A Tyrue rant about SnD features

[Tyrue]

Well, you guys all know me as someone who likes to voice their opinion on certain aspects of SnD. So I decided to put it into a more formal medium.

Ghost:
There was a decent-sized conversation about ghost in the Athios feedback channel the other day. This will be a list of suggestions I saw and my thoughts on that.
The main reason why I think ghost needs a change is that too many people play it, and it is the most op kit in the right hands.

When half of the lobby is filled with ghost/wraith, the gameplay is long and boring.

Some of the changes that I saw:
Compass:
Change the compass so that it accurately tracks invisible kits. As of right now, your compass could point in the complete opposite direction and say 30 blocks away when a ghost is right behind you. A useless killstreak. I am in full support of this suggestion.
Particles:
Show particles similar to wraith when the sword is revealed/unrevealed. I do not support this suggestion at all because it would completely take away the skill gap in this kit, and severely nerf it in the process.
Sharp 1:
Make the sword sharp 1 instead of sharp 2. According to Woaxa, Athios weapon damage numbers do not match vanilla numbers. I believe Woaxa stated that Sabreur sword (Gold sharp 1) did slightly more than a base iron sword. With that in mind, a sharp 2 gold sword would deal more than a sharp 1 iron (more than a trooper). That seems busted to me. I support this change by about 80%.
Spy Buff:
Buff spy to give it some sort of way to find/track/reveal ghosts. Spy is an extremely underused kit, and this would definitely give it more of a use. I support this change by 80%.
Combat PVP:
Take away ghosts ability to have out-of-combat regen or nerf it. This is my thought, ghosts have an extremely easy way of getting out of a fight, the kits that they target typically do not. If a ghost goes up and attacks a kit, they will either win or lose the engagement. If they win, the opponent is dead, gg wp no re. If the ghost loses, he backs away for 15 seconds, heals to full health, then reengages into the fight. This essentially gives a ghost a second life or multiple lives. With the combat update, a ghost can re-enter a fight much quicker than it could previously. Nerfing its healing by maybe doubling the amount of time it takes to start combat healing would be a way to negate this effect. I am in full support of this change.

I believe there were more suggestions, these were just the main ones that I remembered. Please comment more.


Combat PVP:
I want to start out by saying that I love how there is an out-of-combat regen system. But, I think it should have a slight change.

As of right now, I believe out of combat regen takes place if you do not take damage or deal damage for 10 seconds. What this means is that if you fight someone and you lose the engagement, you can run around the map until you're full health while the enemy trooper chases you. You're technically not out-of-combat at this point because there is someone chasing you trying to kill you.

The change for this that I think would be beneficial would be to stand still or crouch. You wouldn't be able stand still or crouch unless you were out of combat. The timing for this should change to 5 seconds as well. This would also add another skill gap which I think SnD desperately needs because the 1.8ish combat doesn't cut it.

Map Rotation and Kit Rotation:
I definitely like how we are looking to get rid of some maps, there a lot of maps that look like flat rectangles and they don't provide any good gameplay.

I think it would be interesting if we implemented a map rotation and kit rotation where we take out a few maps and a few kits each month to see how the meta changes.

Demo:
Demo feels really weak please give it fire aspect 2 again.

Pyro:
Pyro is broken af. It feels tankier than it should be because it doesn't take damage from explosions of arrows, and the protection on the boots makes it too defensive to sword hits.

Item Kills:
They were a fun part of RWF and made the game less sweaty.


That's all I can think of right now.

Go get those fuse kills

Tyrue

 

[Onett]

For ghost I feel like nerfing natural regen and making it trackable with compass would be the move. Sword nerf seems a bit much. I think that’d be enough to make it balanced.

Spy buff would be cool but I feel like the idea you mentioned is pretty niche and I’d rather buff it’s ability to be stealthy. Maybe give it an item that gives it temporary invisibility instead? Especially when kits like sorcerer now exist I think adding more abilities to previously simple kits isn’t a huge deal.

I 100% agree about pyro, it’s really annoying to play against. Imo nerfing proj prot and blast resistance would be the move. It is already squishy enough to melee and I feel that it can just deal so much damage to the enemy so easily, which is partially thanks to its ability to just tank dmg from anyone who shoots back at them.

I don’t really agree with adding fire aspect 2 back for demo tho, I remember I used to play a lot of demo during early Athios and it was way too easy to just kite people and wittle them down with fire. The kit already has big game impact with its landmines.

 

[Tyrue]

For ghost I feel like nerfing natural regen and making it trackable with compass would be the move. Sword nerf seems a bit much. I think that’d be enough to make it balanced.

Spy buff would be cool but I feel like the idea you mentioned is pretty niche and I’d rather buff it’s ability to be stealthy. Maybe give it an item that gives it temporary invisibility instead? Especially when kits like sorcerer now exist I think adding more abilities to previously simple kits isn’t a huge deal.

I 100% agree about pyro, it’s really annoying to play against. Imo nerfing proj prot and blast resistance would be the move. It is already squishy enough to melee and I feel that it can just deal so much damage to the enemy so easily, which is partially thanks to its ability to just tank dmg from anyone who shoots back at them.

