TF2 Random Critical Hits: A Fair and Balanced Discussion
669 replies, posted
Why would the opinion matter if the answer is the same?
Crits are great and in my opinion add a lot of depth to the combat.
You can't know if someone is going to crit or not. True. But you have to expect that they might and you can get a 'feel' for the probability. Players who have recently caused a lot of destruction are more dangerous crit-wise, and multiply that by 4 if they're swinging a melee weapon.
Why this is good? Simply because it makes stomping tactics (or spearheading as I call it) less effective. A godtier pair of players (namely a medic and his buddy) working together would be free to take almost any risk were it not for the chance they get blown to smithereens by a random crit, and that's the beauty of it. For the team to win the battle they must have a plan B when one or two of their key players go down unexpectedly. Also these key players must weigh their decisions much more because of this failure chance.
Worthy of note is that I'm assuming a varying player skill level, so you have always a couple of godtiers and a handful of gibuses and something in between. I don't know if in competitive everyone is on even ground, in which case my argument wouldn't hold -as- well, but frankly I don't care because I'm quite certain the game is balanced for pubs, not comp.
In short, crits add depth to decision making, as individuals and as a team and overall level the playing field. All nocrits games I've played have been just terrible in several ways. Half of the weapon balance breaks because removing crits removes a big chunk of DPS, especially for melee. Pocketing becomes severly more effective because there's a lot less burst damage to go around, and as such pubstomping pairs become much harder to take down.
i know right? when things go wrong because of rcrits I just adapt by doing house chores while it says Respawning : in 20 seconds on my screen
What is this logic hahaha, the level of frustration some of you play is astounding, Talishmar said it spot on, TF2 has its own charm that you want to take away from every player. These environments exist in newer alternatives and if it is honestly so painful, then you don't enjoy TF2 for what it is.
Responding to these 2 posts:
@Kitt Stargazer
TF2 General Chat and Speculation Station V6
@Psychopath
TF2 General Chat and Speculation Station V6
---------------------
You both stated that there is an issue with new players and random crits, however you fail to show that the problem actually exists outside of your theory.
Somehow random crits both happen enough that players will rely on them, but not enough that it is a valid tactic?
Also, Psychopath brought up some stuff that he said are bad tactics that players could learn from random crits
>Practically nothing gets done from a rocket slowly meandering across the map and striking a wall, Scouts shouldn't be trying to pepper people for 3 damage at long ranges, Demo shouldn't be intentionally lobbing rollers instead of trying to get direct hits, and you definitely shouldn't run at an overhealed and revved heavy with your melee out.
If these are actual examples you remember from gameplay, how do you know they were doing it because of random crits. There are other reasons for people to do that stuff.
They might not be aware that damage falloff exists.
They might be copying people who are doing that stuff when it is appropriate. For instance spamming from long range isn't that bad if you are low health, or have stuff like cow mangler.
Melee crit can't 1 shot heavy, even if he isn't over healed. You would still need 2 more hits in most cases.
See Talishmar's reply, I think that sums it up rather nicely. Again if they were such a glaring rage inducing issue, why has the game flourished for years? I do not see how something a lot of people enjoy about the game is such an ultimate issue within the game that they must now be removed. They are fun to play around, the do give melee purpose in the current and established combat in the game. They do break stalemates. They are one of many things that make TF2 unique and fun. Where you don't want polls and reddit posts, you also spout a lot of "statistically" comments, none of which I'm seeing. I also don't think that anyone saying "They make people mad" is actually part of the discussion, that's just choosing to focus on the troll replies. Legit if you don't like them this much, I don't understand why you play the game. Again this isn't new, it's TF2 as its always been., and has thrived not because of it, but with it.
Remember how the developers themselves intended for random crits to be there to keep killstreaks going? Remember just how many of TF2's more subtle mechanics are there to encourage a stomp so that the game ends faster? Respawn timers favor the attacking team's players rather than defending team, crit chance increases with more damage done, dead players and buildings drop ammo for their killer to then put into the victim's teammates, capture times for control points get shorter the closer the game is to the final point, the payload cart acts as a mobile health and ammo source to keep the attackers' pressure going, the value of a teleporter pair increases for the attacking team as the game moves on while it decreases for the defending team at the same time. These things aren't by accident.
