My Review of the Latest Patch

Finally got off work and got to try it out.

At first I thought the buff to the turrets was nice.
I was Tank as usual and did not instantly destroy their turrets. It was nice to have some resistance for a change.

The game would have been over without the patch.


We still did win, but it took all of the 15 minutes to do it.
So next map.
Basically the same story.

Well, my ping was almost 300 because I was on that guys server who wants to kick 300-pinged players.
I decided to change servers to a lower ping and see if my improved power would help speed things up a bit.


Got onto a 45-minute server. Wow!

Started a real game with 6 vs. 6.


Well I was winning as usual. Had the most money. Killing tons of bots. But no matter what I just could not get to their ball.


So I juiced.
Son, I am disappoint.


The match dragged on for the entire 45 minutes only to result in a loss.


Now, losing is fine. I do it all the time.
But I normally dont take 45 minutes to do it.

When I was winning, I normally dont take 15 minutes to do it, either.


The only game I played that didnt last the full game time was when I first joined that second server and it was 2 vs. 1, and I was the 1.
I lost in about 10 minutes.

But considering that one of the opponents was an even higher level than me (I am around level 258 or so, he was 267 and Gunner) it should not have taken that long.



The problem is, it may be a valid idea to buff the turrets, or to nerf the juice, but not both.

Winners take too long to win and losers take too long to lose.
I found myself frustrated when I won because it took so long to do it. My team was turtling and going out alone just was not enough.

I found myself even more frustrated when losing because our inevitable loss was dragging on forever, and even though I had the most money on either team and was putting out more effort, there was no way to advance into enemy territory.
Juice is worthy of failblog.org now, and when the enemy gains an edge they turtle.


Because the enemy does not need to waste $600 on 2 turrets to become level 3, they (and we) sprouted tons of level-3 turrets.

Whether winning or losing, most of the time it was a center-stage stalemate.
Neither team could get past the level-3 turrets guarding the center area, so whoever managed to get the ball down first wins the entire game, no matter how long it drags on.
And after getting that win or loss, you have to wait the entire duration of the match to actually get your reward.

The winners are thinking, Come on, we won, give me money already, while the losers are thinking, Come on, change up the teams and let me try again.


The juice of the past was the tie-breaker. And I never understood why people whined about juice. It was never unbalanced and it was always one of the best ways to get out of stalemates.
I thought I never needed to post a word of opposition because I thought Uber Entertainment would never listen to those few people whining about juice.

I was wrong.


My suggestion, and I speak as both a gamer and a professional game designer (with a decade of experience), is to un-nerf juice, and I mean fast.


Instead of flaming Uber Entertainment as many have done, I decided to provide a post that simply expresses what I have experienced with this new patch.
I give my own suggestion as to how to fix the things that made me most frustrated and leave it up to Uber Entertainment to decide what to do.


Because of the juice nerf, level-3 turrets basically resolve every game to a center-stage stalemate that lasts the entire duration of the game. We cant get past those level-3 turrets, so both winning and losing take the entire 15 minutes or more.

It is just not fun this way.
I know Uber Entertainment is trying to find some way to make this more fun for beginners, but this is not the way.
I think there can be a way to make both beginners and experts happy.
Please search for it, but please provide a fix for the current problem as soon as possible.
It is not illegal to provide 2 updates in 2 days.


L. Spiro

Yeah that match was quite unsatisfactory.

I think the major flaw of that one game was that it was played in a 45 min server. Any game that's that long and teams aren't pushing will feel really dragged out. That, and your team had two snipers who wouldn't really do much (they kept on sniping my turrets to gain juice, I presume).

And it was on Spunky; home of spamming till stalemate. :lol:

However, I can agree that turrets seem VERY hard to take down when they're upgraded now, unless you're a juiced gunner. Even a team of two people (in my case, a tank and a support) when juiced are not sufficient to take down a 3.3 rockit healed by a support anymore. It seems like teams absolutely need a gunner now that the game has become much more defence-orientated.

