Juice... We all know it needs some fixing..

This isn't a major title released by a company like Valve or Blizzard.

This isn't a title with a great deal of prestige/history like Quake or Counterstrike.

This is a 15 buck game put in the Indie Category so it shares the same user base as Dinner Date the interactive dinner simulation, Deathspank, and other cutesy 10 bux games.

The "lowest common denominator" IS this game's audience. The Plants vs. Zombies crowd is not going to be able to handle the anal violation from the viscous neckbeards that occupy this game. You have to make it so they feel they have a DIRECT method to avoid death.

Look at this interview for Brink.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05auA-hwGUE

Letting the player know how they can (and that it's even possible) get better in the game is key. MNC is filled with things that are obscure and make the player feel they have no input on what happens in game.

Know what other game is under "indie" or even "casual"?

Super Meat Boy

Which is a pretty hardcore game that sold fantastically and didn't design by committee. Same with Amnesia.

Super Meatboy doesn't rely on a sustained playerbase so it can get away with bamboozling people. Monday Night Combat is on the Top Seller list too but people uninstalling right after being violated won't help the game survive. But that aside It's also has a very well designed difficulty curve that stands a much less chance of alienating it's audience. It has content that's available to masters so people of varying skill levels can have fun. You can just barely get by the levels and continue or you can get a high score and get alternate levels and so on. Super Meatboy DOES cater to that LCD as well. If it was like MNC you wouldn't be able to advance until the you got the highest score possible and if you failed the game would make assertions about your sexuality and lewd scenarios involving your mother.

Amnesia the Dark Descent is just a mood game and has game elements that are pure hoodoo like the level of Black Ops that you can go through without shooting anyone. It's artsy fartsy but not "hardcore" by any means.

If you weaken juice in any way all the veteran players will will become overpowered when dealing with a juiced player. I can solo cc any juiced class and if juice were to be weaker or grant you less health it's going to be far more easier for me to do so.

Know what happens next? Players complaining juiced players are too easy to crowd control.

I'd say the only real way to fix this is increase the price of juice.

I just think you should earn less/no money while juiced. I really don't have a problem with it, but I know it takes away from the fun for some people.

You should earn way less money while Juiced. And potentially raise price to $600 or so. Otherwise:

1) Beginning of match as assassin - don't upgrade skills - destroy one turret.
2) Escort bots to money ball. Gain Juice by killing bots in the way.
3) Shoot money ball with Juice.
4) Have a ton of money left over to buy Juice. Shoot moneyball money with Juice.
5) Have exactly $500 left over to buy second Juice. Shoot moneyball with Juice.
6) Game is over.

I cannot tell you how many times I've won in public games in a matter of minutes when using this strategy. It works out perfectly...

Peoples problems with juice is that it feels like control is being taken away from the player utterly because they explode on contact with a juiced player. Extremely deadly with assaults and gunners because that damage advantage on rapid fire hitscan means any CC possible is solely due to the juiced player's error rather than the skill of the attacker.

Weaker players don't survive long enough to counter juice so it's not helping them anyway. Raising the cost of juice just further prevents them from getting it.

Having juice just be armor without the speed or strength bonus to pros gives people a chance. If people feel like they have a chance they won't get so disheartened if they fail. Part of the reason folks have noted the phenomenon where non-Sins/snipers get praised is because like that Brink video says "they feel that it was on them and next time I'll try to do better" Whereas getting glitched grappled/juiced down/headshot just feels like random Bull honkey.

If a juiced players goes for kills only I just laugh and run around like a loony. They are so hell bent on killing me I basically waste all of their juice and lure them away from my base.

Juiced players hell bent on base destruction are the ones who have tunnel vision but are also the most devastating.

Juice only lasts 10 seconds.

Talking about how awesome level 3 rockets are while hacked and overhealed relies on two things:

That the support will hack/overheal them constantly
And that they'll get up in the first place.

It costs a lot of money to get a level 3 rocket up. Since most classes are trying to get their abilities up first, that leaves them to the mid game.

Support cares about turrets the most, because he can hack and heal them. But he also has the worse money gain, especially if all hes doing is staying back at base and healing the turrets. Plus, he wants to get all but one ability to level 3. That means he has the least amount of money to spend on actually getting turrets to level 3 in the first place.