I don’t really agree with adding fire aspect 2 back for demo tho, I remember I used to play a lot of demo during early Athios and it was way too easy to just kite people and wittle them down with fire. The kit already has big game impact with its landmines.

A few of the ghost suggestions were things that I saw in athios feedback, not all my ideas.

I thought about including some type of invis timer for ghost, but I also thought that it might take away what the actual kit is.

I completely agree that adding more items for players to use would be a huge positive and good change for SnD.
Maybe even a new killstreak.

I play a decent amount of demo, and it really only seems like a good kit when people step on your landmines. Since almost all of us are og's we understand where landmines are and where people tend to place them. Demo's armor is extremely weak so maybe giving it some sort of blast, port, or something would be good. It seems like a lot of kits nowadays have some sort of enchantment on them.

 

[Mythless]

I agree with everything pointed out here—the ghost changes would definitely make it less annoying to deal with while also still keeping some aspects of the kit in tact. There are two points I will heavily advocate especially:

The Spy buff (being able to partially see invisible kits). Currently the kit is only able to rely on its ability to surprise opponents, and while in the first few games it’s fine, it doesn’t serve any real purpose in prolonged gameplay. People will just figure out you’re a spy and that’s it, you’re just a watered-down Trooper until later on when people forget that you play Spy. At least with Skinner, you are able to change your look so it makes it harder to detect. I get the point that “some kits aren’t meant to be played every game,” but I don’t think that should translate to being functionally useless due to simple play frequency. Look at Marine—a kit that’s primarily strong in the water. Why wouldn’t you use it on a water map, right? But water on maps is situational, so to make it still appealing to use elsewhere, it has a throwable trident that can deal a decent amount of damage and has a very accurate trajectory. In a sense, you could either play Marine as a water fighter or a hybrid melee-range fighter. This same logic should apply to Spy—enable the kit to have multiple potential play styles. Spy still has so much potential to be a great kit in a unique way (the buff where Spy is able to use enemy Teleporters for example), but it’s still missing that oomph to make it shine in its own way. The ability to use it as an invisible kit tracker will make it way more usable beyond its primary function.

Pyro.
The kit does feel abnormally tanky to take out, but my main concern for the kit comes from its super long DoT effects power. Being pelted by flaming arrows or a flaming sword that lasts for 5 seconds (2.5 hearts of damage) can be incredibly effective. But I think that’s good—the kit’s main source of DPS stems from that, and I think the Pyro should be rewarded with heavy DoT application to make up for its lack of raw damage. So why am I concerned about this still? There are almost no kit-sourced counters to fire. Maps with water help, but simply being in the water puts you at a severe PvP disadvantage; imagine a situation where you’re on fire and being chased by an enemy… and you see a pond… tell me, which option looks more appealing: Take a dip in the pond and continue combat with the enemy while remaining mostly immobile, or keep running and tank out the fire? You’d probably choose the latter. Currently there is only Paladin’s Cleanse banner that is able to remove fire and poison, but committing to that banner is a huge opportunity cost when you would instead put down something more helpful like regeneration.

Other than that banner which is hardly ever used, there really is no kit-controllable way to deter fire damage. I suggest some new ways to counteract fire damage and maybe DoT effects as a whole, just so encounters with a Pyro seem fairer overall (would be on the fault of the player for committing to fighting a Pyro knowing there are controllable ways to get rid of fire). Here are some suggestions I may add for inspiration:

• Have Paladin’s Cleanse banner also grant allies Fire Resistance and an “Immunity to Debuffs” effect for about 8~10 seconds. This “Immunity to Debuffs” effect can be represented by a Saturation potion, and it would have the ability to make the ally immune to negative statuses like Poison, Slowness, and Glowing for its duration. This should make Paladin’s Cleanse banner more worth placing down and not just straight healing.
• Have a kit designed to counter fire. I recently made a kit suggestion post for this exact point (It’s called “Kit: Hydro”). Having a kit dedicated to this kind of support would bring an identifiable counter to Pyro and promote more healthy game balance imo.
• Kit-specific immunities to fire and external sources of cleansing fire. Maybe Marine should gain a lot of Fire Protection on its armor because—well—the kit is associated with Water. Why treat it the same as any other kit when interacting with fire? Perhaps you could get a small stack of splash bottles from supply crates that allow you to douse yourself or allies when it splashes near them?

To sum up: The Ghost concerns is something obvious that needs to be taken care of, but I also think the situation with fire damage in SnD needs to be addressed as well. That has went under the radar for a wee bit too long.

