My Review of the Latest Patch

Get well soon.

Indeed, turrets now can't be reliably taken down by a single player with juice, and with the right class combinations, even two. That's unless you're a Gunner who still melts down the things with ease, and I sometimes find myself having to switch to that class just to get that particular job finally done. :|

your twisting my words. Near mandatory ot. not mandatory. if both money balls had hp left at the end of the game it went to OT. This happened quite frequently, and it all but negated the rest of the match because 2 juiced pro's could bring the game back in under 15 seconds.

not quite sure how this last patch made every game go the full duration. I havent had the same experience at all. there are still quick games, and still full duration games.

team play being attacking at similar times from different players and helping your teamates out when they are in trouble, yes i do expect people to do that. And your twisting my words again. i said one player shouldnt be able to wreck a base by himself. not turn the tides of a battle. one player can and still does turn the tides, they just cant play god mode anymore, which is nice.

all in all, stop twisting my words.

I would just like to know definitively if people are supposed to be able to grab an assault even if the charge connected? As they were at full life, they are now red, they are in mid air, but they still managed to grab you.

If not, why not just drain the throw ability to prevent it from happening? So Lag isn't a factor?

If so, seriously, what do the designers have against the assault?

You make some good points in your other posts but I'm going to have to say you're completely wrong here.

The inspiration for this game is a hybrid of Team Fortress 2 classed based shooting and DoTA style class based bot escorting. Both of those games are extremely team oriented and require players to work together to win. I think DoTA sets the better precedent for the need of team composition so I'll use that as the counter argument.

In DoTA the tank class is extremely valuable at soaking up damage and disrupting the enemy team with their usual array of aoe skills. This is analogous to the tank's role in MNC of bot lane control and knocking/blinding enemy pros. In DoTA it is the carry's job to have large damage output capable of annihilating turrets and enemy pros. This is the role filled best by the gunner in MNC. In DoTA no one class is capable of performing all the jobs a successful team needs and as such MNC has followed the same formula. Each class has a role and complaining that your class can't do everything is basically asking for MNC to be dumbed down such that it doesn't matter what class you play as. I believe the changes in this patch are there to help enforce class roles that were designed into the game from day one.

After all what's the point of playing a team based game if the game doesn't require teamwork to succeed? Even without verbal communication decent players should be working together and be aware of what's going on around them: where their team mates are, friendly firebases, etc. An individual player can excel at his/her job and stand out but in the end it's likely the team with the better composition that will win over the team with the individual best player.

I know next to nothing about dota except that it is a rts, not a shooter. As such the mechanics of how much an individual player can do are decidedly different. I've had a lot of experience in tf2 though, so I'd like to point out that one player can carry an entire team to some extent as any class in any objective simply by killing enough of the enemy. That's the common theme that describes pretty much any shooter.

If uber designed the classes to each have a role no other could do then they failed miserably at it. You described it yourself, as if you have a tank objectively "best" at controlling bots and a gunner objectively "best" at dealing with turrets and other players, that makes the other 4 classes inefficient at best and irrelevant at worst as there are no other objectives than to deal with bots and deal with pros.

Further, before the update all classes could do everything regardless of what uber intended. As an assassin, I could clear bots, kill pros, kill turrets and do damage to the moneyball. As a tank I could clear bots, kill pros, kill turrets and do damage to the moneyball. As a gunner, I could clear bots etc. The caveat to this was that I could do certain things better in certain situations with certain classes, and more importantly that I couldn't do all of these things at once. That's where teamwork comes in; ideally you have a gunner downing turrets and the sin clearing lanes, but if the situation is not ideal and the assassin is killing the turret, there's a bot wave that a gunner can clear if it is needed.

As it is now, an assassin simply can't kill as many turrets with or without juice as the gunner still can. There's no teamwork difference in what is being done as both classes, It's just something that assassins can't do. This in itself is not an issue, but the fact that as a gunner I can still clear lanes just as efficiently as an assassin is. There is no strategic discussion in this, if I go assassin it simply limits my options, whereas if I go gunner I don't have to worry about it. If uber really intends to make this into a game where the roles are hard set that's fine, but my only reaction is that now objectively gunners and tanks need to be nerfed as they are too good at doing too many things (also snipers, but they've always been too effective in all areas), and subjectively that this future mnc won't be something I enjoy.

