Some Thoughts On Juicing

@Cornstalk:
I have to disagree with your assessment. The current amount of health on the moneyball works well because it forces the game to be a long campaign of give and take. If it could be destroyed after dropping once or twice, the game would lose the nice rhythm of strike/counterstrike. I think that a game going to overtime is a sign that things are pretty well matched, since both teams are stopping each other from completing crushing offenses.

That being said, you may be on to something with respect to Overtime. For the same reasons I disliked the prevalence of chain-juicing (pre-patch) during regulation time, I find overtime to be a letdown. Namely, it is very swingy, and as you say, an entire game's gradual work of reducing the enemy moneyball's health is negated when a single juiced tank breaks through during overtime and snatches victory.

So what to do? I can think of a few solutions, but the key is to find one that both mitigates the feeling of frustration and randomness that you and I (and many other players I have seen on the forums) feel while STILL preserving overtime's purpose as a tie-breaker. With that in mind, here are some ideas (as you can tell, I love lists):

1) Reduce the damage players do to the moneyball during overtime.
Pros: This would mean that more coordination was required to destroy a moneyball during OT, reducing the incidence of lone wolf's juicing their way to a victory 15 seconds into OT.
Cons: It is a messy, inelegant solution, since everything else about OT tends towards power INCREASE (ie. all gold endorsements). Also, depending on balance, this might make it just as hard to win as it is during regulation play, thus defeating the point of OT. BUT it could be argued that having the moneyballs constantly down is enough of a game changer that games will end quickly ever with reduced moneyball damage.

2) Reduce or Remove Juice from Overtime. This could come in several forms.
A) Players spawning with almost full bars could be removed, leaving everything else unchanged;
B) Juice machines could be turn off once overtime begins;
C) juice bars could all be zeroed when overtime hits, preventing people from storing (or buying) full bars to use during OT;
D) Juice could be completely disabled during OT (no machines, no gain from kills, no activating juice);
E) Some combination of the above (ie. Bars are zeroed and machines turn off, but you still gain juice from kills, etc)
Pros: There are many variable to play with in the balancing. Furthermore, the general goal is to reduce the frequency of juicing during OT. Why does this make sense if OT is supposed to be a super-intense, fast paced tie breaker? I would argue that the combination of both moneyballs being dropped, a constant stream of Jackbot XLs and all players getting across-the-board gold endorsements is already sufficient to shake things up and allow a hard pushing, coordinated team to win. Juice in the mix seems unnecessary and merely adds to the randomness of the outcome (and therefore frustration).
Cons: Taking juice out of OT makes it less crazy and fun. Surviving long enough to use juice is a skill that should be rewarded in OT as during regulation play. If everyon can juice easily during OT, theres no problem of imbalance (everyones advantage is no ones).

Final Thoughts: I think that some combination of items from 2) above is the correct way to go. My experience has been that about half the players are juiced at any given moment during overtime. As stated above, I think that the other OT changes are already enough to make things intense and winnable, even without easy juicing. Harder fought, less random-seeming OTs would lead to more satisfaction among winners (everyone works to win instead of the one guy who juice rushes to victory in OT) and less frustration for losers.

Final Note about the Patch and DLC: I only got to play 3 games last night, but I have to say that I was very pleased with the changes . My very unscientific, quick and dirty impression was that the frequency of juicing had come way down and was about where it should be. It happened, but usually only 1 player at a time. It was thus challenging and fun, but not game breaking. And as a support, I actually dont mind the reduction in juice gain rate, since it gives me more incentive to do my support job manning turrets and helping teammates, rather than trying to juice as often as possible.
I could talk about assassins (as many people have), but that belongs in another thread. (hint: the issue is not juice, the issue is the effectiveness of the sword/dagger against turrets)

I personally don't believe that surviving long enough to get juice is skill when it comes to OT. Since people are given a large chunk of juice anyway, you can kill a couple of bots, OT will kick in, and you will be ready to juice.

But even if that is not the case, with the juice machines, people need no longer earn juice. You can spend the entire game getting killed, earning 0$ yourself, and still have enough to buy juice before OT starts.

I think OT would still be crazy and fun without juice, it would just be the good kind of crazy and fun. I think though, with each jackbot that comes out, it should be accompanied by a class-specific bot. So jackbot - gremlin, then jackbot - bouncer, then jackbot - gapshot etc etc. That would keep it fun and crazy. The good kind of crazy. Not the kind of "Everyones juiced and isnt even aiming properly, just hoping they hit something" "fun" that seems to happen almost every OT.