 

[Tyrue]

I agree with everything pointed out here—the ghost changes would definitely make it less annoying to deal with while also still keeping some aspects of the kit in tact. There are two points I will heavily advocate especially:

The Spy buff (being able to partially see invisible kits). Currently the kit is only able to rely on its ability to surprise opponents, and while in the first few games it’s fine, it doesn’t serve any real purpose in prolonged gameplay. People will just figure out you’re a spy and that’s it, you’re just a watered-down Trooper until later on when people forget that you play Spy. At least with Skinner, you are able to change your look so it makes it harder to detect. I get the point that “some kits aren’t meant to be played every game,” but I don’t think that should translate to being functionally useless due to simple play frequency. Look at Marine—a kit that’s primarily strong in the water. Why wouldn’t you use it on a water map, right? But water on maps is situational, so to make it still appealing to use elsewhere, it has a throwable trident that can deal a decent amount of damage and has a very accurate trajectory. In a sense, you could either play Marine as a water fighter or a hybrid melee-range fighter. This same logic should apply to Spy—enable the kit to have multiple potential play styles. Spy still has so much potential to be a great kit in a unique way (the buff where Spy is able to use enemy Teleporters for example), but it’s still missing that oomph to make it shine in its own way. The ability to use it as an invisible kit tracker will make it way more usable beyond its primary function.

Pyro.
The kit does feel abnormally tanky to take out, but my main concern for the kit comes from its super long DoT effects power. Being pelted by flaming arrows or a flaming sword that lasts for 5 seconds (2.5 hearts of damage) can be incredibly effective. But I think that’s good—the kit’s main source of DPS stems from that, and I think the Pyro should be rewarded with heavy DoT application to make up for its lack of raw damage. So why am I concerned about this still? There are almost no kit-sourced counters to fire. Maps with water help, but simply being in the water puts you at a severe PvP disadvantage; imagine a situation where you’re on fire and being chased by an enemy… and you see a pond… tell me, which option looks more appealing: Take a dip in the pond and continue combat with the enemy while remaining mostly immobile, or keep running and tank out the fire? You’d probably choose the latter. Currently there is only Paladin’s Cleanse banner that is able to remove fire and poison, but committing to that banner is a huge opportunity cost when you would instead put down something more helpful like regeneration.

Other than that banner which is hardly ever used, there really is no kit-controllable way to deter fire damage. I suggest some new ways to counteract fire damage and maybe DoT effects as a whole, just so encounters with a Pyro seem fairer overall (would be on the fault of the player for committing to fighting a Pyro knowing there are controllable ways to get rid of fire). Here are some suggestions I may add for inspiration:

• Have Paladin’s Cleanse banner also grant allies Fire Resistance and an “Immunity to Debuffs” effect for about 8~10 seconds. This “Immunity to Debuffs” effect can be represented by a Saturation potion, and it would have the ability to make the ally immune to negative statuses like Poison, Slowness, and Glowing for its duration. This should make Paladin’s Cleanse banner more worth placing down and not just straight healing.
• Have a kit designed to counter fire. I recently made a kit suggestion post for this exact point (It’s called “Kit: Hydro”). Having a kit dedicated to this kind of support would bring an identifiable counter to Pyro and promote more healthy game balance imo.
• Kit-specific immunities to fire and external sources of cleansing fire. Maybe Marine should gain a lot of Fire Protection on its armor because—well—the kit is associated with Water. Why treat it the same as any other kit when interacting with fire? Perhaps you could get a small stack of splash bottles from supply crates that allow you to douse yourself or allies when it splashes near them?

To sum up: The Ghost concerns is something obvious that needs to be taken care of, but I also think the situation with fire damage in SnD needs to be addressed as well. That has went under the radar for a wee bit too long.

I feel like spy feels weak because the "surprise" factor that it has is underwhelming.

Idk if anyone else has noticed this, but people sort of seem harder to kill/takes more hits than they did on RWF. I remember going trooper and jumping on someone, killing them quickly, and then being on my way.

I like the idea of marine having some sort of fire resistance.

 

[Microwave]

Well, you guys all know me as someone who likes to voice their opinion on certain aspects of SnD. So I decided to put it into a more formal medium.

Ghost:
There was a decent-sized conversation about ghost in the Athios feedback channel the other day. This will be a list of suggestions I saw and my thoughts on that.
The main reason why I think ghost needs a change is that too many people play it, and it is the most op kit in the right hands.

When half of the lobby is filled with ghost/wraith, the gameplay is long and boring.

Some of the changes that I saw:
Compass:
Change the compass so that it accurately tracks invisible kits. As of right now, your compass could point in the complete opposite direction and say 30 blocks away when a ghost is right behind you. A useless killstreak. I am in full support of this suggestion.
Particles:
Show particles similar to wraith when the sword is revealed/unrevealed. I do not support this suggestion at all because it would completely take away the skill gap in this kit, and severely nerf it in the process.
Sharp 1:
Make the sword sharp 1 instead of sharp 2. According to Woaxa, Athios weapon damage numbers do not match vanilla numbers. I believe Woaxa stated that Sabreur sword (Gold sharp 1) did slightly more than a base iron sword. With that in mind, a sharp 2 gold sword would deal more than a sharp 1 iron (more than a trooper). That seems busted to me. I support this change by about 80%.
Spy Buff:
Buff spy to give it some sort of way to find/track/reveal ghosts. Spy is an extremely underused kit, and this would definitely give it more of a use. I support this change by 80%.
Combat PVP:
Take away ghosts ability to have out-of-combat regen or nerf it. This is my thought, ghosts have an extremely easy way of getting out of a fight, the kits that they target typically do not. If a ghost goes up and attacks a kit, they will either win or lose the engagement. If they win, the opponent is dead, gg wp no re. If the ghost loses, he backs away for 15 seconds, heals to full health, then reengages into the fight. This essentially gives a ghost a second life or multiple lives. With the combat update, a ghost can re-enter a fight much quicker than it could previously. Nerfing its healing by maybe doubling the amount of time it takes to start combat healing would be a way to negate this effect. I am in full support of this change.