This part is getting a bit long, but I want to add that it's disingenuous to refer to loose roles as "dumbing down" the game. In shooters you're fighting your opponent, not your opponent's class selection. And in a 6 person team it's a pretty lame decision to force a gunner at all instances of a turret base, as turret bases are always going to exist but not all people want or have the capacity to play gunner. It would be like forcing an assassin at all instances of bots, or forcing 3 medics to always be on a team of 12 in tf2 lest you lose by default.

Your definition of requirement is too vague to argue. If you're saying that a team should be needed at all times to beat anybody, I'd have to say that mnc would literally be the first competitive game I've ever played that had that requirement. After several hundred or so hours of playing a game I almost take it as a default that I should be able to win the vast majority of games I play against any assortment of substandard players. However I don't expect to win in those same games when a couple of similarly skilled players all decide to stack the other team. If I were to win against the stacked team or lose against the subpar team based solely on my class decision it would be a sign that the game is imbalanced, not team oriented.

To BillNyeTheScienceGuy.
You are talking only about reaching an idealistic goal.
In reality, only a few games have ever succeeded at being team-oriented.


Although you cite having classes that play different roles as a reason to believe the game is team-oriented, the fact that any team of one class will always win against a team of on-class-per-player shows that this may be a goal, but it is not reality.
Have you ever had the nightmare called us vs. 6 Assaults? Have you ever had to play against 6 Gunners?
I personally did well when we had to go against 6 Assassins, but that is because my Tank is specifically designed against Assassins. It takes 2 back-grapples in a row to kill me, but my team was dropping like flies and we lost.



Yes, classes have different roles, but if you design your game such that these roles are all essential, you will have a failed product.
You have to give leeway for good players to be able to pick up the slack. It is a pub game. You cant rely on every random teammate to know how to play as a team.
You cant even rely on having a full team.


The problem is when you think of it as different classes having different ways to help its team.
This is a side point. The way it really is, is that different classes, while helping the team in various ways, provide different playing styles for different people.
Making the game fun for its individual players is what makes players stick around.
Having such an array of non-similar classes makes gameplay more varied for me.


Talking about this being a game in which you should rely on teammates and work together is a dream. You will never get that on random pubs with random players.
If you want that, make a team and join a league.
When you get competitive, yes, than the amount of teamwork you are able to maintain will be the decider in who stays on top of the ladder.

The best games are those that have a full range of skill levels and let people grow as far as they can.
Players who dominate do so because they deserve to do so.
Save the I need to rely on my team for if and when I decide to actually join a team.


L. Spiro

Shirley, you can't be serious?
If there's a team made up of one class then it's likely they're communicating and working together, and any team of 6 people working together vs a pub is always going to win.

Why do you think that 6 random pubbers who all chose the same class are working together better than th 5 random guys I got who chose their own classes?

I dont see your connection.
You get 6 people who by-chance all like Assault and then got on the same team. How is greater teamwork implied?

The game against 6 Assaults was the closest I have ever come to rage-quitting, and the 4-vs.-4 against 4 Supports (or should I say 4 Firebases) was the second.


L. Spiro

Why are you assuming they're all randoms?

The only time I've actually seen a team of 6 players playing the same class, was when we did it as 6 supports. I doubt it would happen randomly though. I've seen 4 of the same class, never 6 though.

i have played in a few all 1 class teams Assassin a few times and Support once every time the first 2 players picked the same class and someone said "lets all play that class"
that was the extent on teamwork and communication
the times we played sin were the biggest stomps i have ever seen and the all support game was on steel peel and whilst we didnt stomp the other team we din tie the game up fairly early
so yes it does happen randomly

I guess you missed the point.

Because I was playing several games with them before and after that.
Regardless of teams, 4 of them were always playing Assault anyway. That is all they knew how to play.
It was only a matter of time until those 4 randomly landed on the same team.
Their 5th Assault had been playing other classes before then and their 6th Assault didnt exist yet.
He joined after about 4 minutes. This was a guy I have known since I first started playing and he is Japanese. Speaks no English and has always played Assault.
Trust me, he wasnt with the other guys.


Over the course of 5 games, this being the 3rd, they showed no special teamwork, made no attempt to be on the same team, never spoke to each other, etc.

I have no reason to believe there was any coordination among them.

After playing the game for ~300 hours, I have seen it happen only once (6 of the same).
Twice I have seen 4 of the same (Support 1 and Assassin1).
It is just rare, but the chances increase once you get 4 of the same class because people think it would be neat to all play the same class after that.


