Server Improvements

Draco · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 8:09 pm Post subject:

After realizing that we changed the spawn times we need to get rid of random crits. 20 seconds is COMPETITIVE spawn times and so you have to commit to competitive weapon standard for that. Regarding the whole melee thing, melee weapons weren't meant to be useful in regular combat. They're that last ditch resort. In the case of melee weapons that are meant to be useful you have a situation where they can get crits (e.g. frontier justice).

Messy Recipe · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 9:03 pm Post subject:

We haven't changed spawn times; the plugin was just off because the server was crashing yesterday and support recommended turning them off to see if the crashing stopped.
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atatme · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 9:04 pm Post subject:

Draco wrote:

After realizing that we changed the spawn times we need to get rid of random crits. 20 seconds is COMPETITIVE spawn times and so you have to commit to competitive weapon standard for that. Regarding the whole melee thing, melee weapons weren't meant to be useful in regular combat. They're that last ditch resort. In the case of melee weapons that are meant to be useful you have a situation where they can get crits (e.g. frontier justice).

Fuck that. If that is true, than demoknights were designed to be garbage from the start. I kinda doubt valve would add gameplay elements counting on them being bad. Also, frontier justice isn't a melee weapon

Messy Recipe · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 9:23 pm Post subject:

I've always thought of demoknights as an indirect nerf to the vanilla demo. For one, they don't have near the immediate destructive potential, but because you willingly have to choose the weapons it's not something anyone can really rage about... but also, demoknights are one of the best counter-classes to a vanilla demo like me, since we're limited at close range.

Even has a bottle-demo I still find melee excessively useful though. It hits hard and nearly always works against someone backing towards a wall or something, or someone closing in rapidly. Most melee kills look something like the one near 2:13 here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KgQQvvgTraU&hd=1#t=129s
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atatme · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 9:39 pm Post subject:

USAF 777 wrote:

I've always thought of demoknights as an indirect nerf to the vanilla demo. For one, they don't have near the immediate destructive potential, but because you willingly have to choose the weapons it's not something anyone can really rage about... but also, demoknights are one of the best counter-classes to a vanilla demo like me, since we're limited at close range.

Even has a bottle-demo I still find melee excessively useful though. It hits hard and nearly always works against someone backing towards a wall or something, or someone closing in rapidly. Most melee kills look something like the one near 2:13 here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KgQQvvgTraU&hd=1#t=129s

Sure, but demoknights have their uses. They don't have the overall destructive capacity of regular demos, but (if they are smart) they still use the GL (and presumably can aim rather well with it) which allows them to keep a certain amount of their destructive power at range. The shield also allows demoknights to chase down fleeing medics extremely well, and the shield also forces other people to engage with you in melee combat (which with the crit hit and the fact that you are probably using a sword, you should win unless they are a pyro)

Draco · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 9:43 pm Post subject:

atatme wrote:

Draco wrote:

After realizing that we changed the spawn times we need to get rid of random crits. 20 seconds is COMPETITIVE spawn times and so you have to commit to competitive weapon standard for that. Regarding the whole melee thing, melee weapons weren't meant to be useful in regular combat. They're that last ditch resort. In the case of melee weapons that are meant to be useful you have a situation where they can get crits (e.g. frontier justice).

Fuck that. If that is true, than demoknights were designed to be garbage from the start. I kinda doubt valve would add gameplay elements counting on them being bad. Also, frontier justice isn't a melee weapon

Tripped myself up there, I meant frontier justice as a weapon that you get crits from a specific situation in the case with that weapon, your sentry being destroyed after getting kills & assists.

