Juice Decay

I thought it might be neat if there was some kind of juice decay, where once someone has maxed out their juice meter, it would start to decay. They could still activate it at any time, until their meter is empty. This wouldn't really change 90% of juice usage, but it would stop people from just saving juice as a sort of heal to be used later. People would have to think a bit more about how they use their juice, and also would have to plan ahead a bit if they're getting close to maxing out their meter.

I would also like to see juice be a lot more rare, like increasing the amount of juice required to build a full meter and increasing the cost or cooldown of juice machines by a lot. It could also be made even stronger of a buff to compensate for the increased difficulty of building the meter. That way it could still serve it's purpose of breaking stalemates, but not be quite as common.

and what's the problem with that?

seems like it'd make the pace of the game way too slow

i disagree, the current amount seems fair considering you have to rebuild your whole juice bar on death

i disagree. the cost and timers aren't just numbers made up without thought. i agree on a little increase though, not "alot".

juiced players are already pretty tough to take down. i don't see a need for a nerf though.

breaking stalemates, for sure is not "the" purpose.

So, what I gathered from your argument is that juice is only to break stalemates, and therefore should take forever to get, making it non-existent on balanced teams.

Also, making it harder to get would only increase the value of juice, making the vendors change the game even more for a team with map control.

It's not really an argument, more of a suggestion

It just seems like there's a lot of juice flying around most matches I play. And it also seems my second suggestion overshadowed my first a bit. I think a decay on juice meters could be a good thing. Even if it's only a small one.

Honestly, I think the way juice builds is fine right now. The issue with juice is more that it lasts too long for how effective it is.

It is meant to be a stalemate breaker, or spearhead a team push. When instead it often just turns you into a one man wrecking machine that solos the entire enemy team, kills 2 turrets, and then runs away.

Maybe if juice didn't last so long, OR if there was a downside to juicing (temporary stat reduction after juice wears off.) then it'd be fine.

The other issue is that some classes are just SIGNIFICANTLY better at building juice, and/or utilizing juice. The assassin and tank can build juice incredibly fast compared to the support/assault. And both the assassin and tank benefit more from using juice than the support.

The sniper builds juice incredibly fast, but thankfully he has to leave the safety of his sniper nest to truly make use of it, and he still doesn't have any good tools for killing turrets so he can't go and base rape your team for 1500$ in lost revenue like other classes.

I think that thanks to the assault's low turret damage he is pretty decently balanced when using juice. If the enemy has a support actively healing turrets then his grenade launcher isn't even strong enough to kill a level 2 turret. However with some teamwork he can absolutely wreck a base (unless they have a level 3 rocket which he can't even take out with a full juice bar lol.)

Juice doesn't last too long, OP hits the nail.


A) It does way too much damage.
B) People use it as a heal.

Lower the damage a little, so you don't take down people in under a second.
Remove the heal component or increase the price to purchase to 600 or even more.

Why is this a problem? Clutch passives serve the same purpose. Timing to make a resource most effective adds strategy depth.

They nerfed money gain. You now get half the money from kills, turret kills, jackbot kills, and most likely other bot kills while juiced.

exactly. i don't understand why it is a problem at all

True, but that isn't a downside because you are also killing them 3-4x as fast. So 50% less earning but earning 3x as fast means you are still earning MORE than you would without juicing. (which is fine.)

In my opinion, heals are a "cheap" way of getting out of a fight on top. I understand that you get an advantage by purchasing Juice for 500 Coins, but why should this heal you? The reason for this is that you if you die, you lose all your Juice.

But isn't this sort of a tactical point? You should think before you spend 500 Coins on Juice, so that you won't die shortly after.

One thing is that you get a imo, retardedly huge advantage by purchasing this, another thing is it also heals you to full hp.

I don't really see the point of having it healing you, not a good one atleast so if you would explain why you feel so, feel free to do it

It really comes down to the same reason why you can't damage turrets while they're being upgraded. It's simply not fun to have invested so much time/money on gaining Juice only to have it grabbed away from you like that. It becomes a new layer of security for the player which he/she rightfully earned, and to remove the healing makes juicing a fragile glass cannon.

interesting opinion there

what's the reason it shouldn't?

that's one reason it should

the tactical point: you're supposed to prevent enemy juicing and not supposed engage a juiced player the same way you engage a non-juiced player, or you die. you let them juice, you made a mistake, and your team deserves the consequences.
also, we don't buy juice to turtle

i don't think it's retarded. you built up your juice with effort.
these were all well thought out by game designers

uh huh

you mentioned a few good ones for me. if you feel the need to have a change, explain why it should change instead.

Juice decay as a server option, off by default, could be interesting. I wouldn't turn it on by default because it could slow the game down quite a bit. Heavy turret defenses with competent players guarding them are difficult to take out without a juice rush.

