Do we need overpressure?

[Fruitcake]

Originally Posted by FDA_Approved

I disagree. We don't really run that many pugs, I don't think that many people playing pugs use the Jgun that often, and let's be honest, we've been scrapping the bottom of the barrel to fill for a while now. No offense to anyone, but we've been converting anyone we can into a "pug player" for a while now. Even the more veteran players don't do anything to push each other competitively. (It's pretty funny watching you guys call each other scrubs, when there are people out there, some who've never even played FF, who could come in and unbalance our games by un-stackable amounts)

We've played over 50 games in July so far and about 100 over June. Given that's not enough time for everything to be learned, but it is time for reasonable impressions to be formed. Competitive play may not be at its peak given the declining player count, but are you suggesting we throw out all balance feedback because current pickup players aren't great enough? Let me know when the amazing players who could stack our games show up. I'd love to play with them.

Originally Posted by FDA_Approved

I'm sure the first time some solly missed an air in TF2 because of scout double jump, he probably thought "omg how will Airs ever be a thing when scouts can abruptly change direction in air?". But now we have frag videos where soldiers either predict/wait for the double jump, or just fire a second rocket after. If jgun is more abrupt than tf2 scouts double jump, I don't know, but I accept the challenge either way.

Having played a decent amount of tf2 I can tell you this is a unfair comparison. Double jump does allow you to juke yes. In FF we have MUCH greater air strafe which you can already juke with. Jump gun is double jump juke added onto highly controllable airstrafing, so it's far worse in FF.

As a side note on airshots; I do think pulling out hitscan shotgun is the safe play. However airshots with projectiles are something I find inherently fun, and are something I don't want to discourage more than they already are.

Originally Posted by FDA_Approved

I feel like this is BS just because you specified "indoors". The only thing Jgun has to offer concs is insane height, which doesn't come into play "indoors". Other than that, Jgun makes concs much slower than a normal conc.

I must confess, when I made this comment I was thinking chiefly of destroy. When I think about class balance I always think in terms of destroy because ff_destroy is the most well balanced well designed map in the game, in my opinion. Many ff maps have sloped ceilings, which when conced into with jumpgun force you in a particular direction. This is especially true on destroy, where the ceilings slope up on the way in, and down on the way out. I have gotten many HH+jgun concs into the ceiling that actually moved me a decent ways forwards because of sloped ceilings.

Originally Posted by FDA_Approved

I know Squeek said they were both tested at the same time, with the Jgun being a counter, But I still don't believe the Jgun was just "an OP counter"

It's not that I view them as a inseparable item, I just think HWG needs a nerf at the moment, as he is by far the strongest defense, and removing overpressure is the simplest nerf that comes to mind. Really overpressure and HWG balance is a separate issue from jump gun.

Originally Posted by squeek.

I think the criticism that the jumpgun allows for cheap escapes is totally fair, and it's the thing I'm least happy about with it. If anyone has any ideas for how that could be corrected while still meeting some of the goals in the above link, I'm all ears.

Would it be possible to remove the vertical aspect of jump gun? As in make it purely a boost horizontally? That would stop a majority of the cheap escape applications, while still allowing overpressure countering. Turn it into a horizontal kick starter, say boost to max bhop speed on fire. It would still allow for jgun+conc jukes etc, but would remove the more annoying escape routes problem.

[oaties]

Originally Posted by FDA_Approved

I have pitched for a "sv_competitive" setting before. With such an svar we could do things like entirely remove jpads from pugs and comp matches. At the same time we could revert the jpad nerf for pubs, seeing as how jpads undeniably add to the ease of access and fun factor for new players in pubs.

I just want to add my opinion on competitive modes and settings for games - if you notice, the mark of what makes a competitive game popular as an esport is that public level gameplay and competitive gameplay are fairly similar - this allows for new players who are learning to bridge the gap between casual and competitive.

Look at league of legends - playing the game in normals, casually, is at its core the same as high level gameplay.. Same with games like Dota, CSGO (to an extent), and such.

Just as an example, look at TF2. It's just starting to get more competitive, but TF2 has always had a very difficult time become "established", because the competitive meta completely clashed with Valves design for the game (pretty sure valve still doesn't really "support" 6s).

[FDA_Approved]

Originally Posted by oaties

I just want to add my opinion on competitive modes and settings for games - if you notice, the mark of what makes a competitive game popular as an esport is that public level gameplay and competitive gameplay are fairly similar - this allows for new players who are learning to bridge the gap between casual and competitive.

