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Discussion A few things I think should be changed..

Discussion in 'Annihilation' started by Mallowpuffs, Oct 23, 2020.

Discussion - A few things I think should be changed..
?

Do you agree?

Yeah man, right on! 18 vote(s) 81.8%
Bro, what's wrong with you? 4 vote(s) 18.2%
  1. Mallowpuffs Regular Member

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    Hello everyone! It's been a while since I've been active on here, some of you might remember me from around the 2014-2016 time.

    I have recently started playing Shotbow again, primarily Annihilation. It's sad to see the current state(in terms of player count) on Annihilation, and after playing for a while I have come up with a few reasons why I think this might be. Now, to preface, I think the biggest reason is lack of marketing/advertising of the server. That's not an easy thing to overcome, but it's even harder when new players quit after two rounds instead of telling all their friends to start playing. The best type of advertising is advertising that runs itself.

    I think first and foremost, gapples need a rework. Having tried to introduce new players, this is absolutely the #1 thing that turns them away. For inexperienced players, there's simply no counter to gapples. Even for me, I don't want to spend every single game just grinding for gapples. Like 8 times out of 10, the team that gets gapples first(usually a clan) wins. 3 Diamond defenders with an immo? Gappler wins. Don't get me wrong, I understand there are counters. But for someone who has never played(or even has played for awhile), taking the first 3 phases to get armored up/wall built/stuff enchanted and then instantly destroyed by a gapple is absolutely frustrating. And this is pretty much every game on every map. I have introduced people to this game and they have quit for this reason. For real, it needs to be taken seriously. I don't know the best option for fixing it, it's a tough spot. I almost feel like there should be a "casual" mode without gapples(or atleast nerfed) but the current player count doesn't allow for that.

    Second, scout. The only thing that rivals the frustration of being gappled as a beginner is scouts. We have to face the fact that most beginners aren't amazing at PVP. So against a scout, there's just about no way to win a fight. Besides the fact that they can shoot across the map and loot mines in a matter of seconds, they can also outrun anyone in any direction(except dasher in some situations), usually win in a 1v1 due to speed, and retreat at any time. I don't get it, when I left scout was insanely overpowered and it seemed certain it was going to get nerfed. How in the world is it practically the same still? I barely even use it because it literally feels like cheating. I can beat an iron of practically any class as a leather scout like 9/10 times. It's ridiculous. I know, a big reason was because half the playerbase uses scout and shotbow couldn't survive a hit like that if they left after a scout nerf. But the server will never grow if something doesn't change.. A constant meta in any game causes it to become stale and die. I understand that scout isn't the absolute be-all and end-all class but it's surely closer than any other class.

    That's just the two most prominent issues I have noticed from people who I introduced to the game and who subsequently quit. This is not just things that get me frustrated(even though they do). Annihilation has a lot more issues than what I listed here, but it's a start. Honestly I doubt either of these things will change, but hey, worth a shot.

    Rant is over. :)
    JrAkcel, lil_cuh, atticus120 and 6 others like this.

  2. jaimejaime19 Regular Member

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    Devs can nerf scout so many ways:
    Temporarily reduce health after dying
    Increase grapple cooldown (5 sec is good, higher is maybe overkill)
    Scouts have perma weakness; after all, they are a scout and not a warrior
    Remove speed with leather; only encourages mindlessly attacking other bases
    Remove void grappling; most stupid thing I have seen to exist in a game

    One that I came up with is to disable grapple for x seconds(4-8 is a good range to choose) after being in combat. Balances scout by not allowing it to dash in and out of combat. Instead, the scout would actually have to choose their fights. No other class gets this kind of agency, with the closest contest being dasher(20 sec dash), acrobat(10 sec double jump), and assassin(40 sec leap w/ invis and speed).
    What makes scout so strong is that the grapple effectively has no cooldown; it takes 2-3 seconds to get a new grapple out, and 2.5 seconds is the cooldown! Pretty stupid, amirite?