On the other hand, I decided to try a normal 15 min server, and those matches went quite well. You can see people can't really rely on juice too much anymore to rush into a crowd and go Rambo. Regardless, I can't agree with juice being nerfed towards turrets as well. Players, sure, but turrets?

As for the overtime issue, it's not a biggie to me at least (unless you're playing on a 45min/1hour server). Sports matches have always been under this sort of regime. In fact, I was confused when I first began playing the game as to why it wasn't the way it is now. Sure, you can say all those things about bringing the ball down but then letting it live on for the rest of the match, encouraging dragged on matches and turtling - but it's not like the 'losing' team is just going to sit there QQing in despair how they're going to inevitably lose.

We'll have to see for a longer period of time to see what the gameplay eventually evolves into. But as of right now, I can't say I'm unhappy with this patch.

I want to point out that DelBoy was on the winning team of my final match, and had the most money on his team, yet even after winning he says the match was not very satisfactory.

I know people complained about sometimes losing or winning in an instant, but in fact nobody wants a win or a loss to take 15 minutes.
A fast loss/win is far much more desirable than a 15-minute lose/win. No matter what.

People have complained about pub-stomping, but those people seem not to have ever experienced a pub-stomp that takes 15 minutes to finish.

If I am going to win, let me do it in 2 minutes.
If I will lose, let me lose quickly so the teams can be re-arranged.
If teams are even, I will feel that, and work hard to get the win, yet be satisfied with either result.


L. Spiro

I still don't know where all that cash came from. Seriously. All I really did was babysit turrets. :lol:

You say fast wins/losses, so would it be okay then to simply say the team who gets their money ball knocked down first instantly loses? Just forget about giving them the chance to push back because they apparently lack the capability to do so?

However, instead of such drastic measures, why not introduce a vote option where the teams can simply surrender and move on to the next game?

I think the juice nerd was a bit too drastic. I honestly had no problem with juice before but now it just seems pointless. Perhaps if they had just nerfed the damage reduction OR the rate of fire OR the crit multiplier. But all three at once just brutally murdered a key mechanic of the game .

I would have been happier seeing class balance rather than juice tweaks but oh well

I proposed in another post a system where you can avoid over-time by having a certain amount of health on your ball than the other team, not just a single unit more.

But having the original juice rules would also solve this problem.
In the game we played, I could make no ground because my juice was useless.

Yes I did kill a level-3 turret with it. Unfortunately it was a turret that was not guarded. And it was not guarded because the game was taking place in the center of the map.

I took the turret down but it never made any difference because my bots could never get past the center. If I tried to take down a turret in the center I would have just died with no result.



And yes I realize this applies to my team as well.
The enemy cant make ground if I cant make ground.


And so we both just sit there in the center.


The previous balance mechanics were far more exciting.
We made progress.
They made progress.
We tried harder and pushed them back.
It worked and it worked well.

I cant believe Uber Entertainment listened to the people who whined about juice.
So many times I thought, I should post an argument as to why juice is 100% fine as it is, but nah, Uber Entertainment isnt that stupid. They know to ignore these people.


As I said, I welcome the extra challenge presented by level-2 starting turrets.
I have no problem with that.
But when you add failjuice to that, I have a problem.

The only way to get by their increased defenses is now with team coordination, and since there is actually an Unreal Engine 3 bug that prevents or discourages that in a lot of clients (anti-aliasing causes text chat not to appear), and microphone support doesnt actually work, team coordination is only possible in rare situations.

Even if you could get team chat or microphones to work, you cant expect new players to know what team-play means.
This is where Uber Entertainments in-house play-testing falls short heavily, because all of them know how to play the game.

If all of my random teammates knew the ins and outs of the game as well as they do, we would not have so much of a problem.
But they dont, and we do.


The old mechanics were so balanced, no change was really needed (except maybe to LazerBlasers).
But still the buff to the turrets was fine.