I believe there were more suggestions, these were just the main ones that I remembered. Please comment more.


Combat PVP:
I want to start out by saying that I love how there is an out-of-combat regen system. But, I think it should have a slight change.

As of right now, I believe out of combat regen takes place if you do not take damage or deal damage for 10 seconds. What this means is that if you fight someone and you lose the engagement, you can run around the map until you're full health while the enemy trooper chases you. You're technically not out-of-combat at this point because there is someone chasing you trying to kill you.

The change for this that I think would be beneficial would be to stand still or crouch. You wouldn't be able stand still or crouch unless you were out of combat. The timing for this should change to 5 seconds as well. This would also add another skill gap which I think SnD desperately needs because the 1.8ish combat doesn't cut it.

Map Rotation and Kit Rotation:
I definitely like how we are looking to get rid of some maps, there a lot of maps that look like flat rectangles and they don't provide any good gameplay.

I think it would be interesting if we implemented a map rotation and kit rotation where we take out a few maps and a few kits each month to see how the meta changes.

Demo:
Demo feels really weak please give it fire aspect 2 again.

Pyro:
Pyro is broken af. It feels tankier than it should be because it doesn't take damage from explosions of arrows, and the protection on the boots makes it too defensive to sword hits.

Item Kills:
They were a fun part of RWF and made the game less sweaty.


That's all I can think of right now.

Go get those fuse kills

Tyrue

Ghost stuff:
Personally I do agree with the compass suggestion, but the natural regen nerf to ghost would be too dependent on how you play ghost to really make an impact, and would probably discourage ghosts from taking on kits that their team probably wants gone(ie, pyro, shortbow, longbow, burst, ect) which in my opinion is a core part of the ghost experience. In my opinion, I agree with the spy buff, since trooper with a pearl still can be good in smaller lobbies and this would encourage it more, but instead of the natural regen nerf, maybe a system that drops particles around x or more ghosts in the same area? It would discourage a team of all ghosts and probably would make games a bit cleaner than some unlucky person getting jumped by 5 ghosts simultaneously while letting ghost still retain its stealth. Another thing that I don't see people talk enough about is ghost's pearls, everyone talks about how ghost is really annoying in numbers, and while that is true, it's pearls are definitely underrated from what I can tell. You can use them to escape battle, and you can use them to cross the map more quickly. You could also use them to rush an archer. In my opinion instead of the regen nerf, a good nerf would be just decreasing the pearls ghost gets to 3.
Other stuff:
Personally I disagree with the healing change since it makes clutches much harder, so if you have no teammates to help you, and you're low on health being chased, you're screwed. Very few kits actually have a way to cleanly get out of a battle.
For pyro, it certainly feels really good. I played it for 5 rounds and got at least 1 kill every single time, and I suck. You can not only bow spam someone, but you also can walk over landmines without care, and you can tank arrows. It's quite something, I have to say in my opinion, the best way to deal with pyro is probably with buff to other kits, or adding new kits as Mythless mentioned and not a nerf to pyro. Pyro right now is a 4 tap for ghosts, and is a pretty juicy target, but if its armor gets nerfed , it's survivability is going to be worse than a regular archer's in almost all circumstances. If there does have to be a nerf to pyro, decrease its blast protection and replace the helmet with a chain helmet. I feel the projectile protection isn't bad, but the blast protection is really overpowered. You can run over 2 landmines and still have more than half health, and bursts can't do anything about you.
Lastly I do agree with Mythless's paladin buff, since paladin is really underused, and a buff to it could make some people play it.

 

[Espios]

I agree with everything pointed out here—the ghost changes would definitely make it less annoying to deal with while also still keeping some aspects of the kit in tact. There are two points I will heavily advocate especially:

The Spy buff (being able to partially see invisible kits). Currently the kit is only able to rely on its ability to surprise opponents, and while in the first few games it’s fine, it doesn’t serve any real purpose in prolonged gameplay. People will just figure out you’re a spy and that’s it, you’re just a watered-down Trooper until later on when people forget that you play Spy. At least with Skinner, you are able to change your look so it makes it harder to detect. I get the point that “some kits aren’t meant to be played every game,” but I don’t think that should translate to being functionally useless due to simple play frequency. Look at Marine—a kit that’s primarily strong in the water. Why wouldn’t you use it on a water map, right? But water on maps is situational, so to make it still appealing to use elsewhere, it has a throwable trident that can deal a decent amount of damage and has a very accurate trajectory. In a sense, you could either play Marine as a water fighter or a hybrid melee-range fighter. This same logic should apply to Spy—enable the kit to have multiple potential play styles. Spy still has so much potential to be a great kit in a unique way (the buff where Spy is able to use enemy Teleporters for example), but it’s still missing that oomph to make it shine in its own way. The ability to use it as an invisible kit tracker will make it way more usable beyond its primary function.