    I left like 3 years ago, and the situation still remains the same. Sigh.
  3. Mallowpuffs Regular Member

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    I'd take any of these changes to scout! Any one of them would make it a mobility class, you know, like the name implies. Right now it is literally the best early game PVP class(if not whole game) along with being the best mobility class in the game. It just doesn't make any sense. I respect the Shotbow/Anni devs, but I really think scout has to change if this game is to grow.
  4. atticus120 Regular Member

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    6,695xp
    I definitely agree on the golden apples thing. My friends and I just came back to the game after a few years to check it out, and in three games we had the exact same experience: we'd have fun gearing up, building a wall, fighting other teams for mid, then ONE person from another team comes into our nexus and absolutely destroys it with our whole team (including people with iron and diamonds) hitting him. It genuinely might be the most unbalanced thing I've seen in a game recently and its just not fun at all once someone gets one. I'd love to return to this game cause I used to play it years ago, but its just not fun when that happens every time. I dug up my old email account to reply to this cause I got so rattled during my last game lmao
    lil_cuh, samcrystal and Mallowpuffs like this.
  5. Mallowpuffs Regular Member

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    Go with a swapper defense after P3. It can get a bit boring but it's worth it when you void 2 rushing gapplers! :)

    But really, yeah, exactly what you said. That experience is the same that brand new members who have no nostalgia of the game to make them keep trying. Like, honestly, if I hadn't played before and had so many good memories of it I would have probably stopped after the 3rd gapple rush. It's not even a team of rushers most of the time, it's one person. But with the small teams recently, that's all it takes. I am having more fun now that I started swapping again. It's really the only viable defense besides gapple defense.
    lil_cuh and samcrystal like this.
  6. samcrystal Regular Member

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    Golden apples and scouts are the most unbalanced things at this moment. I REALLY enjoy playing Annihilation, but these things just killing all the fun.
    I want the meta to be changed! I'm really tired of seeing scouts all the time! The golden apple should be removed at all. Annihilation is a team game, you can't just come to an enemy base with a golden apple and win the game! And the best change for scout in my opinion is to add a perma weakness to this class. (Sorry about my terrible english if i got wrong somewhere :nope: )
    Mallowpuffs and lil_cuh like this.
  7. SoulKazeX Platinum

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    I can understand the frustration with the gapples and scout but nerfing even more scout or gapples is to kill the both stuff and It's not the solution.
    Scout has been nerfed several times and right now I seriously think that is pure balance and have so many counters (pyro, flame bow, fire aspect, slowness, water), scout is only to run faster cmon .-. game without scout in my opinion, would be boring, besides, they nerfed the fall damage in bungee jump so i don't see where is the problem with scout tbh it´s a skill class not only right click like anothers, fr, you only are running faster than people dont choose the class...

    Gapples are the only way to survive in a solo rush against a full team, without them I'm sure many good players would leave the game because is pointless have good gear to be kill in a few seconds. It's important to point out right now the drop rate is a lil too much nerfed and if you don't have someone farming them for you, you lose so many time and if you are alone in the game, probably, you will rush in p5 when the game maybe is ended. Ye, i agree are op, but yes, exists counters like immo swapper lumberjack, etc... for to reduce or directly kill the effects, gapples are not easy to get them exactly and the gold mine is not a sure place, the minerush risk is 100%. Again I don't see the problem, people that likely got them are good players or clans that knows to minimize the time, in my opinion: the profit is equal to the time you have been farming and you had the skill to dont die.

    The game cant be only numbers of persons vs numbers of persons and wins the team with the most number of persons, is so boring do that, skill in the game must be the most important thing and what does the game interesting.
    samcrystal likes this.
  8. samcrystal Regular Member

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    Thats why Annihilation is supposed to be a teamplay game, this is so dumb when 1 player can win the whole game with 1 or 2 gapples! 5 Diamonds cant kill a guy with a gapple, how can this be fair? Swapper cant do anything if a guy with a gapple is already in your nexus. Lumberjack could work only if a few of your teammates would change their class to lumberjack because 1 lumberjack wont destroy diamond armor before the nexus will be destroyed. Immobolizer almost useless against gapple, same as mercenary and succubuss. So what you supposed to do against gapple?
    And about scout. This class should get more cons because he got overpowered ability! Fire wont do anything against a scout if scout got water bucket. Slowness is the only hope, but the problem is that half of my team is playing as a scout and they dont want to change their favourite class to anything like spider, ninja or smth. If not nerfing scouts, then perhaps admins should set a limit for this class? Only 2 scouts can exist at the same time in each team.
    This scout meta is really annoying and i really hope that is going to do something about it. I dont want to leave shotbow server, this is my favourite server of all time! Thats why im trying to help at least somehow. :( (And again im sorry if my english sucks, im still learning)
  9. SoulKazeX Platinum

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    From my point of view a person that has 1 or 2 gapples is because he deserve them (anyway 2 gapples are not enough to break a nexus alone against a team with the enough players geared up and with the appropiate classes if the nexus is not like 20 or 10), a solo rush is not easy to do, get inside a base alone is not easy to do... pick nexus when are 15 people hitting you is not easy and i repeat it again, with classes like immo, merc, bloodmage, lumberjack, wizard you can reduce the time of the gapple invincibility (if you dont void him directly).