But the nerf to the juice, on top of that?
No. Not possible.


L. Spiro

I think it was really good change vs players, but not vs turrets. What class do you think is OP? I cant think of any, all are so situational.

It's caused me to go back to sin every now and then. I have 2 sin classes. One for bot killing (more armor) and the other for ball raping (rof and clip)

I was using my ROF build to juice and take down those newly hacked lvl 3's that seem to almost instantly go up now. But after those initial ones are killed, breaking in just depends on your team again.

Also, 45 min servers always produce camping supports with multiple hacked lvl 3 turrets.
The only 2 classes that are the best suited to taking them out are the sin and the gunner with his mortors while juiced.

Sniper.

999,99% OP
Without upgrades I can still dominate you.

I'm going to have to disagree with you Spiro on some points but agree with you on others.

I am very much enjoying the changes. I played gunner a few times last night and juice rushing in the last five minutes of a game I found that I didn't have many problems breaking 3.3 turrets for my team to capture the win during OT if the game was in a stalemate. Of course my team had established map control which gave me the opportunity to harass the turrets freely. So yeah I'd say a gunner is needed more so than before.

I love the fact that a tank and sin can not longer (or at least has a harder time) single handily push and entire lane, break a level 1 rockit (no effort at all really) and get a team's moneyball down in the first two minutes of the game. Of course that occuring highlights a much more dire problem with team skill and balance of players but when you're playing on random public servers (ahem Grenade III I'm looking at you) what can you do.

Additionally I love how OT tends to resolve more in favor of the team that has been able to maintain map control the majority of the game as their base is full of turrets that more easily kill people using cheesy juice and suicide shoot the moneyball tactics.

Basically I see this patch as overall preventing cheese tactics and I'm always a fan of forcing more strategic thinking.

That all being said I believe your complaints highlight the fact that the nerf of juice armor has the largest effect on the short range classes and their ability to break turrets (support, tank). Taking 3.3 rockit fire to the face as a juiced tank already had a chance of killing you prior to the nerf (especially if you got grappled) and now as a juiced tank you might as well not even both trying to go after a 3.3 overhealed rockit. Juiced gunners, assaults, and sins can continue to try to break turrets from a far enough distance to dodge enough of the rockits but tanks and supports need to be much more strategic when they use their juice.

Now should any class be able to drop a 3.3 overhealed turret for a measly $500 juice purchase without map control or support from additional team mates like before? I'm not sure. To be honest I quite like having that $1050 investment mean more than killing bots and nubs.

I'm really enjoying the changes. The near mandatory overtime in games was quite annoying. I much prefer this style where if you mess up in the early game and cant come back to do damage to their money ball then you lose. Makes sense and is in line with most other sports that i can think of.

I also like the juice changes, MNC is a team game and one person should not be able to wreck a base alone. Team work is vital.

Less money from kill streaks was needed as well. getting 100$ for a kill was a bit ridiculous. Now there isn't such a huge disparity between the people going for pro kills and bot kills. It makes keeping on top of the bots feel more important.

Overall i'm enjoying the changes. Especially the 2 min count down timer. love it. Teams seem to pull together much more during the late stages of the game.

all in all thumbs up, now for the mod tools

thanks uber.

edited for gramatics

cutting snipers down to 1 trap would go a long way towards improving balance as it would give assassins a chance to get near them at the moment the only real counter to a sniper is another sniper

a bomb jumping assault goes a long way to counter a good sniper as well.

Mandatory over-time? Since when?
I hardly ever got them before.

I would much rather play in this order:
7-minute lose,
10-minute win,
5-minute win,
17-minute lose (with over-time)

than in this order:
15-minute lose,
15-minute win,
15-minute win,
15-minute lose


Yeah, I avoided over-time. Big whoop.
Every other game dragged on for the entire match time. Fail-trade.


When I get home at night I have time for a few games.
I want to relax and I dont think too hard about winning or losing.

