Juice Chaining

Ok, so I 'm ignoring pretty much the entire last page as it has little to do with the topic at hand.

So, here's an idea: what if juice price progressively increased and juice earnings from bots progressively decreased throughout the duration of the match? Start it at $500 and at maybe three or four minutes into the game it starts ticking up until by the time overtime starts it's at $1000, which it stays at for the rest of the game. Bot earnings could stay consistent for the same amount of time, and then gradually drop until they are about half the norm at overtime. This would effectively nerf juice for classes that earn it quick and classes that are better off buying it, and add a new dynamic to the game where juice is conserved to be used at key moments late game.

1) If you balance the game according to what randoms what, then yes, you will end up losing what makes this game fun: Teamwork. A concept which most pubs know next to nothing about, which is why they lose, and why juice-chaining is being considered an issue at all.

2) $500 is a significant amount of money, whether you control the middle or not. The only way a team is going to consistently have that much money is if they're on ultra streaks or otherwise dominating the other team. If you're doing well, you should be rewarded.

3) Spawn killing is an issue Uber has announced that they're going to addressed. Juice-chaining, at this point, is not. Nor is it likely they will, as it's perfectly fine how it is. Also, randoms will play until they move on to the next thing, the real community are those who take an interest in the game's development and are playing often. That being said, no, I won't stop playing if they change juice. However, if they start nerfing Assault because a bunch of crappy pub Assassins don't know how to deal with him, then yes, I probably will quit. I don't think I'm alone on that.

Juice chaining has nothing to do with teamwork. And adjusting the game according to pubs has nothing to do with eliminating teamwork. I actually know of no way to eliminate the advantage of teamwork except to not allow voice chatting, which I don't think anyone is suggesting.

Actually, $500 is not a significant amount of money, especially when you consider that most skills are not even necessary to upgrade when you are juice chaining. Also, shouldn't winning be the reward?

Actually, they have said they are going to address it, but we do not know in what way. Whether or not they are going to, it still remains that some of us believe that juice chaining is a stupid mechanic that ruins the balance of the game, especially in a pub setting.

It comes down to whether this mechanic makes the game more fun or not. I think it does not make it more fun. Additionally, as I said before, I think it will cause the community to shrink, which is something I do not want to see happen.

southside side it all already but I just wanted to focus on this statement for now.

So to you the community is only the players who take an interest in the game's development and are playing often? As of right now there are only ~600 level 99s in the game and not all of those are on the forums. So how many players are included in your total? A few hundred at most. That is hardly a community. If only a few hundred purchased MNC then Uber would not be able to release any DLC as they would not be able to afford much of anything.

The point is that a community needs tens if not hundreds of thousands of players to be successful. Not all of them will play at the same time or as frequently as real life will always be more important than a game. Other, newer games will also detract from older ones and eventually that large community is down to a fraction of its total. MNC needs as many players as possible to keep the community active. Excluding the random players from public matches would be suicide as the 'community' that you describe is not even large enough to pay for a week's worth of labor for Uber.

Lastly, if enough players are having trouble fighting as a specific class then yes, expect it to get a buff. If a single class is causing problems for most of the other classes then yes, expect it to get nerfed. This is the very definition of balance and I would expect nothing less from Uber. To my knowledge nothing has been said about the Assault except for the bullet latency issue making them a bit strong recently so your point is moot. If anything I would expect the Assassin to get a buff.

This thread got crazy in a hurry.

The only problem I have with juice chaining is that it's so easy to do that it pretty much obsoletes the turrets. You may be able to argue about the intent of juice but you certainly can't argue that turrets are supposed to be a very important part of the game. Okay, technically you can argue it, but they wouldn't have made it so detailed if it wasn't supposed to be used. I can deal with juice chaining by itself, and juice chaining doesn't win games. It comes as a problem when it destroys a pivotal part of the game.

I have noticed turrets have terrible range when not hacked by a Support. For something that is so important for base defense they don't start shooting until the Bots are almost directly in front of it(the turret).

Yeah, I agree as well. Early in MNC players would upgrade their base building all sorts of turrets and saving up just to have them upgraded quickly. Now I can't think of the last time I actually spent money on turrets. Sure I may build a LazerBlazer but I expect it to be destroyed almost instantly and for only $175 I don't see a problem with losing it. What is a tower defense game without the importance of towers (or turrets in this case)? Team Deathmatch? Sadly I can see MNC becoming nothing more than TDM if this continues and most games are only won once one team starts spawn-killing the other. Juice Chaining only encourages this type of behavior.