    And men, someone that has a water bucket and knows to throw it to disperse the fire is skill... wtf. I respect your opinions but i dont agree with them. For some people like me, without these stuffs, anni would be so boring, we would be a kind of little soldiers without brain with all of us doing the same things. Some people likes to minerush, some people likes to defend, some people likes to rush with gapples trynna to destroy the nexus alone or with his whole clan, why not? Yes anni is a team game, but why solo players cant play anni?
  10. JrAkcel Regular Member

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    Im totally agree about scout, I used to play a lot of Annihilation before, and everytime I faced a scout, even though I had better gears, I couldn't do anything, I can't run, he will get me anyway, If I fight, he will just ran away when he will be low, you can't just beat a scout, He have the advantage in every situation against you. That was the main reason why I left the game, everyone was using this class and I couldn't enjoy the game with other class that I loved simply because I get destroyed but scout everytime. I tough that after A long time it would get a good nerf but even after that, I joined back the server lately and still get destroy by only one class the majority of the time; Scout. Im not terrible at pvp, I can handle pretty much any 1vs1 and win easly, but agaist a scout, how can you beat him if he run away? You can't out run him, you can't flee, you just have to accept that you are going to get destroy.
    JeTi_Brothers and samcrystal like this.
  11. Tobi472 Platinum

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    Since this discussion is rather onesided I am going to argue for the other side.

    There will be 3 points covered in this post. First Scout, second Gapples and last balance in general.

    Scout is not op at all. The counters which are in the game are no soft counters. They completly disable the grapple. For example if you really wanna mess with a scout bungeeing, just place a slowness bard box and hes done.
    By an analysing look on who uses scouts, the ones who use it are very good and experienced players. Scout is good in most situations makeing it an easy class to mainly play, therefore its very popular.
    In many situations (looking at the latest clanwars) scout is not the strongest pick but ppl stick to it because they have so much experience with scout.
    You also can think of scout as a free run away ticket as a prestige reward to experienced players vs new players.

    For gapples I will refer again to the latest clanwars. Every team dedicated many ressources in time and players to make a big farm. Still a big farm was no guarentee for apples. In fact some clans where farming the whole game, which lasted for about an hour, and only got 4-5 apples. Making it almost 1 apple per phase. And somehow you experience gap rushes every game? Gaps rn are op but you need atleast full diamond to not die. Let me tell you one thing if you get rushed by someone with 4 gaps or more you just did nothing for an hour straight. You could ve won the game already, you could ve destroyed the farm etc.
    Btw the effect of gapples is as strong as having full prot 3 with regen 2. If gaps would be removed this would be the new meta and you would still complain.

    Balance is beeing done and I feel like gaps are not a problem anymore. Still I would love a higher apple droprate(old one) woth a gapple rework.
    Scout is controversial but doesnt need any balance. There are classes which ruin more gameplay aspect of the game.
    Another good example for balance is the removal of alchemist splash potions. Fun fact splash alcemist was the main way ppl rushed but than it got removed and ppl start to use gapples.

    All in all there will always be a dominant class and the meta way to rush. We as clans adapt to the changes and find out new ways to rush. Why can you not work around one single class which rn only requires one player to place a block nearby!
  12. samcrystal Regular Member

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    Maybe i wasn't right by saying that the apple should be removed from the game. If the meta will change and people will start to use any of the classes besides not only scout, maybe then this item will not be overpowered. Now im thinking that the gapple should get just a little bit nerfed and thats it, just a little bit.
    And yeah, scout. I still dont agree that the scout is not OP. Why such classes like Dasher, Acrobat, Assassin have a long cooldown on their ability, but scout doesnt have? If devs really wanna keep scout ability this way, why not adding at least something that will make scout weaker in combat? Lets take healer for example. He got perma weakness because he provides supporting to his team. Why dont add something like that to the scout becasue he have the insane mobility? Very nice mobility, but slightly weaker in combat, why not?
    The "good players" will leave anni if scout will got nerfed? Well, many beginners left this game (including me long time ago) because the only thing that they can see is clown fiesta meta with the scouts. Mallowpuff was right by saying that the server will never grow if something doesn't change. There will be something to complaine about if meta will change, because its really hard to create a game with a pure balance in it. That doesnt mean you dont have to do anything.
    Mallowpuffs likes this.
  13. Mallowpuffs Regular Member

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    I don't have a lot of time to write-up a detailed and well thought out response right this second, but when I do I'll try and remember to come back and get it written up.