Pyro.
The kit does feel abnormally tanky to take out, but my main concern for the kit comes from its super long DoT effects power. Being pelted by flaming arrows or a flaming sword that lasts for 5 seconds (2.5 hearts of damage) can be incredibly effective. But I think that’s good—the kit’s main source of DPS stems from that, and I think the Pyro should be rewarded with heavy DoT application to make up for its lack of raw damage. So why am I concerned about this still? There are almost no kit-sourced counters to fire. Maps with water help, but simply being in the water puts you at a severe PvP disadvantage; imagine a situation where you’re on fire and being chased by an enemy… and you see a pond… tell me, which option looks more appealing: Take a dip in the pond and continue combat with the enemy while remaining mostly immobile, or keep running and tank out the fire? You’d probably choose the latter. Currently there is only Paladin’s Cleanse banner that is able to remove fire and poison, but committing to that banner is a huge opportunity cost when you would instead put down something more helpful like regeneration.

Other than that banner which is hardly ever used, there really is no kit-controllable way to deter fire damage. I suggest some new ways to counteract fire damage and maybe DoT effects as a whole, just so encounters with a Pyro seem fairer overall (would be on the fault of the player for committing to fighting a Pyro knowing there are controllable ways to get rid of fire). Here are some suggestions I may add for inspiration:

• Have Paladin’s Cleanse banner also grant allies Fire Resistance and an “Immunity to Debuffs” effect for about 8~10 seconds. This “Immunity to Debuffs” effect can be represented by a Saturation potion, and it would have the ability to make the ally immune to negative statuses like Poison, Slowness, and Glowing for its duration. This should make Paladin’s Cleanse banner more worth placing down and not just straight healing.
• Have a kit designed to counter fire. I recently made a kit suggestion post for this exact point (It’s called “Kit: Hydro”). Having a kit dedicated to this kind of support would bring an identifiable counter to Pyro and promote more healthy game balance imo.
• Kit-specific immunities to fire and external sources of cleansing fire. Maybe Marine should gain a lot of Fire Protection on its armor because—well—the kit is associated with Water. Why treat it the same as any other kit when interacting with fire? Perhaps you could get a small stack of splash bottles from supply crates that allow you to douse yourself or allies when it splashes near them?

To sum up: The Ghost concerns is something obvious that needs to be taken care of, but I also think the situation with fire damage in SnD needs to be addressed as well. That has went under the radar for a wee bit too long.

I agree with Mythless. Another way to combat fire would be to make being healed by a medic extinguish flames.

The only Ghost suggestion I agree with so far is the compass.

I would also like to see a buff for demo. Either increase the armor, or increase the amount of landmines from 2 to 3.

Also, for map rotation, I made a suggestion on Discord so i'll throw it in here too. Basically you bring back map voting, but you have 5 maps to chose from instead of 3. Have Athios store stats on which maps get voted for most. At each map update, we usually get 2 or 3 maps into testing. If those are accepted, we take the maps who were voted the least amount of times and take them out of rotation.

 

[pigpig24]

I don't play Ghost enough for my opinion to hold water, but I'm going to comment anyway. I hadn't thought of a nerfed regen, but it sounds like an interesting avenue to explore. I'd put my support behind it.

Do you think there'd be a way to implement the same thing for invis kits as "There are too many people on this team already" when you try to /team [color] a full team? If there are a ton of people with invis as their saved kit, RNG selects some people to be random kitted for the round (with a pop-up in chat before the match starts that says something like "There are too many invis on your team, choose another kit!").

 

[GlitchManMax]

Not super interested in the rest of the topics except item kills, they were fun (even if you got flexed on occassionally) so I support them coming back. I've been interested in a significant ghost nerf so here are my thoughts:

Compass:
100% yes, you earned two kills you should be able to track ghosts well. If ghosts don't want to die they should target you (before or after acquiring the compass) or avoid you. We should initially try both direction and block distance being accurate, if that somehow proves to annihilate ghosts too brokenly, the compass should point accurately towards ghosts but say "range indeterminate." (maybe less fancy though :) )
Particles:
Meh. I'm not for this one either. Also seems the most likely to go horrifically wrong in coding and kill ghost completely, which is not exactly what I want.
Sharp 1:
Invisibility is an entire kit's worth of power. You are right that ghost does not need a sword only matched by Trigger's, if it's as good. If Gold + Sharp 2 is better than Iron + Sharp 1, it needs to be Gold + Sharp 1 if there's no other nerfs. I would go for this one if other nerfs were not enacted. If ghost is reined in other ways, it can keep the sword as is.
Spy Buff:
100%. yes if you're not nerfing the sword. Ghost will always need more kits who can match it effectively, and this will also create a helpful ecosystem for reducing ghosts players (people spamming ghost as their kit? Play spy and clean up. Eventually people stop playing ghost)
Combat PVP:
This is a valid solution to simply change the time more, and I support that 100%. I had a similar idea that ghost and wraith would be reliant on a vampiric system, where the ghost loses all natural regen completely (medics and paladins still work though, encouraging ghosts to protect their medics from other ghosts) and instead gets healed 1/2 heart for every successful sword hit they do and 2 1/2 hearts for every person they kill directly (not via fall or lava) This means if ghost wants to contend in a pvp fight they can't afford to take hits and fight poorly, they have to rely on more of a steady hit and run strategy. And this still leaves them pretty open to arm in secret and gather intel since they can avoid taking damage, a side of ghost I don't mind too much.