Concerning the demoknight, look at the loadout an actual demoknight has. Charge n' Targe or Splendid Screen should be equipped. Those weapons give you crits at the end of the charge for the Targe and at any time for the Splendid Screen. The shields let you actually choose when you get a critical hit (which is 195 damage enough to 1 hit everything except Heavies, Soldiers and classes with 150+hp who are overhealed). Due to the demoknight subclass being designed for melee-fighting it can easily kill a lot of the classes with one hit, two when you take into consideration damage dealt by the charge. The other melee weapons, used by regular classes (e.g. the wrench, fists, kukri) those are meant as a final resort when you're backed into a corner, can't aim properly or out of ammo and thus aren't meant to have someone charge in head first to deal damage.

Random crits let's any melee weapon that has no damage reduction deal 195 damage. In that case it becomes just as bad as a random crocket hitting you as you walk out of spawn. You can push someone into the corner and in that last ditch effort to deal some damage before they die they one hit you just because you're a light class or you took 5 damage as a soldier. That is akin to shooting someone in the head as a sniper and then the bullet bouncing off their head and killing you. By all reason it shouldn't happen and yet it does.

atatme · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 9:52 pm Post subject:

Draco wrote:

atatme wrote:

Draco wrote:

After realizing that we changed the spawn times we need to get rid of random crits. 20 seconds is COMPETITIVE spawn times and so you have to commit to competitive weapon standard for that. Regarding the whole melee thing, melee weapons weren't meant to be useful in regular combat. They're that last ditch resort. In the case of melee weapons that are meant to be useful you have a situation where they can get crits (e.g. frontier justice).

Fuck that. If that is true, than demoknights were designed to be garbage from the start. I kinda doubt valve would add gameplay elements counting on them being bad. Also, frontier justice isn't a melee weapon

Tripped myself up there, I meant frontier justice as a weapon that you get crits from a specific situation in the case with that weapon, your sentry being destroyed after getting kills & assists.

Concerning the demoknight, look at the loadout an actual demoknight has. Charge n' Targe or Splendid Screen should be equipped. Those weapons give you crits at the end of the charge for the Targe and at any time for the Splendid Screen. The shields let you actually choose when you get a critical hit (which is 195 damage enough to 1 hit everything except Heavies, Soldiers and classes with 150+hp who are overhealed). Due to the demoknight subclass being designed for melee-fighting it can easily kill a lot of the classes with one hit, two when you take into consideration damage dealt by the charge. The other melee weapons, used by regular classes (e.g. the wrench, fists, kukri) those are meant as a final resort when you're backed into a corner, can't aim properly or out of ammo and thus aren't meant to have someone charge in head first to deal damage.

Random crits let's any melee weapon that has no damage reduction deal 195 damage. In that case it becomes just as bad as a random crocket hitting you as you walk out of spawn. You can push someone into the corner and in that last ditch effort to deal some damage before they die they one hit you just because you're a light class or you took 5 damage as a soldier. That is akin to shooting someone in the head as a sniper and then the bullet bouncing off their head and killing you. By all reason it shouldn't happen and yet it does.

Good argument. I concede my point, lets remove em

Draco · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 9:59 pm Post subject:

Talked with atatme and had an idea that he's probably about to shoot down but I'll post it here anyway: What if we had a mod that let us disable random crits on specific players? That way we wouldn't have the good players running around 1 hitting people through a combination of sheer luck and being able to hit someone easily and the newer players who aren't as skilled can still kill good players.

Edit: On the other hand, if there was a mod that did something similar but instead of disabling random crits it just didn't increase the chance of one happening over time that might work as well.

BarytaQ · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 11:05 pm Post subject:

Look, it's not a competitive server. We shouldn't expect the random people that join to want to play competitively.

I know that we have a lot of people that DO play that kick serious amounts of ass. That being said, we shouldn't act like this server is anything that it's not. There is an Egypt Pro server where they do have competitive settings, if you want to play competitive, play there. You wanna kick back and kick some ass, hit up the CT server. Also, if we're changing something, there should be a vote, shouldn't there?
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Insomniac · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 11:18 pm Post subject:

I still like the idea of the crit vote plug in. That doesnt mean there will ALWAYS be "no crit" you know. I'm sure the common players on the server will catch on and vote for crits if there are alot of inexperienced players.