Also there is already a skill to adaptivity, but randomness is not the only catalyst for such a skill to be developed. TF2 has a diverse playerbase with their own ideas of how to play different classes, compound that with the variety of team compositions and item loadouts and you'll have so many permutations that there's no way to feasibly prepare for all of them. There are plenty of situations where you'll wander around a corner and a Heavy is just sitting there waiting for something to walk past, there are situations where you'll find yourself face to face with a Pyro 10 miles from home for seemingly no reason for them being there, you'll encounter sentries in the weirdest places that wind up catching you off guard. It doesn't matter how good a player is, they can and will get overwhelmed by a loosely-coordinated bunch purely because there's no way to shoot at 3+ things at the same time. While skill will defeat a lack of skill, skill alone cannot defeat a swarm of loose coordination. The reason why pubstomping pairs exist is because people are dumb enough to funnel into them 1 at a time to die to them 1 at a time. Besides, would you rather trust your luck with a 1 in 50 compared to their luck with a 1 in 10?
Your post makes a few assumptions.
Why do you believe it is good for the team with the greater skill to win?
Even in the case where random crits aren't there, the higher skilled (or effort applying) team doesn't always win. Underdog winners are a thing.
The team that gets more crits may be dealing more damage, which increases the crit chance. So its not necessarily without "virtue of their own".
It's not likely for each team to get the exact same number of random crits, but if they perform similarly they should get a similar number.
In close enough situations stuff like weapon inaccuracy could be enough to decide the winner.
Why would random crits make it unclear who performed better?
Did you really just ask "Why do you believe it's better for a team with higher skill to win"?
Did you really just ask that?
Are you insane? Do you not understand the concept of "competition"?
Also, rate my posts with child molester all I want. It's not going to change anything. You're still not only completely bonkers, you're also wrong in every situation and at this point are arguing for the sake of trying to argue.
Clearly needs to be explained to you as you are so blindly furious that other people find other things enjoyable, for the exact reasons that they have explained. "Why do you believe it's better for a team with higher skill to win" is the exact moment that, I don't always know if and when things will happen, adding an enjoyable layer to the game-play. YOU clearly don't think so, but other people do. That doesn't make them insane because you disagree. Once again if you want an environment of STRICT PREDICTABLE BY-THE-NUMBERS COMPETITION, then you can find that else where, not change the game in a significant way that other people have enjoyed for over a decade. People are arguing their points on a forum thread designed for just as such, does that not make sense to you?
Random crits are still random no matter how much you say it's equal between teams or players.
Also yes stuff like weapon inaccuracy could be enough to decide the winner, so stop factoring random crits in and let whoever has the better skill stuff be the winner.
Random crits makes the result unclear because they are still random.
Why does it being RNG invalidate the argument of crit chance increases via damage?
Also, what you are doing there is circular reasoning. It is not valid argument.
How doesn't it invalidate the argument?
No, you're both certifiably insane at this point. Your ridiculous ramblings and contrarian arguments of "but it's fun and i like it so that makes it fine!" is more than enough proof.
I do like it and it is fun to me and many others, you clearly don't like it which is fair. I'm willing to meet compromises but you are just butthurt that people disagree with you.
No, you're both certifiably insane. My "butthurt"-ness has nothing to do with it. Don't get it twisted.
there are far more "umpredictable" moments in tf2 that can be rolled into a group of things that add that "charm" tf2 has, much like @Psychopath kisted. people getting angry at crits however doesnt invalidate their genuine frustration for being killed for something that should not kill them in the first place.
however, to believe tf2 becomes stale just because it goes full competitive and by the numbers (idk what that reffers tho, same reasons as above) is a rather poor view of the game, specially when crits tend to be less than a 1/10th. it implies that just because crits are removed you would not feel the enjoyment you get from the base game unless crits are involved, either because you rely on them to finish the job or just because tf2 as a game itself it doesnt bother you, but rather the angry, random moments of frustration caused by crit deaths is what you're looking for.