Bomb Defenses:
One thing that really makes ghost annoying and frankly, unfun to play with, is how they interact with bombs at low numbers. Insta-arm plus enderpearls mean a ghost can keep 2-3 players pinned down endlessly by arming the bomb and picking off people who go to arm the ghosts bomb. I suggest that insta-arm be reverted to a one-use only buff. You have one chance to make a final stand with the OP arming strategy and then once it's defused you either have to kill the other team or arm again manually. Sometimes ghosts simply spam insta arm until they can win, and there's no solution that doesn't rely on getting lucky and catching the ghost by accident. 1 v 10 clutches are fun, and they can still happen with single-use insta-fuses, but it's kind of disappointing that the team that did better by a wide margin can be beaten by a ghost spamming insta-fuse right now.

Also, sometimes ghosts are really good at just securing the enemy's bomb while it's armed. A single person arrives to defuse and the ghost can simply run in, interrupt the fusing and as the person interrupts the defusing to fight back the ghost fades away. It really only presents the choice of try to sacrifice yourself to get the defuse on or struggle against the ghost until you die anyway, and, again, it lets the ghosts fight off larger numbers in a significant way. I would be interested in a "ghost detection system" being activated at the bomb on 30 seconds or less that creates a banner-like circle around the bomb that reveals enemy ghosts like they're taking damage as long as they're in it. This way the ghosts have to commit more and really dedicate their lives to stopping a defuse, but they can still play around and delay the defense for the first 30 seconds. There should be no penalty for ghosts arming bombs initially, since that's a major advantage and element of them, and there should ABSOLUTELY be no debuffs to ghosts defusing their own bomb since it's already such a challenge for them. Some exemptions should probably be made around nukes since the ghosts have enough problems there already.


Overall

Compass + Spy Buff is just overall good I think, they're always justified. Then if I couldn't pick both (and I'd love to pick both) I would choose one of the healing systems over bomb defenses (though I think bomb defenses are good quality of life things, especially 1-use insta arm) I would rather combine the other 4 than do particles or sword change. Thanks for making this thread Tyrue, I know myself and other people have been a little unsatisfied with how ghost is working right now.

 

[Woaxa]

HI I am woaxa and I tend to have some pretty good takes on SnD balance ( i think ) I'll do my best to go over everything that was brought up originally and express my own ideas / give any staff input if it's something we've talked about or thought about doing already.

Compass: Yeah I agree with this change, definitely something that will be talked about internally and I don't see why something like this would be denied, killstreaks should make you feel rewarded and the compass rn is lackluster, especially when it comes to invis kits. If you're being tracked as a ghost well, it does tell you you're being tracked so that is your warning to move elsewhere.

Particles/Ghost: I'm a no go for the particles idea, no matter what way it's implemented it would either nerf ghost to the ground or just be a hinderance blocking vision. BUT ghost is fairly strong, one of the better kits ngl, I'm curious how the sharpness nerf would play out, but I'm moving towards the compass along with the regen nerf which I'll mention next.

Regen: I'm entirely down to change ghosts out of combat regen, the only issue is I'm not sure how possible it is. I'll ask martoph about this soon, one of the main reasons we changed how juggs health and resistance worked was to go around how the out of combat regen worked as it was getting a higher HPS (health per second) than any other kit, which for the tank class was silly.

Combat PVP: While I agree there needs to be more skill gaps in SnD I'm unsure if changing how the out of combat regen works is the move, it would be an added skill to learn but would make it troublesome for new players, maybe this could be looked further into when we get the [REDACTED] update out, as support for it would be much easier.

Map/Kit Rotation: The idea of kit rotations has floated around for a while, one big concern that's been talked about is that eventually there will be too many new kits and it could be overwhelming for new players, not only to pick a kit but to learn what they all do and how to combat them. I'm fairly positive there will be a kit rotation system implemented sometime in the future (no idea how close or far out(also don't have any more details on it like the time inbetween rotations the types of kits that'll be rotated etc)). Map rotation is something that we're actively already going into with the map poll we recently sent out, we wanna start moving in a direction with more unique map designs so gameplay on a map to map basis differs a lot more compared to now where it's the same gameplay just reskinned a lot of the time.