    I noticed you quoted samcrystal, so I'm not sure if you were targeting me with that post also, or just generally for anyone in favor of these changes. First and foremost, I am not the one who loses every time to gapples and scouts. Does it happen to me? Absolutely. But both gapples and scouts are just annoyances for me. I think both should be changed, but I don't think both need to be changed for the game to be fun.

    I made this post because I know from experience that these two aspects are actively making new players quit. Annihilation is virtually dead. Shotbow is virtually dead. It's sad, but it's true. As bad as it is to say, if shotbow wants to grow, it has to stop solely listening to current veteran players/clan members/etc. Unless they just want to hold on to under 200 anni players as peak. If that's the case, absolutely keep it as is. Of course veteran players have come up with gapple counters and stuff. But if you or anyone says that a team of new members could hold up against even a single diamond with 2+ gapples with today's team player counts, you're kidding yourself. New members don't have swapper traps, or void scorpios, or gapple defenders.

    The best way to fix this is for there to be like "casual" and "ranked" gamemodes. But unfortunately, the games are almost already dead without further dividing the playerbase so that can't work in its current state.
    samcrystal likes this.
  14. Tobi472 Platinum

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    Yes I was adressing the changes in gerneral and sam was the one summing them up nicely.
    It is actually interesting and you got a really good point. I would claim to be a veteran player and I dont really see balancing issues in scout but some in gapples. That is probly bc I cant put myself into the position of a a new player. Personally I didnt had any issues with immo and think that the devs were not listening to the vets but the ones who cried the most. Basicially the same as ppl complaining about scouts etc.
  15. Darth_Bachious Retired Staff

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    Before commenting/hating, read the whole thing!

    I like how you divided the post in 3 different parts. I agree with the other 2 points that it is not easy to 'fix' a complete meta with only 1 change and I doubt the newer players do mind that the most. The discussion about scout being OP is a rather hard one, as quite a few scouts are actually really good players.(Thanks Soto for pointing that out.) I would rather keep the discussion about scout being OP or not out of this tread entirely for the future posts as it is not relevant. (This is no hate towards you Tobi, it is just that your post was best for the other comments.)

    One of the disccusions in this tread is about the annoyance of scout towards new(-er) players. Lets assume that new players are not the best at pvp, do not have much knowledge and are mssing most classes (assuming they don't have scout is already enough). Now take into account that the current shotbow community is playing for (at least) a few years and have mastered the classes they play pretty well, but also became quite good pvp'ers (better than me atm), and do have strategies. Everyone would say that the new players will get destroyed by the older players, this is not a difficult theory. The difference is how they feel when they are killed. If they get killed by a very close range class (Pyro, Thor, Succubus, you get what I mean) the feeling is more like: this guy is better at pvp, but I had the choice to mentally prepare, to run away, to beg for mercy. The same kinda holds for classes like acrobat, dasher and assassin, which still need to get somewhat close before being able to kill. The difference for scout is that a scout can just charge in after having seen the new player from afar. It can go at 2 times the speed as the player and kill them, and the new player will be left wondering what he could do, what he did wrong.

    You might say that a new player should stay in a group, but tbh, it is too easy to be left behind (especially if like 60% plays scout and you, as a new player, don't have the class). Also newer players get out of position more easily by not being as experienced in general (chasing too far, doing something random (you get what I mean)). So, is it bad when a newer player dies? If you die, in general, you get behind on getting gear. Mobility classes are really good at picking slower classes with less gear (maybe a reason why scout is popular), so a newer player being behind will probably get killed a lot, and constantly being killed, while not getting why you are killed and what you could do, and not being able to kill someone might cause you to quit the game.

    Currently, players love scout and I can see why. The speed of it is addictingly nice, it requires skill (so it is worth the time invested into it), and it is good at picking off weaker players (gear/skill). This causes a high playrate of the class, as it is a nice class to play. However, as aforemenioned, it is hard for newer players to play the game with that many good scouts (I already said before that the player playing scout are actually good) and for that reason I would say that it is neccessary that people are less inclined to play the class. I want to note that the whole argumentation whether scout is OP or not is not included in this post, before people are stressing out because of the next sentence.
    The easiest thing to do is to nerf Scout again...