In your opinion, despite our own input. I have put plenty of why and how I think the things I do, you just choose to say "you're mental", which is the definition of not having an argument, even though I understand what your saying and agree in compromise. Also I'm rating you a baby when I think you are being one, again the ratings are there, an age old feature of the site you frequent, that as you yourself can see add nothing but detriment to the site, and only serve to frustrate you or the person you're rating/add nothing to discussion. Much like your opinion on crits, but people like them and they have always been here, not hindering the growth of the site/game. Don't like it, you can find what you need elsewhere.
I have the right to enjoy the game how I and many other always have, feel free to discuss otherwise, but this is just how I feel.
In in the ever loving fuck does a mechanic that gives players 3x damage much more frequently when they're stomping reduce the amount of stomping? Crit chance increases as you do damage, so people who are stomping are able to drastically increase the amount that they are stomping in a positive feedback loop. Yeah crits will occasionally stop a killstreak but they're far more likely to extend it. Crits do the exact opposite of leveling the playing field, they were fundamentally designed to facilitate stomps, you can hear them literally talk about how this was their intention in the developer commentary.
Also random crits won't kill a pair stomping with the vacc, while still letting those players exploit crits.
The argument that weapon balance breaks is a pretty flimsy one, because crits pretty much affect every class the same way. They make any class more effective outside of their normally effective range. For example, you say it breaks melee, but only a few classes ever rely on melee crits, it's really just demo, sniper, and medic. Any other class would be better off using their far more effective close-range options. Demo, sniper, and medic are pretty trash at close range, so melee crits are their best close range option. Meanwhile, classes that are trash at long range, like scout and heavy, can make use of hitscan crits to fight outside of their normally effective range. Every class gets this buff outside of their normally effective range. The problem is that it's painfully obvious that none of these classes were actually designed with random crits in mind. Heavy doing no falloff triple damage at range is unavoidable bullshit, because the minigun was designed to be a low-damage unavoidable AOE at range. Demo critting with melee gets rid of his only fucking weakness. Loose cannon crits are massive unavoidable instakills. Random crit soldier and demo spam wipes teams before anyone can react. Crossbow spam crits let the medic oneshot anything short of a heavy. The list goes on. It's painfully obvious that random crits were added after the fact and that nothing in this game was balanced around it.
And please, do tell me, how exactly do you 'adapt to things going wrong' when the thing going wrong is an unavoidable 300 damage close range rocket that is guaranteed to oneshot you no matter what? TF2 is a game of burst damage, where players are encouraged to close the gap to at least mid range before engaging. Boosting that burst damage 3x means that most weapons will oneshot you, and having all the fights take place at mid to close range means that you will often not be able to avoid a shot, period. You can't avoid a critical meatshot, if a scout closes the gap and gets a crit on you, you are dead, period. There is no depth to dying to something that was guaranteed to kill you.
People enjoy crits also, why does that count for nothing? Because you disagree with what they do to the game for you? That's fair, but others see differently. If crits are such a minimal impact due to being only a 1/10 of the time, why is it such a huge issue? If they were removed then to me and many others who have enjoyed the game since release would in a notable way, feel as if the game has changed in a negative manor from the game we loved. If you choose to focus on how they make you mad when you die to them, that's up to you, I and many others in the thread have expressed how they make us feel.
Where is the challenge in dying to something that is unavoidable? When I have a really close fight with somebody and they kill me first, I genuinely have fun. That's the heart-pounding shit that I play this game for. But when I or the enemy die to random crits, they died because a random number generator delivered an insta kill to them before I got to properly fight them. It takes away from the meat-and-potatoes of the game by ending fights to dice rolls, cheating both players out of gameplay.