Spy: The general idea with spy is that it gets a slightly weaker disguise than skinner while being easier to obtain, well the disguise is default. Although with some of the changes skinner has seen in the recent years it's kinda put spy in the dust. If a kit rotation were to happen I feel spy could be on the chopping block, maybe it could come back reworked a bit to provide some better gameplay.

Demo: Uhhhhhh I think demo is pretty strong but in head to head combat it is weak losing a majority of fights, I do like buffing kits though, so I feel I'd be okay with it getting Fire 2.

Pyro: Haha yeahhhhhhhh, this one might be on me ngl. It's funny cause this happened before, we questioned how pyros armor was just base leather to any melee damage and that it kinda sucked, so we added protection without realizing that the protection stacks with the other protection types (proj and blast) so to explosions or projectiles pyro was getting bonus protection. Likely to see a change most likely removing some of pyros proj/blast prot so it reverts back to what it was before without being as crippling weak to melee.

Item Kills: yeah idk man, they're funny. quick laugh i guess. but of my knowledge most if not all of the staff team hates the idea?? idk why, i'm kinda down for it. i'll bring it up again but we have talked about it a few times and each time everyone else is like, nah its not what snd is blah blah blah.

That's it I guess, one thing that I've been working on of recent is a kit tier list, I think it'd be cool to see them all rated next to eachother, there is quite a few kits that I think are very strong borderline OP rn that no one actually plays, total sleeper kits.

 

[Tyrue]

HI I am woaxa and I tend to have some pretty good takes on SnD balance ( i think ) I'll do my best to go over everything that was brought up originally and express my own ideas / give any staff input if it's something we've talked about or thought about doing already.

Compass: Yeah I agree with this change, definitely something that will be talked about internally and I don't see why something like this would be denied, killstreaks should make you feel rewarded and the compass rn is lackluster, especially when it comes to invis kits. If you're being tracked as a ghost well, it does tell you you're being tracked so that is your warning to move elsewhere.

Particles/Ghost: I'm a no go for the particles idea, no matter what way it's implemented it would either nerf ghost to the ground or just be a hinderance blocking vision. BUT ghost is fairly strong, one of the better kits ngl, I'm curious how the sharpness nerf would play out, but I'm moving towards the compass along with the regen nerf which I'll mention next.

Regen: I'm entirely down to change ghosts out of combat regen, the only issue is I'm not sure how possible it is. I'll ask martoph about this soon, one of the main reasons we changed how juggs health and resistance worked was to go around how the out of combat regen worked as it was getting a higher HPS (health per second) than any other kit, which for the tank class was silly.

Combat PVP: While I agree there needs to be more skill gaps in SnD I'm unsure if changing how the out of combat regen works is the move, it would be an added skill to learn but would make it troublesome for new players, maybe this could be looked further into when we get the [REDACTED] update out, as support for it would be much easier.

Map/Kit Rotation: The idea of kit rotations has floated around for a while, one big concern that's been talked about is that eventually there will be too many new kits and it could be overwhelming for new players, not only to pick a kit but to learn what they all do and how to combat them. I'm fairly positive there will be a kit rotation system implemented sometime in the future (no idea how close or far out(also don't have any more details on it like the time inbetween rotations the types of kits that'll be rotated etc)). Map rotation is something that we're actively already going into with the map poll we recently sent out, we wanna start moving in a direction with more unique map designs so gameplay on a map to map basis differs a lot more compared to now where it's the same gameplay just reskinned a lot of the time.

Spy: The general idea with spy is that it gets a slightly weaker disguise than skinner while being easier to obtain, well the disguise is default. Although with some of the changes skinner has seen in the recent years it's kinda put spy in the dust. If a kit rotation were to happen I feel spy could be on the chopping block, maybe it could come back reworked a bit to provide some better gameplay.

Demo: Uhhhhhh I think demo is pretty strong but in head to head combat it is weak losing a majority of fights, I do like buffing kits though, so I feel I'd be okay with it getting Fire 2.

Pyro: Haha yeahhhhhhhh, this one might be on me ngl. It's funny cause this happened before, we questioned how pyros armor was just base leather to any melee damage and that it kinda sucked, so we added protection without realizing that the protection stacks with the other protection types (proj and blast) so to explosions or projectiles pyro was getting bonus protection. Likely to see a change most likely removing some of pyros proj/blast prot so it reverts back to what it was before without being as crippling weak to melee.

Item Kills: yeah idk man, they're funny. quick laugh i guess. but of my knowledge most if not all of the staff team hates the idea?? idk why, i'm kinda down for it. i'll bring it up again but we have talked about it a few times and each time everyone else is like, nah its not what snd is blah blah blah.

That's it I guess, one thing that I've been working on of recent is a kit tier list, I think it'd be cool to see them all rated next to eachother, there is quite a few kits that I think are very strong borderline OP rn that no one actually plays, total sleeper kits.

Ghost:
I think that the best way to change ghost is through its combat regen and the compass. I think ghost's out-of-combat regen should require 15-20 seconds before it comes online.

Spy:
Rather than changing spy to be able to see/hunt ghosts, there could be an entirely new kit designed to counter ghost/wraith.