The classes with the best money gain, aside from Sniper, are not going to spend the massive amount of money required to get a level 3 rocket. The people who do tend to upgrade turrets from what I've seen are Snipers (who benefit from being covered by the rockets while firing), and other Support (bless their heart).

Sure, plenty of pros will buy a rocket level 1 or a level 2. But the choice is simple.

Do they want to:

Get a level 3 turret that can be taken down if its not baby sitted by someone else

OR

Buy juice, and wreck the other team?

Based on peoples ego, they're going to go with what makes them feel good. Wrecking the other team has a clear controllable benefit. You do as well as YOU can when you juice. When you buy a level 3 turret, you leave it up to the turrets dumb as a rock AI (unless hacked), and a support who might not even babysit it. What option would YOU pick?

Thats the biggest problem with it. Juice is so powerful. Both as a motivator (I'm suddenly really powerful, and I can massacre people/turrets with little effort!), and as an in game ability (makes you more powerful in every single possible way), that rarely do people buy level 3 turrets. They instead buy juice. They then take down the level 2 turrets that are currently up, which in turn, makes it so that those who want to upgrade to level 3s lives a living hell. Some classes don't even need juice: Assassins can solo level 1/2s, even while the turrets are overhealed. Gunners can do that -from range-. This forces people to save up their money so they can upgrade from level 1 to 3 in one go, which is extremely difficult when the juice machines are floating on the back of your head.

Its also why I think support/snipers are the ones most likely to upgrade it. Snipers dont really need to buy juice, they get tons of it. And other than when the moneyball is down, Support doesn't really buy juice, because hes trying to get all of his abilities/turrets upgraded. Money saving is second nature to a support.

I think moneyballs should be immune to critical hits, and keep turrets the same. That will make it so one guy can't solo a moneyball by himself. Maybe take the restriction off during overtime? Whatever. I've juiced three times to kill a money ball myself. Assassin - juice once gotten from bot killing, buy juice do it again, buy juice do it again. This is really easy for a class with so much mobility. Assaults can do it even better, with proper bomb jumping and jet work. I think that's the only 'nerf' that juice needs.

Turrets shouldn't be the main focus of the game: The pros should be. They're the best defense. If two botkilling pros are covering the lanes (like assassins), turrets wouldn't even be needed until overtime. In fact, I've encountered games where we didn't get any turrets on the simple fact that no bots came near our base. They should be treated as a last line of defense, not the primary one.


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I also think Support needs better money gain from healing bots and turrets. Because the turrets are only 'hard' to take down if one guy is so bored that hes writing his memoirs while taping down mouse 1 while locked on to a level 3 turret.

Support actually has the most options to make money it's just that most players overlook most of them.

Saying they do, and not listing any of them isn't very helpful. What options?

Bot killing. Other classes do it better. Far, far better. Since lanes can only support a couple of pros bot killing wise, without stepping on each others toes, he'll be left scrapping if an assassin or tank are covering it.

Healing? Pitiful in both money and juice gain.

Pro killing? Yes. The support kills pros rather well, actually.



The firebase is an option to cover bot lanes while he goes back in base to heal, but that means its not protecting turret lines. Hell, if the support over extends, that just means one good assassin takes out all of the turrets in the backfield. That's the problem with the support.

You face an impossible choice. Go out, and try to ramp up your terrible money gain, leaving all of your level 1/2 turrets vulnerable to an assassin who can take it down before you can come back, or sit back in base and deal with the fact you'll be getting almost no cash. Relying on your firebase and heal gun to net you a little bit at a time.

The only instance that I think that they'd get good money in is in pro killing. A shotgun to the face followed by a taunt does net you some cash. You run into the 'over extend' problem again, though.

Even if their money gain was 'good', it doesn't approach that of an assassin, sniper, or tank, who don't nearly need as many level 3 skills as a support does. Maybe it equals out to that of a gunners, but the gunner only needs to get level 3 in one ability to do well. Maybe level 2 in slam, grab, and deploy. Even if an Assassin got $4000 in a match, and so did a Support, the Assassin had a lot more left over to spend on 'extra' stuff (juice, and turrets). Because assassins rarely need to get level 3 dash, smoke bomb, and cloak. While Supports regularly need to get level 3 hack, level 3 bomb to be effective. Their level 3 passive is also absurdly good, and level 2 firebase is the mainstay. The support not only has weak money gain, but he also has the most need to spend it. His abilities in addition to the turrets he needs to buy.