I have about 45 minutes to play. I expect to get in 5 games in that time.
If I am stomping them or getting stomped, it doesnt matter. If we lose in 2 minutes, fine, at least we can get new teams next game and try again.
I might stomp or get stomped several games in a row. I dont care.

I get to see different maps, get different teammates, maybe change my class.
These things prevent boredom.

The new system drags out the game.
I only get 3 games in max.
I only get one class (since changing classes costs too much of your investment) per 15 minutes.
I only see 3 different playing fields, and only half of them.
Tables dont get turned. Nothing exciting happens.

Its boring.

Exactly wrong.
One person should be able to turn the tables.
Are you seriously suggesting that we should even try to get teamplay out of random pub players?

If one player cant turn the tables, why would we even play?
I dont put 400 hours into this game just to blend in with the crowd.

When I was a beginner, I got stomped hard by certain players who stood out among the rest.
That is why I kept playing.

Individual skills must be rewarded on an individual basis. This is elementary game design.
Dont mistake team-based for team-oriented.


L. Spiro

To this date the only game I have played that did not last the entire 15 minutes was when I was 1 vs. 2, which lasted 10 minutes.

Frankly I was not so interested in this game anymore after experiencing that.
But tonight I decided to give it one more chance.
Since turrets are such a huge problem now, I decided to play Support.


First match:
Joined late. Got my bonus and fully upgraded myself and built a turret.
Then crashed. Full PC reboot required.

Second match:
Support again. Healed my teammates constantly. I definitely prevented tons of deaths.
Built turrets. Game lasted 17 minutes, over-time was NOT avoided, and we lost.
It was just a 15-minute stalemate followed by an over-time juice-fest. Fail.

Third match:
Full PC crash out-of-the-gate. Rebooted.

Fourth match:
Joined a server at the end of the game. Did not get any bonus for joining late. I started with $300 and only 2 minutes remaining.
We lost and my rating dropped for no reason.

Fifth match:
Uncle Tulleys Funland.
Most players dropped. Since it became a 3-vs.-2 I decided to play my main class: Tank (we were outnumbered).
Crashed after 4 minutes. PC rebooted.

Sixth match:
I was about to select Support but I checked my team. They were all Support.
I have never seen an all-support match before.
All-Assault, yes. All-Assassin, yes.
I played Assassin instead because it is my second main.

I thought we would have won, and my team was telling me in team-chat to kill their turrets, which I was anyway. They relied on me.

Crashed after 5 minutes. Full PC reboot. Thanks. Let my team down. They think I rage-quit because it happened just after I died.
Thanks a lot.




Let me put this into perspective.
I have a huge ping to every server.
I cant play a lot of servers because my star-ranking is too high.
I crash constantly thanks to the Unreal Engine 3 used by this game. I can barely finish a game that last 7 minutes, and now every game lasts 15 minutes.

And yet I still play.



Is this understood?
With a very high ping, and a limited server selection, and tons of PC crashes (at least 3 daily), I persist, and continue to play.

It is very clear who is this games single most dedicated player.
But in case you missed it, I am this games single most dedicated player. Under these conditions that is extremely easy to proclaim. Would you keep playing if you crashed every 7 minutes (full PC crash), never get your money at the end of the game, cant play your favorite classes, lag on every server, and only have 1 server below 300 ping at any given time?

No, you wouldnt.


If you have driven me off, there is a clear indication that you have made a mistake.


To be frankly honest, I wish you had just left the game balance as it was (ignore idiots who whined about Juice etc., myself speaking as a professional game designer with over 10 years of experience), used your patch schedule to fix bugs, and started work on Monday Night Combat 2.

As a professional game designer, I actually respected Monday Night Combat quite a lot, and Uber Entertaiment as a result.
I know why your game was keeping me attached regardless of my ping, regardless of my limited server selection, etc.