L. Spiro

If you're having trouble downing the other teams turrets after 15-20 minutes or so, just start spawning tonnes of gap shots. They utterly ruin bases, and if you're in anyway decent, you should be able to get at least 10, which is usually enough to down even lvl3 rock-its.

Well in any case, if you have proper coordinated teams. The only stack of class that would benifit is two assaults or two snipers. Personally I think it's awesome if a team decided to all go one class, but I highly doubt it would do any good in anything but pubs.

lol @ implying there is anything other than pub games with a player base of 2/10ths of bugger all

Just played with Im Hudson last night (in the game you dirty people, gosh).
I know I said I will not be playing anymore but:
#1: I found a low-ping server for the first time in a month.
#2: I was drunk, and for some reason that makes me want to play.


One game pointed out the main flaw with the new system.
Steel Peel Arena, 2 vs. 2.
My Tank + a Support vs. his Gunner + a Support.

They werent turtling, but we were keeping them in their base the whole match.
Our side was doing great. The whole game was played out in their base, right up to their last turrets before the Money Ball.

But no further. My teammate and I both worked together on that overhealed Level-3 RockIt Turret, to no avail. I tried everything. I timed it so that two of my own bot waves would be together shooting the turret while I juiced on it.
Got it down to 2% and died. Healed right back up.


So, an obvious win for us dragged on for 15 minutes and went into over-time.
And then guess what.


We had been on offense the whole time.
We never had any reason to build up our base.
My Support was with me trying to take down that turret.

When over-time came, Im Hudson juiced, ran out, quickly took down our turrets with his Gunner, and had our ball to 50% in no time.

We lost.

Isnt this exactly what we were trying to prevent with this patch?



The problems this highlights is:
#1: There should have been a way to break the stalemate. My Tank should have been able to take down that last RockIt Turret.
#2: Im Hudson later said a Gunner would have been able to take that turret down. A Gunner is now necessary or your team cannot win.
#3: Over-time is just as frequent as it was, at least for me.
#4: Nearly every match drags on for the full 15 minutes, even if it was lop-sided. Since the patch, I have only played one game that did not last all of 15 minutes, and that was just because Im Hudson and I were on the same team, and we were discussing the Steel Peel Arena game on Steam instead of playing. We let our team down and lost hard.
#5: The team that stays in its base the whole match wins. Defense is now OP.


L. Spiro

A lot of your posts did sound wrong if my mind is in the gutter, L. Spiro.

Anyway, I did like the general point. I too mentioned earlier, that the patch contradicts itself by making overtime's outcome harder, but making it easier to turtle into overtime. I also mentioned that most XBox players like overtime, while most PC players dislike overtime, and since the patch all the PC players found out why overtime is great. The developers also probably found out why listening to whine posts isn't great.

BTW, a team doesn't need a gunner technically. They just need a team that will follow up on a juiced teammate, like Im Hudson said earlier. If teams would play with more teamwork, less solo juicing would be necesary. It took teamwork to keep the turrets built and healed, so it should take at least some teamwork to knock them down (a juiced player and a support or gunner helping).

Juice still works, I don't think that is the problem. New overtime doesn't even hurt that bad. Overall, it is a contradicting patch and they should get rid of the overtime change, but the juice change helps more than it hurts. I think people are just tired of other players going commando and winning thanks to juice (and that means juice would probably be fine with high heath and only slightly higher damage, the patch wasn't far off).

(I would blame your team if you couldn't manage to take out a lvl3.3 rokkit)

I would rather have old juice back.
You told me to blame my team, but my team was only one guy and he was helping.
We never could get two juices going at the same time (one of us or the other would die before we could get it), but if that is the kind of coordination that is necessary, you can kiss pub games goodbye.

As I said before, ideal teamwork should be heavily rewarded, but since it can only happen in competition play, it should not be necessary to win a pub game.
For us to both juice at the same time is the only way we could have won. That is a flaw.


L. Spiro

Yeah, that is true. Small games like that... weren't accounted for in balance. They should still work though.

Think the juice machines could correct that (2 people with field control can just ride the juice machines), but in a 2v2 match the lvl3.3 rokkits are very undefeatable. That truely sucks.

I didn't say both of you had to be juiced though, just one juiced while the other blinds the turret, draws turret fire, heals the juiced one, attacks the turret as well...

Really, the balance in small games is very turret heavy, but switching to a gunner and buying triple mortars fixes that real quick. It is messed up though. Too bad you couldn't find low-ping servers that were more full.