I've never, in the 100 hours of playing this game, have been outpaced money wise by a support while playing an assassin while stating at the same time as a support did in the game.

I even go so far as to say, play another class that doesn't need to buy a lot of skills to get a lot of money, get a ton of money, and switch to support halfway through.

You'll have to forgive me if I don't explain, I just hate repeating myself.

If players would actually let the Support "support" his team he can actually make quite a lot of money. If players are lonewolfing then yes, the Support will have a hard time earning money.

Bot killing - Other classes can do it better but other classes aren't the foundation of a team. In MNC the assist counts just as much as the kill does. A single bullet into anything before it's destroyed will earn you an assist. If bot killing is the only option for a friendly to earn some money, I'll either damage then or drive off pros. Firebase is key here.

Healing - You do get 1$ for every 1 second of healing. Know what that says to me? Heal everything for as long as I can. Sadly continuing to overheal something will earn you no money. Juice gain is pitiful? Really? Again if you're healing stuff that's healed then yeah but stuff that needs heals not so much. Granted you could earn more for healing but that neither here nor there.

Pro killing - aka Assassin hunting. Yeah his shotgun is a beast to ambush with. Nothing to add here.

Turret killing - The only Pro who can effectively kill turrets from the comfort of his base. Gap-A-Shot! Overheal + Support Passive 2 and watch their defenses crumble.

Skills - The Support really only needs each of his skills to level 2, which is a total of $600. That's easy money. Firebase 2.2 is fine enough as well as Airstrike and Passive.

Protip: No base turrets are needed if you have map control and/or forward momentum.

Excellently written post. One of the best I've seen on this forum.

Glad to see discussion. That's what we really need. No one saying "this game sucks. juice is soo gay" or "MNC is perfect. Don't touch anything."

Good solid pros, cons, and discussion. Great post.

Says the guy with 12 Posts.

Personally, I'd rather nothing be touched in balance terms. The classes are pretty well balanced. I dare anyone to say otherwise.

There's nothing wrong with juice.

The ability to juice chain is the problem.

That is all.

Lets address these one at time.

Bot killing: he is decent at it, however I'm not 100% certain but I don't believe assists grant bot kill streaks so he'll get out earned quite quickly by another pro actually killing the bots.

Healing: The information you have is quite wrong actually. The support gets 1$ every THREE seconds of healing. Also he gets ZERO for healing targets who are already fully over healed. Its actually safer, and more efficient to stand inside your spawn spamming the taunt button to get money at 5$ a pop. (Taunts vary in length but you'd earn more than 3x the amount of money you'd get for healing that entire time.) Healing targets who are hurt grants you DECENT but juice (it only takes about 4seconds of healing a target who is damaged to get as much juice as an assassin can get in one sword swing.) juice gain for targets overhealed is basically non-existent (0.20juice per second compared to 3juice points per second for assassin sword.)

His shotgun is great if he gets in range for it, really it needs a small range boost but add damage drop off. Still it tears the f' up outta nearby pros if they get close to you.

Gapshots do a great job of killing turrets, this is pretty much a FACT. However they also cost you money to make. You don't really make money off of them so much as you cause financial damage greater than the cost. A gap shot costs you $100 and if left unchecked you will probably get around 50$ of that money back from turret destruction or assists. So while your money wont go up you will have caused more than 100$ worth of damage by destroying a turret or two.

Passive and firebase don't really need to be upped to level 3 that is true. Air strike benifits A LOT from it, and its damn near required to have level 3 hack (due to the cooldown reduction not so much its increased firepower.) If you play defensively then you don't need his level 3 passive, but it IS 200health which is a HUGE jump considering that gold armor gives 250 health and silver gives 150health to medium classes it is stronger than taking silver armor, and it stacks with your endorsements anyway.

The support doesn't get much love for playing support style but he does ultimately greatly affect the outcome of the game by doing so. Healing turrets and pros doesn't help the support almost whatsoever, but it certainly can end up winning you the game.

Stop building turrets, kill the other team's bots and pros in their base.

Win.

Fin.

Blitz is terrible at teaching the mechanics of what actually works.

More like:

Kill bots and pros killing your bots

Push the lane and kill enemy turrets

Use cash gained to own the midfield

If you die you have cash to fortify defenses/buy bots so you can get back into the fray