Demo:
I would either give it an armor buff or fire 2

Combat PVP:
I wasn't entirely sure about my idea for out-of-combat regen when I posted it, but something about how it right now feels off. I don't like the idea of chasing someone while they are able to get the out-of-combat regen. Part of this idea was also to add another source or a skill gap because you could get into a fight with someone, run a decent distance away, crouch and heal. All while they are running at you without getting the healing. This would also give kits like ninja and sabreur a bit of a buff because they are able to escape quickly.

Another possible change could include only being able to get the healing effect if you are not within 10 blocks of an enemy.

Another thing that I thought about is separating the time to heal between hitting and getting hit. If it only took 8 seconds to heal when you hit someone, it would give the person who won the fight the advantage rather than the person running away.

Blocking:
Back when SnD was on RWF, block hitting was a thing. It was a pretty core part of PVP back in the day and now that it no longer exists, it sort of strips away an entire aspect of PVP. I wonder if there would be a way to implement a system like it.

 

[Gilburrito]

One thing that really makes ghost annoying and frankly, unfun to play with, is how they interact with bombs at low numbers. Insta-arm plus enderpearls mean a ghost can keep 2-3 players pinned down endlessly by arming the bomb and picking off people who go to arm the ghosts bomb.

Item Kills: yeah idk man, they're funny. quick laugh i guess. but of my knowledge most if not all of the staff team hates the idea?? idk why, i'm kinda down for it. i'll bring it up again but we have talked about it a few times and each time everyone else is like, nah its not what snd is blah blah blah.

I like fun stuff like that because if I wanted a serious pvp Minecraft experience I'd just go play something like badlion... I don't know what everyone else thinks S&D is, but to me it's a laid back casual game where you can get sweaty occasionally. A fully casual Minecraft experience is more well done elsewhere and a fully competitive experience is also well done elsewhere IMO.

Combat PVP:
I want to start out by saying that I love how there is an out-of-combat regen system. But, I think it should have a slight change.

As of right now, I believe out of combat regen takes place if you do not take damage or deal damage for 10 seconds. What this means is that if you fight someone and you lose the engagement, you can run around the map until you're full health while the enemy trooper chases you. You're technically not out-of-combat at this point because there is someone chasing you trying to kill you.

The change for this that I think would be beneficial would be to stand still or crouch. You wouldn't be able stand still or crouch unless you were out of combat. The timing for this should change to 5 seconds as well. This would also add another skill gap which I think SnD desperately needs because the 1.8ish combat doesn't cut it.

I'm afraid current venom might be secretly cracked cuz of this, (it's a pretty strong kit regardless, I really like where it's at right now!) the tick damage combined with the slow means that you could theoretically keep others "in combat" while dipping into the "out of combat" regen (as far as I'm aware, needs a fact check)

Overall I think the out of combat regen concept requires more experimentation because I like out of combat regen a lot. It allows players to up their pvp encounters per game, however running to regen is kinda boring imo and I can't imagine standing around is much better. The standing system is more of a trade-off though which is nice. Everything else sounds like pretty possible and logical balancing.

I'd also really like map rotation. I like the recurring theme of event kits that are only around for a certain span of time because it spices things up and incentivizes people to play and I feel like map rotation could have similar effects.

 

[toomuchzelda]

Blocking:
Back when SnD was on RWF, block hitting was a thing. It was a pretty core part of PVP back in the day and now that it no longer exists, it sort of strips away an entire aspect of PVP. I wonder if there would be a way to implement a system like it.

please dont try to implement blockhitting in 1.9+. server side block hitting implementations are never good and scale badly with higher ping.

 

[____EL_UBRE____]

I like fun stuff like that because if I wanted a serious pvp Minecraft experience I'd just go play something like badlion... I don't know what everyone else thinks S&D is, but to me it's a laid back casual game where you can get sweaty occasionally. A fully casual Minecraft experience is more well done elsewhere and a fully competitive experience is also well done elsewhere IMO.

I'm afraid current venom might be secretly cracked cuz of this, (it's a pretty strong kit regardless, I really like where it's at right now!) the tick damage combined with the slow means that you could theoretically keep others "in combat" while dipping into the "out of combat" regen (as far as I'm aware, needs a fact check)

Overall I think the out of combat regen concept requires more experimentation because I like out of combat regen a lot. It allows players to up their pvp encounters per game, however running to regen is kinda boring imo and I can't imagine standing around is much better. The standing system is more of a trade-off though which is nice. Everything else sounds like pretty possible and logical balancing.

I'd also really like map rotation. I like the recurring theme of event kits that are only around for a certain span of time because it spices things up and incentivizes people to play and I feel like map rotation could have similar effects.

 

[jojosue]

I feel like spy feels weak because the "surprise" factor that it has is underwhelming.

Idk if anyone else has noticed this, but people sort of seem harder to kill/takes more hits than they did on RWF. I remember going trooper and jumping on someone, killing them quickly, and then being on my way.

I like the idea of marine having some sort of fire resistance.

Frost could also get fire resistance!