What I don't get is why you're saying that you can win a fight you should have lost via random crits. When you kill with a crit you didn't win. The enemy just died because the RNG killed them. You didn't do shit. Where's the fun in the enemy dying before you get to actually finish the fight?
Because you lost when you should have won and you won when you should have lost, now imagine that across a whole game, imagine the chaos. That is fun, going in and not knowing what might happen. On a grand scale. Crits are fun for casual players, not all but a lot, it's a part of TF2 that for us, adds to why we play it, and these people who make up a HUGE proportion of the game, enjoy them. NOT in a competitive ranked environment, I am completely on board with that and as I've said multiple times, they have no place in competitive. Do not remove them from the rest of us however. It is evident that it is not a common belief that random crits should stay, but there are people who feel otherwise. I don't enjoy this argument and I don't wish to change your minds, just understand that other people feel differently. I know some of you couldn't possibly fathom the opinion I and others have but that's fine, I'll still do my best to voice it. Valve can do as they wish and I can voice on why I agree or disagree, which is exactly what I'm doing. Changing the game in such a drastic way is like going back and improving on special effects or scenes in old films, regardless if they made sense or not, you're changing something from what it was and what people enjoyed, when it adds to the charm which brings them back to it. I can't go to a game from my late teens that does what TF2 does, but you can go to any competitive shooter on the market and experience what you want, so why must I leave?
That last part just proves how much you don't care how some people DO take games seriously to have fun.
Besides tf2 is very unique and you comparing it to CS just makes me wonder what the hell you're smoking.
Also what "fun" is to win/lose a battle you should have lost/won because of RNG? It keeps things unpredictable? I'm sorry but there is a whole lot of other ways in this game to get your kicks in that case.
Besides, comparing the numbers between the people who like crits compared to the people who don't shows just how frustrating, not fun, completely stupid and unnecessary they are.
If it wasn't a problem they probably wouldn't have added the whole feedback option at the end of the games.
If you honestly would quit the game just because random crits were removed, maybe you in that case SHOULD.
We here still enjoy this game even with crits, we just think it could be better without them.
There is a bunch of other things that make this game just casual fun than crits.
Because TF2 is a game with a massive amount of mechanical depth that you don't see in games like overwatch. Throwing that all out the window in the base game in favor of chaotic bullshit that you can get on community servers anyway is doing a massive disservice to TF2. If you want wins and losses to be random, if that's more fun to you than actually testing your wits and skill against other players, there's plenty of community randomizer and random crits hightower servers out there for you. But we have a chance to improve the base game by making every encounter based on how well each player performed, making the best part of this game way better. Improving the meat-and-potatoes of TF2 should always be our highest priority, and is absolutely necessary for building up the comp community as well.
Even the wacky stuff that happens in TF2 is more fun without random crits. Random crits are boring. Seen one scout get gibbed by splash damage, seen them all. But the number of loadouts and options you have in this game means that you can always try out ridiculous new playstyles and see if you can get away with it. But if I'm getting stomped, I'm absolutely forced to play the most effective, meta classes because the enemy has a 30% crit rate and my team doesn't. If I'm getting pushed to spawn, I HAVE to play stock soldier, medic, or demo (MAYBE heavy), because anything varied and interesting will be destroyed by the mountain of high crit-rate enemies. Without crits, such stomps are less frequent and less severe, letting you actually experiment and try new things.
Talishmar, angrykid, and of course, asic have proven themselves to be certifiably deluded at this point. Telling them so probably won't help much.
Not deluded because they have unpopular or different opinions as every apologist claims, but because they possess a severely misled view on the game overall and how horribly uncompetitive it should be balanced.
I...
I don't even know where to start with refutations due to the sheer level of logical fallacy and poor understanding of the game, but a good place would be the realm of irrelevant opinions.
Yes. If you are inexperienced at the game (which seems to be the case) or hold beliefs contrary to the stated purpose of team fortress 2's design, even as your personal opinions or subjective enjoyment, then yes, you are wrong and your opinions hold no sway in balance discussions.