@RayHanley: It's easy to split up a text and take everything out of context and give it a one line response. It's unintelligent and straigth down idiotic to do so and proves to me you really have no argument for it to stay the overpowered way it is now.

Juice has one single counter and that's Grapple. Damaging your opponent isn't a counter as Juice can heal you to full HP. Armor Endorsement isn't a counter, as your enemy can blast through even Gold Armor in seconds.

There is no "skilled" component of using Juice. Everyone can get 500 Coins to spend on Juice, once you have this you just secured yourself of easy kills or an easy Turret. While your opponents perhaps spend 900 on a Defensive Turret, you spend 500 on a counter to it.

I like that you can use your extra coins on something, it's a great thing that spices up the game, I just don't see any reason for it to be so overpowered. You gain alot more damage and also it heals you to full hp. I would be fine with one of the two really.

I've recently run a Juice build rather than a Skill build. I spend my first $300 on two upgrades and then I buy Juice after Juice and collect everything I can get from bots. It hardly fails, actualy I haven't been below a 5 KD:R since doing this. What is the reason, that it's more beneficial to purchase a power-up rather than purchasing your Class' Skills? It makes no sense really. The design of this is non "well-thougth" it's actually the only single thing I can find in this game that is incredibly mediocre game design.

Now, try not to take this post out of context and make a one-line reply, even though I know that is what your probably best at.

Juice-chaining is not fun for anybody.

This is true, but...

It already is balanced against good teams. Don't let the enemy melee bots, and they won't juice so damn often. Explosive rounds, tanks walking with bots, watching the whole map, keeping an eye on juice machines... Obvious stuff.

I disagree. A deployed gunner(at range) can slow a juiced player down significantly. Also, assault bombs. Also, smoke bombs and product grenades. Also Charges. Ice traps as well. And airstrikes, can't forget airstrikes. The other things you mentioned aren't counter(with the possible exception of dual minis and airstrikes for damage), but there are more things that are. I've seen plenty a good team shut down a juicer with ease.

You only get the boost for a few seconds. You need to make every second count on that timer. A $400 skill upgrade lasts an entire match, a $500 10 second boost had better be worth it.

I'm deciding not to respond to your flame-bait, just your points.

I'm always for more options. I like juice the way it is now, but options that aren't default never hurt anyone.

i'll skip the offensive talk; no hate bro.
fyi, the points relate; the formatting doesn't limit you how to read it.

there are way more CC's than grapple out there that provide good counter against juiced players.

aren't we countering juiced people? that's a one-time heal. and obviously simply damaging them is not a good counter at all.

those are obviously not either

this is also obviously true; it's a press-a-button deal

the problem is how did you end up with the $500? and did you waste your juice duration?

you spend money to shatter their defenses instead of some other stuff that might be helpful. it's all about decisions.

juice is a power-boost kinda thing. if it didn't heal you, then that's a real waste of $500; if it didn't boost your damage, i don't think an uber heal is worth it. i feel it's currently a $500 well spent

how many years have you been working as a game designer? lol
and most of us (well at least me) don't max all the skills anyways. also i'm interested in how you define "skill build" and "juice build".

i'll skip offensive talk again.
fyi again, points relate.

I have not been working as a game designer, at any point. I might just aswell get that out so you don't get the wrong idea.

The definition of a skillbuild is that you build your Class/Pro towards a specific playstyle depending on your Endorsements. Ie. Rush level 3 Passive as Assault combined with Gold Armor, Silver RoF & Bronze Accuracy/Larger Clips. Ie. Rush Grenade lvl 3 with Gold Armor, Silver Skill regeneration & Bronze Speed.
A Juice Build is ignoring your Skills and rushing for the 500 Coin Juggernaut Juice which will score you kills and kills constantly. It's much more deadly than upgrading your skills and using those upgraded tools, simply because you can take a man down in 2-3 seconds with great aiming. Run Gold Armor, Silver RoF & Bronze Juice for some serious downtaking. It's not "skilled" neither is it fun for your opponents, neither is it fun for yourself if people do this. It simply destroys the games core component as in developing your Pro to be more effective.

Due to the layout of the maps, the excuse of "We need something to take down Rank 3 Turrets" is not really legit, as you can easily destroy the opponents Money Ball in Overtime even with a full set of Rank 3 Turrets.

If you honestly can't counter Juice, then I must say lrn2play. And if you're able to get those kills, then it is apparent you're playing against a team of noobs.

Assault Charge 3, Tank Charge 3, Support Airstrikes, Sniper's Ice Traps, Gunner's Slam and Deploy and any grapple out there serves to waste time on Juice.