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Author Topic: Balls  (Read 4459 times)

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Doom

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Balls
« Reply #20 on: April 05, 2009, 01:21:53 PM »

Bongo: I think the point everybody is failing to make is that it's annoying as hell to be crit rocket, facestabbed, or headshot the instant you enter a line of sight.

Yet we've all gotten rather used to it. You'll get used to the Sandman.

And of course, we all still occasionally rage quit when we get crocket'd four times out of four leaving our spawn.

Considering I run FAN/Pistol/Sandman myself, I am rather apt to the hit and run strategy, using the Sandman almost exclusively to either play defensive(stun an uber, stun a dude and run from a losing 1v1) or to try and cheese in some free hits(notably, stun from mid-to-long-range, run up, empty pistol clip and 1/2 into target.) The stun damage reduction fits perfectly fine after the initial WHAT THE HELL period on both ends.
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Bongo Bill

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Balls
« Reply #21 on: April 05, 2009, 01:35:00 PM »

I'm just cheesed that they saw fit to make an update that represents a net increase in bullshit for 90% of players, and that my two favorite classes are the ones that got hit the hardest.
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Brentai

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Balls
« Reply #22 on: April 05, 2009, 01:36:08 PM »

One thing I almost miss about the non-damage reduced Sandman stun is playing Medic.  If you pay just the slightest bit of attention, it's completely obvious when one of your teammates just got Bonk!ed, and that's your cue to stick your Medibeam on that person and keep it there.  That Scout and any other predators nearby are going to focus exclusively on the stunned guy and ignore the Medic healing him, which usually results in a massive failure to actually out-damage the healing rate of the Medigun and a bunch of easy-to-squish classes within melee rage of a very angry assault unit.  Free points!

With the damage reduction in effect most Scouts have figured out that the Sandman is not for killing people, so it doesn't happen any more.
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Detonator

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Re: Balls
« Reply #23 on: April 05, 2009, 02:28:53 PM »

I'm just cheesed that they saw fit to make an update that represents a net increase in bullshit for 90% of players, and that my two favorite classes are the ones that got hit the hardest.

Remember when you wouldn't stop complaining about how hard it was to play Engineer, and we said to just keep playing and eventually you'd get better?  And you did?  Yeah, just stop bitching and learn how to dodge.  Baseballs will always be slower than bullets.  I play my fair share of Heavy, and hardly get bonked at all anymore.  I think you're just exaggerating the problem in your mind, and if you actually played you'd realize that me backstabbing you is far more annoying.
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Bongo Bill

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Re: Balls
« Reply #24 on: April 05, 2009, 02:56:03 PM »

I'm not just complaining on my own behalf. There's more to this than my frustration at my own considerable incompetence. It's not about how often it happens or how annoying it is relative to a backstab (those things just make me care more about it).

The only unfun part of Team Fortress 2 is when control is taken away from the player. Since you are not playing at all during this time, I feel this is an uncontroversial statement. Control is taken away during respawn times, and that's a pain, but the entire game is built around it. You can't take out respawn times without changing the entire game. Good things have been built on top of that foundation.

You can take out stuns, the other source of supreme annoyance, without changing the entire game. In fact, such a game existed for over a year, and was still recognizable as being a slight variation on the same game we have now. The Sandman added a new way to play for 10% of players, and a new way to not play for 90%. The purpose of the game being to play it, I do not see how this constitutes an improvement.

If the Sandman just made it so you couldn't fire any weapons for the duration, but could still move, it would have much the same effect on the balance, but it would not have the "make the player unable to play" problem. And then my only objection to it would be that I suck.
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Misha

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Re: Balls
« Reply #25 on: April 05, 2009, 03:34:28 PM »

if you're fine with not being able to play for the 20 seconds of respawn you should be able to not play for the 1-6 seconds of stun. hell as a heavy I often spend way more time than that getting to the front lines or not doing much of anything while I wait for them to try to push the cart into my range of death again. or standing on a point waiting for blue team to try something, or standing on a point waiting for it to cap. Just because I can walk back and forth on the point while waiting doesn't mean I'm actually getting to play the game.

You ARE just complaining on your own behalf. You're trying to pretend that your annoyance at getting stunned is something more than a pet peeve.
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Arc

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Re: Balls
« Reply #26 on: April 05, 2009, 03:47:20 PM »

if you're fine with not being able to play for the 20 seconds of respawn

:humpf: I'm not.

13 seconds I could handle. Those extra 7 make me wanna snipe a bro.
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Saturn

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Re: Balls
« Reply #27 on: April 05, 2009, 03:59:27 PM »

Respawn time? more like 20 seconds where i can mock the 4+ people i just melted during my most recent pyro kamikaze run
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Bongo Bill

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Re: Balls
« Reply #28 on: April 05, 2009, 05:44:17 PM »

I have no doubt that I will get used to it. The way you get used to a mild toothache.

The ability to do something at any given moment, even if it's something boring, makes a huge difference. Valve realized this difference by never taking you out of the action in the original Half-Life. How could they forget it ten years later?

You won't get me to concede that control being taken away from the player is ever a good thing. It was a necessary evil when it appeared as respawn times. Complete stuns are not necessary.
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Bal

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Re: Balls
« Reply #29 on: April 05, 2009, 05:52:57 PM »

Killing is normal. Any class can kill. With critical hits and such, any class can even kill without instantly from time to time, or as near enough to instantly as to make no practical difference to mere humans. Since you can only see in front of you, it's even possible for any class to kill without warning. It's a pervasive and normal part of the gameplay in a way that stuns are not.

Again, how are stuns more unique than back stabs, head shots, and ubers/kritzkriegs. I don't understand why the Scout being able to do something unique is so offensive to you.

