Declined (VSH TF2) Vag and EB Balances

[annaberu]

Recently I've noticed a handful of players complaining about the state of Vagineer and Easter Bunny in general (with me being one of them), due to the fact that both are really broken and all. So, I've proposed some changes that could be considered in order to make both bosses fun to fight against instead of being a hassle at all.

Vagineer:
-Remove his haste. This is a problem that circulated around the hale being hated and deemed broken due to the fact that even the most inexperienced of hales could get away with pressing W+M1 most of the time. BUT, to be fair haste can still be applied if the next point were to be administered.

-Reduce his Uber time. 12-15 seconds of uber seems illogical given the fact the haste is annoying enough to deal with. By reducing it, you're giving the hale less room to bash in like an idiot, and instead make him think about his decisions in terms of picking out enemies, creating a more dynamic experience and atmosphere when fighting a Vagineer.

-Increase the damage needed to rage/ Remove the ability to gain rage from super-jumps. It's pretty straightforward.


Easter Bunny:
- Remove the ability to self-pick crit eggs. This is due to the fact that his rage can clear out dozens of people and hit even the most inconspicuous spots at seemingly random odds. Give it a crit, and you can get hit through bullshit luck. It makes a Bunny too reliant on attacking enemies like this instead of the reasons I've mentioned earlier with Vagineer.

I think that's the overall consensus on complaints against these two. Hopefully this can get through and be approved.

 

[mub]

Recently I've noticed a handful of players complaining about the state of Vagineer and Easter Bunny in general (with me being one of them), due to the fact that both are really broken and all. So, I've proposed some changes that could be considered in order to make both bosses fun to fight against instead of being a hassle at all.

Vagineer:
-Remove his haste. This is a problem that circulated around the hale being hated and deemed broken due to the fact that even the most inexperienced of hales could get away with pressing W+M1 most of the time. BUT, to be fair haste can still be applied if the next point were to be administered.

-Reduce his Uber time. 12-15 seconds of uber seems illogical given the fact the haste is annoying enough to deal with. By reducing it, you're giving the hale less room to bash in like an idiot, and instead make him think about his decisions in terms of picking out enemies, creating a more dynamic experience and atmosphere when fighting a Vagineer.

-Increase the damage needed to rage/ Remove the ability to gain rage from super-jumps. It's pretty straightforward.


Easter Bunny:
- Remove the ability to self-pick crit eggs. This is due to the fact that his rage can clear out dozens of people and hit even the most inconspicuous spots at seemingly random odds. Give it a crit, and you can get hit through bullshit luck. It makes a Bunny too reliant on attacking enemies like this instead of the reasons I've mentioned earlier with Vagineer.

I think that's the overall consensus on complaints against these two. Hopefully this can get through and be approved.

In practice, I would like to see haste removed from Vagineer; I think the superjump changes make him more effective with his rage now, solidifying the role he occupies as a sidegrade boss. We could also perhaps try swapping out Haste for Agility or something like that; I understand Haste is far and away the most disliked feature because it’s Haste.

Vagineer's uber is 10 seconds currently, not 12-15. Pyros airblasting will extend this, of course, which is likely what players are facing. Nerfing his uber length from its vanilla design is a bit much without a compensating buff. This has been attempted before and just results in a far weaker boss.

I like playing against crit eggs and I don't see any point in making him weaker in the one environment he's meant to be good, otherwise he's just useless as a boss. Bunny is designed to be extremely punishing in smaller maps with his rage; this is by design, and where he's meant to shine. On any medium and large maps his rage is just extremely ineffective. Bunny, like any other sidegrade Hale, also has plenty of counters and strategies that can render his playstyle a lot less effective... I do not believe Bunny should be nerfed on the merit that players are unwilling to adapt to different Hales. We might as well remove all Hales except Saxton at that point if there's no point in different bosses.

+1 on trying removing/replacing haste from Vagineer.
-1 on reducing Vagineer's uber length and removing the ability to pick up crit eggs as Bunny.
EDIT: just woke up, sorry for the messy flow of speech.

 

[mub]

On paper, these are two of our weakest Hales already, and what's proposed here is just straight nerfs that would solidify the two as just inferior to Hale. They're good on certain maps in some respects, but Saxton is still overall a stronger pick. There would be virtually no point to playing Vagineer with his uber being shorter than it currently is, and same with Bunny's eggs being weaker than they currently are. Saxton would just be more effective in the two niches that those two bosses are meant to occupy.

 

[annaberu]

On paper, these are two of our weakest Hales already, and what's proposed here is just straight nerfs that would solidify the two as just inferior to Hale. They're good on certain maps in some respects, but Saxton is still overall a stronger pick. There would be virtually no point to playing Vagineer with his uber being shorter than it currently is, and same with Bunny's eggs being weaker than they currently are. Saxton would just be more effective in the two niches that those two bosses are meant to occupy.