You're entitled to them, of course. But they're still irrelevant for the purpose of design decisions.
I'd really enjoy a jetpack heavy, so I could be like the jet trooper from the original battlefront. Tell my team to watch out for those wrist rockets and all that as I fly around.
It'd be broken as hell, and I realize that, but it would be fun. The difference here is I'm not advocating for my subjective fun to be enforced on everyone at the expense of the game itself.
The pro crit people need to realize that all these little ideas about fun and... Luck-based depth.. I don't even.. What... Are not justifications for running the game in to the ground.
Tf2 has survived all these years in SPITE of bad balance decisions like random crits. The game no longer resembles the one that it did at launch, and so too have their purpose been phased out by load out depth, map and skill diversity, and a decade of strategy and experience.
Change is coming, and the only reasons to resist it are a personal fear of competition.
yea man disabling randomcrits literally turn tf2 into predictable counter-strike. wtf is that? its so predictable and boring. you dont rly like tf2 if you arent playing it on 32fort
Suggestion: Create a set bonus of the Gibus and Pyrovision Goggles that enables you to fire and get killed by random crits. But literally everyone else is unaffected like the Alien Isolation items.
I don't claim that crits don't endorse killstreaks. They do that as intended. However what I mean is that players who are good to begin with and on a killstreak still have something to fear because in combat they are always at risk of taking critical damage.
You don't need crits to kill someone using a meme weapon like vacc tho
-It's weapon balance that breaks: removing crits his a huge nerf to melee, and a comparative buff to all nocrit weapons.
-I think crits should have damage falloff. As much as I love the system I have no idea what's the point of them doing max damage at all ranges.
-What are you talking about melee being useless? Thanks to crits melee has amazing damage potential and to classes like demo, sniper and medic it's vital to their close range survival. Medic even is a beast with 150 hp, regenerating health, +5% movement speed and that ever so critting bonesaw. Soldier and demo being dive classes have to use their melee offensively if they're smart, since they really have to be mindful of keeping their guns loaded. Most fun thing in the game? A meaty melee crit kill you ask me. Point being I disagree.
-You know unlocks were added in after the crits, right? Anyway I'm not sure if crossbow and loose cannon should have crits but that's an argument of weapon balance, not crits per se.
-Demo can crit with melee, what are you talking about?
You adapt as a team. Your carry just ate a crocket so now the enemy team is going to roll over unless your defense wasn't relying on that player alone. This is the reason why crits force you to play smarter.
Come on, the whole point I for one am trying to make that this aspect of randomness is much more intricate than "wins and losses be random". I hope you're just being condescending and don't actually think that.
If you're changing the game into something fundamentally different you aren't simply "improving" it. Especially when your reasons for doing so are as shallow as trying to get a slice of Overwatch's success.
Random crits are fun. Nothing beats the feeling of that "ZOINK" when some poor sap takes your crit pipe directly to the face.
If you're getting spawn locked you won't be "experimenting" whether crits are a thing or not.
its less about "i dont like crits because they make me mad and frustrated" and more of "i've played this much and as far as i can tell, among others that the outcome is often not good for both sides."
sure, you can enjoy crits and i don't see that as a negative thing, but much like balancing weapons and other mechanics you have to think outside of what you specifically want - like building scenarios and be able to determine the impact of said particular element. if you only limit your judgement to "i like/dislike crits and those who do/don't are dumb" we're in for an endless circlejerk. aka dont make it personal you fucking nerds,
so far those agaisnt random crits have stated that the main issue with them is that they're an out of bounds element that can potentionally ruin the experience of those affected by it, rewarding those with better perfomances rather than being a tool to assist those in need of a comeback. while crits as a mechanic exist in tf2 and it exist to actually reward certain conditions (such as headshots, backstabs and kritzkriegs)
thos in favor of random crits state that they're inherently part of the randomness and fun of tf2's gameplay and that they act more as a tool to create little moments of rewarding joy on both sides, forcing even experienced players to be constantly aware of their enemies, no matter the skill gap between them.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.