    Yes, I know the feeling of having your main class nerfed over and over. I also once logged in as an Assassin main to see it being reworked into something quite bad (it got reworked back in a weaker Assassin, so it is ok now), don't get mad at me now. Maybe it sounds strange, but I'd like to keep the thing which is causing all of the trouble: Scout's speed. Even if the class is overnerfed (in the case it was balanced after all (not of any interest in this post, so don't hate on this question whether scout is balanced or op)), it will still have something special worth to play it. I am at the moment not sure what the neft should be (maybe 8 hearts or something like that), but I want to add that this should be considered temporary until a lot more players have joined, or it is deemed not to work at all. As pointed out below in this quote, you can see why it is neccessary to do it...

    I also have heard the things about people leaving if scout gets nerfed again, as there are clearly no other fun classes in the game. But I don't think it is wise to let this be the reason to prevent Anni's, and thereby Shotbow's, potential growth. These guys are just crying and listening to them is stupid as also pointed out by Tobi.

    If you read this, I would really like to thank you for reading this wall of text, and at the same time sincerely apologize for a possibly increase of blood pressure in the case you are scout main. I hope you would rather have Shotbow's grow with a weaker main class (and some other nice classes to play), than not having it grow because you don't want to sacrifice it's strength. Last thing, keep the scout is (not) balanced discussion out of this tread please.
    Mallowpuffs likes this.
  16. Tobi472 Platinum

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    I really enjoyed reading your whole post and I can support your point of view.

    The problem I see with scout is: Scout is unfair vs non experienced players but at the other hand an organised group can completly counter it.
    This is why its really hard to balance I honestly think it should be removed from the game.
    My other soultion would be a an anni server without scout or without calsses at all to have a more noob friendly enviorment. Hence to our low playercount this likely to fail but maybe we will become the chance to see this and teach basics to newer players.

    There are a lot of more stuff we could introduce to make it a more beginner friendly gamemode and this will become very important if the marketing attracts new players bc rn 90% are likely to quit anni after a week.

    I dont really think that that many players would leave the game if scout would be a dead class. For me there are other ways to be similiar mobile. For example speed 2 and Acrobat.

    To put it in a nutshell I would be not happy with any nerfs as I think any nerfs would make it dead. Therfore a removal of the class, maybe even for just 2 weeks, might be very good for the community.
    Darth_Bachious likes this.
  17. jorn_p Platinum

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    How are people still complaining about scout . Its already been nerfed numerous of times like 4/5 times . Scout has many counters : Bard slowness , pyro , fire sword/bow etc. You get grapple with cooldown and speed as leather . As iron your speed gets removed , I don't get how people still think this class is "broken" smh.
  18. Darth_Bachious Retired Staff

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    A beginner friendly Annihilation seems fun too, and I think would work when there are more players indeed.
    Your suggestion of a temporal removal is in my opinion a sound alternative too, which I also have suggested in the past. So I am ok if that happens too.
    I know that the creator of this tread has unnecessarily put in the word "overpowered" in the first post, which seems more to refer to an annoyance of him than a needed phrase in this tread (I'll come later to this). I have written down a wall of text a few posts ago (not sure how you missed it, or you were just too lazy to read) in which I started with from the same point as the owner of the tread: Newer players are generally weaker on PVP, but I also added that they are less knowledgeable of the things in game. In that post a complete explanation was made why scout was worse to those player without taking balance into account. Whether you fill in 'scout is balanced' of 'scout is broken', the whole argumentation is still the same, because the balance of scout is completely irrelevant in a 1v1 between a new player and a 'veteran'.

    You might say that it is the only post not taking the balance into account. However, if you had actually read the whole tread, you might have seen that 2 posts before my post the tread was also already redirected towards newer players (by the owner of this tread). In that post he clearly stated why change is needed. This post also directly made the balance of scout on veteran level irrelevant in this tread (my post only cemented it). Next time if you comment, read the whole tread please, or quote the post you are commenting on.

    Lastly I want to quote some wise words said in this tread
    Which makes me wonder, can you?
  19. Tobi472 Platinum

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    To some extend I can bc you outlined the problem.
    Darth_Bachious likes this.
  20. Darth_Bachious Retired Staff

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    It was not directly meant to you, but more like a general question to try to see it from a new player perspective. Still nice that you get it now :).
    Tobi472 likes this.

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