Look at league of legends - playing the game in normals, casually, is at its core the same as high level gameplay.. Same with games like Dota, CSGO (to an extent), and such.

Just as an example, look at TF2. It's just starting to get more competitive, but TF2 has always had a very difficult time become "established", because the competitive meta completely clashed with Valves design for the game (pretty sure valve still doesn't really "support" 6s).

Except FF is never going to garner a large following, we can provide both sides of the community with a better quality of life, and just like tf2 we already have our own little rules and restrictions that alienate more casual players.

TF2 is not "just starting" to be competitive. Like what? TF2 may not have ever been the biggest game, but it has had a pretty solid run of leagues over the years. If anything I'd imagine it's starting to fizzle out.

Would it be possible to remove the vertical aspect of jump gun? As in make it purely a boost horizontally?

That's disgusting and removes the entire purpose of the gun in the first place. Now you've made it entirely into a bhop crutch, super gross.

[caesium]

I have very little idea what I'm on about, but personally I never liked overpressure. I didn't find it helped me in any fundamental way at all (i.e. it didn't change how I'd play, probably because it's so occasional compared to the pace of the game), but just gave a handful of extra cheap feeling kills (even if those extra kills could sometimes be crucial like a flag carrier).

For me a key differences between the two DM defenders (soldier/HW) is stopping power. By giving the HW genuine stopping power (even if only occasionally) it muddies the waters. For example, before overpressure I liked that if you attack a route defended by an HW and do a great conc then you will essentially always get past (albeit damaged) whereas the same is not true of a soldier. It made the choices of where to attack, as well as defensive strategies, cleaner and better defined.

That said, if overpressure actually helps lesser HWs play to a workable level then maybe it's worth the extra complexity.

On that subject, I've always thought people judge HW's far too much on kills. More so than any other class it's often a very fine line whether or not the HW gets the kill assigned to him (even if his positioning/damage primarily facilitated the kill), plus when actually playing a match to win I'd intentionally go for far fewer kills than when just playing a pickup for "fun". Assists might help with that, but my main point is that maybe it's an issue of perception in that people think they/others are not good enough at HW for pickups just because they don't get high scores, whereas in reality they may be far from the weakest link in their team and possibly more effective than other HWs who rack up higher scores.

[XPelargos]

I liked HW's slow grenade as a concept because it doesn't interrupt your trajectory, just imposes a speed limit on the scout/medic car.

Whereas the overpressure causes a 3-car pileup on the 405 type deal.

Yet with only 1 slow nade and it lasting 5 seconds it never felt like I could be a traffic cop long enough.

What about removing overpressure and moving the slow nade effect to right click? i.e. every 20 seconds HW can right click and causes people in a small radius around him to slow down for 1/2 seconds? (Particle effects would have to accompany to show that it's active.)

This would still require him to maneuver to where the scouts are coming (my skill cap!) but not be so annoying with the farting and trajectory interruption stuff.

[squeek.]

I wonder if replacing overpressure with a straightforward damage dealer (+attack2 deals damage in a radius around you) would make it less frustrating to play against while still keeping some of the usefulness of overpressure.

(keep in mind that all damage slows people down)

[Fat-Suzy]

Originally Posted by squeek.

I wonder if replacing overpressure with a straightforward damage dealer (+attack2 deals damage in a radius around you) would make it less frustrating to play against while still keeping some of the usefulness of overpressure.

(keep in mind that all damage slows people down)

Like some kind of poisonous fart? You'd better make the particle effect a green/brown hue..

[Fruitcake]

The last thing HWG needs is more damage heh .
As for making overpressure great again (c wat i did there?), could you change it to be more like a mini concussion grenade centered on HWG (and not affecting him). Lower the radius and the push back maybe. Also concussion grenades push you harder if you're on the edge so maybe invert it so overpressure pushes hardest closer to the center. Just some thoughts.

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by Fruitcake

The last thing HWG needs is more damage heh .

Overpressure is used to stop people so you can do damage to them, though, right? Damage that would otherwise not be dealt (or at least not as much)?

In theory, it could balance out overall while be less frustrating (assuming it's the being stopped that is frustrating).

As for making overpressure great again (c wat i did there?), could you change it to be more like a mini concussion grenade centered on HWG (and not affecting him). Lower the radius and the push back maybe. Also concussion grenades push you harder if you're on the edge so maybe invert it so overpressure pushes hardest closer to the center. Just some thoughts.

Not sure how that's different than what exists now.