Thanks for the reply. For Vag, I never really noticed it, but I think this is due to the fact that at face value the uber lasts at a rate in which it seemingly lasted longer than I thought it would be. Plus on the fact that his rage recharge is absurdly quick, creating this fallacy.

For Bunny, It's really a valid point but to me personally, I would like to see an EB balance or whatever in the future regardless.

it's because I play scout ok thank moob

 

[mub]

it’s because I play scout ok thank moob

Run away smh my head

In seriousness, I’ll look into it a bit more but honestly, it’s not bunny without eggs, and nerfing them will just make him a sad man. Same goes for Vagineer and Uber. Those are the basic mechanics that differentiate and define those bosses as different from Saxton, and while I understand those mechanics can at times be unpleasant to fight against, if they were weaker, players would lose interest in playing them.

After all, those bosses don’t really have a reason to exist if it reaches the point where what makes the boss unique is nerfed to the point where it is grossly ineffective compared to “stock” (Saxton.)

 

[Bottiger]

Vagineer is at 47% win rate, bunny is at 42%. Vagineer is fine where it is, bunny is underpowered.

 

[Zeo]

Vagineer is at 47% win rate, bunny is at 42%. Vagineer is fine where it is, bunny is underpowered.

Do you have map specific statistics or just overall.

It would be interesting and more useful to see the map breakdowns.

 

[Zeke Aileron]

It would be interesting and more useful to see the map breakdowns.

This would be handy since some bosses do well in certain maps and not so well in certain maps.

Considering Saxton Hale being Default is generally good in most maps in general.

 

[Bottiger]

Individual maps are not recorded. If we break up our statistics into the 30 different maps we have, it would not be enough to get a meaningful picture. And it would be impossible to balance every single map for every boss we have.

 

[Zeke Aileron]

That is true since alot of the current maps tend to favor one side of either side which can throw statistics off, plus most of the highly played maps tend to have winrates of hales demolished when alot of VSH regulars are on the server in which they use alot of funny strats to keep Hales from winning, and or abuse newer hale players from figuring out how to counter strats early on...

 

[Zeo]

Individual maps are not recorded. If we break up our statistics into the 30 different maps we have, it would not be enough to get a meaningful picture. And it would be impossible to balance every single map for every boss we have.

I'm not talking about balancing the bosses around each map.

But going further into that can't you divide the maps into categories? Like large, medium, and small?

It would be useful in the sense that people would be able to see which bosses are either strong or weak depending on the map type.

 

[Seminal Inhalation]

I'm not talking about balancing the bosses around each map.

But going further into that can't you divide the maps into categories? Like large, medium, and small?

It would be useful in the sense that people would be able to see which bosses are either strong or weak depending on the map type.

That would be nice for both strategy and information for newcomers or even regulars who wanna try out other hales when they're at their best.

 

[Bottiger]

We can already filter out abnormal rounds based on how long the rounds lasted.

 

[Zeke Aileron]

We can already filter out abnormal rounds based on how long the rounds lasted.

Interesting, but i'm assuming the stats doesn't show anything about players abusing certain strats to specifically lower a Hale's winrate, or how a new player just starting out playing the game mode and losing which would affect the winrate as well?

I understand statistics are important, but what happens in a server through players eyes that have a good understanding of Hales losing certain rounds should also be accounted for especially the fluctuation of the winrates being weird...., i've seen Vagineer and Easter Bunny win so many rounds and their winrates is below 50% which doesn't make any sense...

 

[Bottiger]

i've seen Vagineer and Easter Bunny win so many rounds and their winrates is below 50% which doesn't make any sense...

People often don't remember when they win, they only remember when they lose and 90% of the time they are playing as humans. In fact as the server pop goes over 24, the win rates for bosses drop to 40% or lower.

 

[Zeke Aileron]

People often don't remember when they win, they only remember when they lose and 90% of the time they are playing as humans. In fact as the server pop goes over 24, the win rates for bosses drop to 40% or lower.

Drops to 40% or lower when above 24... bruh that's pretty insane...

I can understand the problem behind that since at most, when the server gets full promptly with more of the regular players and or donators that know the strategies against the hales which makes them lose quite frequently...

Also does the winrate % take into account when and if a Hale round that's 6+ minutes into a round that a donator reserve kicks the Hale player out of the server to join into the server in which ends that round and declares Red side winning?

 

[Bottiger]

We can see if the boss left, their boss type is labeled as invalid.

 

[Zeke Aileron]

We can see if the boss left, their boss type is labeled as invalid.

Oh neat, i'm assuming that also includes when a hale player just outright disconnects on their own as well?

 

[Bottiger]

yes

 

[Zeke Aileron]

yes

Ok, this is primarily what I was afraid of...

Considering the funny strats we use on Red side to bully the Hale to disconnect from the server if they played a certain hale doesn't get recorded within the said stats...

Thank you for giving me some more insight on how the statistics function and the informative responses.