BarytaQ · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 11:32 pm Post subject:

The only problem with that Inso (Yes, I do that to infuriate you) is you're basing this off the fact that people on the internet care about random people they're shooting at. I think it goes "Fuck newbs".
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Draco · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 11:34 pm Post subject:

BarytaQ wrote:

Look, it's not a competitive server. We shouldn't expect the random people that join to want to play competitively.

I know that we have a lot of people that DO play that kick serious amounts of ass. That being said, we shouldn't act like this server is anything that it's not. There is an Egypt Pro server where they do have competitive settings, if you want to play competitive, play there. You wanna kick back and kick some ass, hit up the CT server. Also, if we're changing something, there should be a vote, shouldn't there?

The idea behind the random crits (and to a lesser extend weapon and damage spread) as a feature from Valve was to put people more on even footing. The idea was you could have someone who could be in ESEA-P (the highest ranking league) and who could still be killed by someone who just started playing TF2. However at the same time it can wreak havoc when someone from ESEA-P gets a random crit because they already know how to get the most out of things like regular rockets or stickies, the crit just doubles the damage done.

As for the whole changing thing I was suggesting it as something we could do to balance out the server a bit. Just an example: We could have a mod that looks at hlstats and after taking into considerations a number of factors will decide whether the chance of a random crit should stay the same, go up by a lower amount or stay the same.

Brief explanation for how crits work for those unfamiliar: Regular weapons have a base chance of 2% for getting a random critical hit. This chance increases based on the amount of damage done within the last 20 seconds and flattens out at 800 damage (so if you do 800+ damage in 20 seconds your chance of a random critical will go from 2% to 10%). So if we could have a mod that when you meet certain requirements changes it from 10% at 800+ damage to 5% or something making it rarer for the stronger players to get a random crits despite still doing more damage.

BarytaQ · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 11:50 pm Post subject:

Yaknow... I just thought that this was rather akin to the SOPA argument.
At first it was "Stop it in all circumstances" (Sopa wants to stop the internet, sorta) and now we've progressed to what I hope will happen to SOPA. A dignified discussion with those that give more than 2 shits about what is trying to be changed. I know it's stretching, I just thought it was amusing.

In conclusion, fuck sopa.
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Pharaoh Man · Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 12:19 pm Post subject:

I absolutely disagree with removing random crits.

Random crits helps good players a lot more than it helps new players. You still have to aim your shot for it to be useful, and good players aim better.

It bothers me when people use the word "random" when talking about them, because they aren't random at all (even though it's in the name). It's based on ramping probability, and the more damage you do, and better you play, the higher chance you have of getting crits.

I think it's important for new players to be able to kill a regular occasionally, otherwise they'll just leave and never come back. Yes, that's great that you were on a 12-kill streak and got killed by a crit. It works both ways. Sometimes even good players can make terrifying plays because they got a well-aimed crit at the right moment, and it feels fantastic.

Crits are an important part of pub gaming. Don't mess with them.

junkyard · Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 12:50 pm Post subject:

Pharaoh Man wrote:

I absolutely disagree with removing random crits.

Random crits helps good players a lot more than it helps new players. You still have to aim your shot for it to be useful, and good players aim better.

It bothers me when people use the word "random" when talking about them, because they aren't random at all (even though it's in the name). It's based on ramping probability, and the more damage you do, and better you play, the higher chance you have of getting crits.

I think it's important for new players to be able to kill a regular occasionally, otherwise they'll just leave and never come back. Yes, that's great that you were on a 12-kill streak and got killed by a crit. It works both ways. Sometimes even good players can make terrifying plays because they got a well-aimed crit at the right moment, and it feels fantastic.

Crits are an important part of pub gaming. Don't mess with them.

+1. You took the argument in my head and made it better. We're a pub server, lets keep it that way. I enjoy the games, the respawn times, the settings, and the random crits. (despite two of my main loadout weapons not getting them)