You know what? You guys are right. Bad teams cannot deal with or even prevent juice-chaining, and thus it is overpowered and ruining the whole game.

I have been blind, and for that I am sorry.

Step 1: Kill juice man

Step 2: Taunt as he flies off the stage having wasted $500.


ALTERNATE TACTIC: Wait in spawn for his juice to wear off or cut off their bot waves from their spawn, preventing the ball from going down and negating the rush entirely.

I agree, also am i and a lot of others in this thread and other threads not part of the "real community"? is that because we disagree?

That said, i understand where you (or better said other people that disagree, cause your arguments make no sense) are coming from. I am not saying you should not juice-chain, the game makes it possible. I also do not have a problem with spawn-camping. I do prefer the juice-power gone, a better balancer and less "me and my friends own the pubs we are so good"-mentality. The first two are up to the devs, the latter is up to the players. And if your such a community-person as you claim you are, you should see this also.

@Hudson and crew:

Having just read through scented midgets complaint thread brings me back to my point from earlier in this thread which is that the abundance of juice makes the game less fun. Look at your own play as an example- the spawn camping attempting to get melee kills etc. Is that what it takes at this point to find enjoyability in this game? Most people in this thread keep pointing out a few of the same counter tactics and saying that its a fair reward for playing well blah blah... It still isn't fun- as your own behavior confirms. When a game isn't fun then balance really becomes a tertiary issue.

Juice or no juice, bad teams will get pushed into their spawn and melee killed.
Juice just makes it easier to get the melee.

I see nothing wrong with racking up some funny kills for a minute after we have won a match.

If you don't want to play with us then just leave the lobby.


And as has been pointed out.
If we end the match quickly people whine about it, if we draw it out and go for funny kills, people whine about it.

I may bitch a little bit, but when I get split from the team I take my beating, I dish out some beatings. But I don't make forum posts complaining because they chased me around with juice flailing their arms.

Come to think of it..the only person who has ever finished me with a melee so far is hudson.

Props hudson

I'm not saying you're right or wrong for doing it. Just pointing out the need to create a sidequest for yourselves because the game itself isn't fun.


edit: And to clarify I'm not asking anyone to play differently.

Good point, it seems you guys yourself have unknowingly figured out that constantly destroying people gets old. Why don't you take the advice to play AGAINST each other some more, you might enjoy the challenge.

Chalking up the ability to Juice Chain or not as being an experienced player or not has nothing to do with this. Everybody is basically doing it at this point.

Chalking up the ability to try and counter a team that already has the Juice chaining advantage to experience or inexperience has nothing to do with this.

The point is it is one dimensional and removes all other aspects of the game, which is teamwork (defense/offense) and turrets.

Chalking up teamwork to being able to Juice chain together in leu of all other components of teamwork is a false argument.

The 500$ cycle of chaining over and over and over is a flaw in Crossfire.

If you're new to this thread or dont want to repeat something, another decent discussion about it is @ viewtopic.php?f=16&t=3498&start=20

I wish you guys could focus the discussion on this instead of whether it's fair or not. Otherwise this thread is just going to turn into a elitist vs scrub debate, and that won't help anything.

Or about about just stopping the juice-chaining from ever occuring, considering it's very hard to do and should never happen in a room of equally matched players.

And how often does this occur? All it takes is that one player with 20+ deaths to ruin a team's efforts. More often than not that player will leave just before the match ends too. There is nothing like seeing the final score and noting all of the 0-0-0 or 0-0-X players on the losing team.

MNC needs proper playlists and private game options badly.

The point is that teamwork is needed to stop and/or Slow a juiced opponent. All but 2 classes has a skill that deals well against a Juiced Pro. Assault and Tank have the charge, Sniper has Ice Traps and the Gunner has the Slam.

Agreed. Even with ample preparation when a player Juices you will still have to survive their attention initially. If you are not in the proper location or have Freeze Traps waiting then you will just be another kill added to their tally.

Personally I would love to see juice toned down a bit. It reminds me of the star from Super Mario Bros. and you basically are invinicble so long as you do not fall off the map. I understand the point of rewarding players with a power-up but do they need an I-win button? If juice was adjusted then more emphasis would be placed back on the turrets again!