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When I said annoying, I meant in terms of characterization.

If that's the case, why did you bring it up? It has no bearing on game balance, except to color your preference further. That is to say you find not only the way a scout fights you annoying, but the actual character annoying as well, so you are even more likely to be bias.

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You told me to dodge the balls. I gave you many reasons why that'd be too much to ask for a lot of players. Not everybody is a pro gamer.

Being evasive is hardly a pro gamer skill that you can only achieve through strict training techniques. Just dodge around, it's not that hard. If that's too much to ask of someone, then that person is bad at the game. We're talking basic FPS skills here.

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You'll excuse me for thinking you hate critrockets when you listed them as an example of something that's more bullshit than a stun.

This is just lack of reading comprehension. Here is what I said:

Quote from: Bal
How is this worse than a crit rocket or, removing random chance, the headshot or backstab of the unseen sniper or spy?

My point here is that these things are just as sudden, and more absolute in most cases, than a stun ball. I even set crit rockets aside because they were random, and not wholly the result of skillful play as is the case with stun balls, headshots, and backstabs. You're projecting your dislike of the stun ball onto me, because I compared the two, and since the stun ball is so bad, I must hate crit rockets. Well the stun ball isn't bad, and I don't hate any of the things I just listed.

I'm not just complaining on my own behalf. There's more to this than my frustration at my own considerable incompetence. It's not about how often it happens or how annoying it is relative to a backstab (those things just make me care more about it).

Clearly you are, at least as far as we're concerned. If it's not about how it relates to the rest of the game, what is it about?

Quote
The only unfun part of Team Fortress 2 is when control is taken away from the player. Since you are not playing at all during this time, I feel this is an uncontroversial statement. Control is taken away during respawn times, and that's a pain, but the entire game is built around it. You can't take out respawn times without changing the entire game. Good things have been built on top of that foundation.

I disagree with the statement that the fun available to a stunned player is zero. As I've said, while you can't immediately respond, you are still playing more than if you were dead. If you die during the stun it is either because of a concerted effort by the enemy team, or because you were at low enough health that the scout could kill you through the stun, which is little different than if he'd just run up and shot you. So little in fact, that that's not what the sandman is primarily for, and most ambush scouts don't use it.

Quote
You can take out stuns, the other source of supreme annoyance, without changing the entire game. In fact, such a game existed for over a year, and was still recognizable as being a slight variation on the same game we have now. The Sandman added a new way to play for 10% of players, and a new way to not play for 90%. The purpose of the game being to play it, I do not see how this constitutes an improvement.

That's a gross over-simplification of what the stun actually adds to the game. First of all, your 10%/90% statistic is bullshit. Every class has the goal of making every enemy player play less, that's how you win. The Sandman serves the purpose of disruption and isolation, making it a very powerful tool in the hands of a skilled player, but no more so than is available to every class.

Quote
If the Sandman just made it so you couldn't fire any weapons for the duration, but could still move, it would have much the same effect on the balance, but it would not have the "make the player unable to play" problem. And then my only objection to it would be that I suck.

I don't really have any comment for this, except that I disagree that the effect would be the same.
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Mongrel

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Re: Balls
« Reply #30 on: April 05, 2009, 06:25:52 PM »

Bongo, I hate to break it to you, but rather than make a giant quote ziggurat, I'll just come out and say: Yeah, you're arguing your personal opinion and telling yourself that you're being objective - and it is really really obvious.
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Bongo Bill

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Re: Balls
« Reply #31 on: April 05, 2009, 07:34:39 PM »

Yeah... yeah. There's hardly any objectivity to be had in talking about what makes a good game. Even so, there's got to be a better way to block an attacker than granting durr hurr now you can't do anything powers to a class that doesn't have anything to do with instant kills. Something that's less of a complete fuck-you to the target.
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Kazz

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Re: Balls
« Reply #32 on: April 05, 2009, 07:47:02 PM »

Solution:

While you are stunned, you get to play Tetris!
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Kazz

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Re: Balls
« Reply #33 on: April 05, 2009, 07:49:38 PM »

also, I get stunned by the ball maybe once a night.
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Re: Balls
« Reply #34 on: April 05, 2009, 07:53:05 PM »

Isn't the whole thing of the scout - the character, the mechanics before the patch, everything - to be an annoying little shitnozzle that you wish you could strangle to death and then use his corpse to beat similar shitnozzles, and eventually shoving each of their heads up each other's asses to make a gigantic whip of shitnozzles that you scream from the top of the highest mountain while cracking it?


Because the sandman stun fits with that perfectly
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Mongrel

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Re: Balls
« Reply #35 on: April 05, 2009, 07:58:07 PM »

also, I get stunned by the ball maybe once a night.

 

And I'm terrible.
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Zaratustra

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Re: Balls
« Reply #36 on: April 05, 2009, 09:14:30 PM »

You know what it's like for me to play tf2, Bongo?

aside from the lag, I get these bouts where the computer just FREEZES.

the sound keeps stuttering and I am immobile (even if midjump).

this occurs mostly during high-band situations like, say, most firefights and whenever a spy is around.

SO QUIT YOUR SISSY WHINING JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE FORCED INTO THIRD-PERSON VIEW FOR THREE SECONDS.

Bongo Bill

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Re: Balls
« Reply #37 on: April 05, 2009, 09:17:40 PM »

I have four kinds of cancer so you can't complain about a video game.
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Zaratustra

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Re: Balls
« Reply #38 on: April 05, 2009, 09:18:15 PM »

I hope you DIE of four kinds of cancer

Bongo Bill

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Re: Balls
« Reply #39 on: April 05, 2009, 09:24:39 PM »

I hope you DIE of four kinds of cancer
At the same time?
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