the engi to blame for being close to a direct hit soldier to the point he can be 1 shot from the DH, aswell as it being on the engi's building not being up to draw his attention.
In the case of damage taken earlier its on the engi for not picking up a health kit, it is also mostly on the medic in that instance for not healing the engineer backup to full.
In the case of other crit sources, them sources has buildup and are clearly announced to the players, you can hear a buff banner going off, see the jarate effect applied on you. Track ubers for a kritzkrieg. If the player does not respond and play accordingly after its being announced then they deserve to get punished.
what players should not get punished for is for an attack to potentially have a chance to one shot them with 0 way to predict how or when it will occour, because even at its highest crit percentage on non melee weapons you might never get a crit, or constantly crit due to how RNG works.
You could predict how high somebody is on the crit chance rampup scale, but you can't predict what shots will or will not be a random crit. Crits fall out of the players control, you can't anticipate something that has such a low chance of occouring even at its highest percentage which would be 12% on any none melee weapons. Bringing melee weapons into the picture aswell just shows another flaw with crits, if your within melee range of somebody as a player. Mainly on classes like scout/soldier, you clearly got the drop on them. And that player should really not have any way of getting out of that situation at all unless they play to the best of their abillity. Giving them a 60% chance to oneshot that class next to them just robs the person in the winning situation of their kill when they did nothing wrong.
Keep in mind the definition we were using for fairness:
>>A fair game is basically defined as one that is not biased towards any player. Another way to put it is that a fair game is one where both players have an equal chance to win, when they are playing under the perfect strategy.
IIRC, the initial guy (bobsun dugnutt) who brought up this line of discussion agreed to this definition.
I had assumed that you guys also saw that, but the thread is large so you may have missed that or forgot (or whatever). If you are using a specific sort of definition for fairness, then you should probably say so as that would make the discussion clearer.
You are complaining that it's hard to predict. I wouldn't say that something being easy or hard to predict makes it fair. Do you think there are any other sort of unlikely occurrences that would be hard to predict?
It's easier to estimate crit chance on melee.
You can anticipate an ambush from a Scout, Soldier, stickybombs, Tomislav, etc, by being observant. Check corners where someone could be hiding, take mind of how many of the opposing players you've seen and how many are alive -- know who's unaccounted for especially if you're pushing into unfamiliar territory. You can expect to get shot at by someone who knows how to aim, and they can expect you to try to surf the knockback if you know how to move.
You cannot predict what is at-most a 1 in 10 chance for instant death from ranges far beyond where they're supposed to be lethal. Even more realistic is that chance being somewhere in the 1/50 to 1/20 range depending on class. You simply cannot predict something that unlikely to have that large of an impact on anything. There is no anticipation, there is no counterplay other than to not play at all.
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