You did a ****-load of things right. In fact, I have always played light-weight characters because my style is to be nimble and fast, like any woman should be.
This is the first game ever that allowed me to play a heavy character (Tank) and really feel the gameplay, and feel comfortable with that class.

It is all over now.
Its gone.


Uber Entertainment is a new company.
I wish you the best. Please learn from this game.

I will look forward to Monday Night Combat 2.
I trust that you will have a much more solid game in your next revision, but until then I will be finding another use of my spare time.
Dont make such risky updates when there are other gaming options so readily available (Brink, although I myself will not be playing it because I think they are ******* assholes for not including female characters).


A sequel to this game is most welcome. Not so many players these days anyway.
Lets hope Uber Entertainment begins to focus on the next game soon.


L. Spiro

It's funny that apparently only L-Spiro has the crashing problems. At least nobody else reported this in recent time.

I am not blaming Uber Entertaiment for this, because it may be ATIs fault or it may be Unreal Engine 3s fault.

But regardless of whose fault it is, I have been putting up with it since the start (for me that was February 3rd) and without much of a complaint.


I have sent crash reports to them.
Maybe they cant fix it because maybe it is not their problem.


But regardless of the case, I have to deal with it.
And have been doing so just fine for months.

I get pissed off when it happens. People think I rage-quit (someone accused me of that in-game once too), but I stuck around anyway on top of other issues as well.


There are some brilliant game-design aspects to this game.
I can appreciate that. I have been willing to overcome a ton to keep playing for that reason.

But Uber Entertainment listened to the wrong people when deciding on these changes.
For my current in-game experiences, I am not willing to overcome ping + crashes + limited server selection. Sorry.
The fact that I was willing to overcome all of that should be a pretty good indication that they had something going that no other game had.

I will see what is in the next patch, but until then I have no more reason to play.
I hope the next patch undoes these issues, and if not I hope Uber Entertainment will realize this game has died and a sequel is due.


[EDIT]
For what it is worth, my primary gaming friend just invited me to a game of Monday Night Combat, and I declined.
Gaming is always more fun with him on-board. But it is still not enough to make me want to play this game. I am waiting for Tuesday Night Combat.
[/EDIT]


L. Spiro

You're probably better off skipping Brink anyway. It sounds like people have even more issues with ATI in that game, and I get tons of crashes with nVidia too. Game balance is also way out of whack.. I watched some of the finals of a tournament yesterday. 90% of the players used the same weapon and body type. During the whole time I watched (about two and a half rounds, then i got bored of it), neither team was able to complete a single objective because of an overwhelming defensive advantage.

I've been greatly underwhelmed with the juice changes combined with the overtime changes. The problem is juice to me is meant for breaking ties. It is a reward for staying alive, pushig lanes and controlling midfield. If you can break key turrets and kill key targets you can win a game.

If you can't keepan eye on juice machines or, even worse, not keep the opposing teams bots far away so that you have time to recover from a juice rush then you need to rethink your strategy or encourage team mates to help. Because juice is not as good for the individual for pushing the line and teamwork of any kind is, not discouraged but, not existant in pubs rallying around juiced players never happens.

I feel that the fun of saving up juice has been sucked out.

Furthermore I do not completely agree with the overtime change. That is I agree with the idea completely but it eeds a slight change so that is wan work. One person said that overtime should occur if the percentage of damage between the balls falls wihin a certain range. Because the only way two teams are going to have equal ball damage is if the game runs out. This leads directly to trying to push early and then falling back to protect your ball for the rest of the match. There is not consistent presure to put an end to the match. Quite frankly this sucks.

I like the level two turrets but the juice changes ruin it for me.


Bottom line I am stubborn but to a fault. I will play MNC till the last server shuts down but my loyalty has waivered quite a bit due to the juice changes. Yes the previous juice rules meant a single player could take out a whole bunch of turrets clearing the way for bots. But now everyone has to be with you for a push to suceed. That is not a bad thing but killing turrets is immensly hard what with dieing immediately from turret fire.

I have a sinus headache now.