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Quoted from CrashSite

1. The point that is trying to be made is that a lot of the unlocks mention merely reward failure, or at least make it less painful.
2. But if that was the case then nobody would use equalizer.
3. Are you going to chase the solly who is out of the fight for 10 secs, or stop your medic getting bombed by the other solly?
4. I don’t think he literally means 24/7, but bombing is frustrating for the medic
5. So you are putting your scouts with your combo? Both of them?
6. This means everyone knows what unlocks are where and what can be used, it allows the meta to develop and thrive, as there are not multiple ways to play the game due to unlocks.
7. Unlocks can detract from learning the fundamentals of the game. The equalizer takes skill from the medic and solly on rollouts, the gunboats take the skill from bombing, the equalizer takes skill from not getting picked, so you don’t have to learn not to overextend. The bonk means you can get behind for free, meaning there is no skill in hiding or flanking.
8. Unlocks tend to detract from the game, focusing more on teamwork, comms and individual play is more important and ultimately makes the game worse for everyone.
9. A lot of unlocks just makes things easier.
10. See flaregun, a great unlock, on the other hand it will not make the pyro any more viable, the issue with the pyro is not the lack of damage, it is the lack of mobility. So if you allow the flaregun you haven’t in fact really changed much.

1. They reward profiting on the other team failures: wasn’t careful enough and tried to kill medic just like a bot who can’t defend himself? enjoy +25-50%; can’t watch for enemies around you? get an equzlizing solly running straight to your medic; letting a bomber to jump due lack of spam? get (surprise, surprise) a bomber; and BB makes sure only keeping your medic alive will make you an “uber advantage”.
2. Benefit justifies the risk. It’s still possible to meet 8dmg meatshot facing a weak scout around a corner, while you had melee weapon equipped, considering you had a chance to kill him with rl.
3. If we are on equal terms with the other team, deal with bomber at first, after use man advantage and roll the rest, while they are on low health. Good enough for d2?
4. Allow also Overdose. Since we are making an easy road even more easier: Vitasaw is more OP comparing to Ubersaw (rewards failure of dropping, har har); Amputator is simply not fitting for 6’s; Quick-Fix? Bullshit, but having it allowed could be interesting. So Overdose actually looks fine, if it comes with Equalizer and/or Gunboats.
5. One of them. Roamer also time from the time come to help second scout on the flank, but only in case of approaching 2 scouts and solly.
6. Switching Uber to Kritz and vice versa not changing the game? Having Blutsauger equipped not making a problems to scouts and not reduce them when medic have a Crossbow? Even Ubersaw made everyone afraid of crazy-ass medic suddenly running to you, and actually gave medics “psychological” defense. It’s changing not the goal of capturing 5 control points, but individual playstyle how to achieve it, since meta of the game is holy Uber.
7. Again. What fundamentals? Everyone talk about “fundamentals”, “meta” etc, but no real example what is that. As for me, in Europe meta is “uber”: no pushes without uber, let’s just stalemate a bit and get that fucking 8-seconds God mode, because we are too lazy and too afraid of failure to make a tactics to push without it. Also, what’s skill on rollout? 10 minutes training on localhost for sollies and demo? heal roamer until he get 300hp, heal pocket, heal roamer again? Equalizer makes it harder and more interesting watching for sneaky players, when your small fault may result in lose of medic. I never said Bonk is a good unlock, but I surely may justify it too: there is no reason in scout on flanks, if enemy knows you are there (since you won’t be using a Bonk, If you have not been seen). It only makes your team to fight in 5v6, while you are trying not to die on the flank due scouts or simple freshly spawned reinforcements.
8. Doubt NA community have problems like this.
9. … and harder for other team to counter some offensive actions. I don’t say it’s impossible to or unlocks are OP to do so, but it requires to change tactics on the fly and be more conscious about surrounding.
10. If you are defending last with heavy+pyro, it would help to distract sniper, until soldiers/demo will finish him off. d5 tactics, no h8, plz. On the other hand, it reduces output of close range damage.

Equalizer is shit.
Boston Basher is shit.
Gunboats could be discussed.
Overdose should be allowed.

And no, etecetera ubersaw doesnt give a medic any “psychological” defense, at least for what concernce me as a medic, because it is a risky play, unless there is a scout double jumping in front of you.

Tbh i wouldnt really mind if some unlocks would be allowed, as long as they dont modify the classes and the game too much and that they incourage a less stalemay and aggressive play.

But anyway it would be fun tu have another one-day saffron cup with less unlocks (maybe gunboats, overdose, disciplinary action, flare gun, atomizer could be cool too)

Quoted from CrashSite

Why are you pushing last with a pyro? No one will switch out a scout or solly to pyro to get rid of a sniper, that would be such a bad call.

Sorry, but after reading this, I actually lost all the hope you have decent reading skills. No offense. Please, read again my previous post, it’s embarrassing to quote it. Even though, I will state a bit more things.

No, I don’t admit that these unlocks are not balanced. It has been said, medic’s life may (I doubt, tho) become more difficult, so I suggested to add even more medic unlocks in this case, because some of the unlocks were added previously to the ruleset of every other class.

First of all, Equalizer do at it best 113hp damage; so it can’t be called a “one shot” weapon. Secondly, amount of health with such damage output is close to 0. Light scratch with splash damage or random hitscan spam, and he is dead. Yes, I am okay with such a small mistake, because in your words “it will increase skill” of “seek and destroy” in case, if solly going to hide and ambush.

The only thing you stated here as a dogma, that adding a few unlocks will “reduce a skill”. If someone like to play on jumpmaps, he surely will do vanilla rollout at his best. Others prefer to triple airshot enemy and don’t care about jumping/3-seconds-to-mid-rollouts at all. Third group love to perfect these both etc. People won’t perfect things they don’t like to do; laziness or a sad sack attitude is not an answer here. Even actions with Equalizer and Gunboats, as you say, are easy. But those “easy” things may be perfected on the level when they are not easy at all; I get impression, it’s you who was uncreative enough to “abuse unlocks” and prefer to play by patterns of vanilla. As a conclusion, it does matter how little skill it removes, because it don’t remove it at all and the way you are doing rollout not related to overall skill in the class. Or are you going to say NA soldiers are horrible tryhard shitters?

And to make it clear. Thread subject is “a few unlocks”. It means making not another copy of ESEA, but maybe something close to ozfortress with at it best of ~8-10 (including medlocks, of course) items would be wonderful and not harmful in any way.

market gardener plz

I would be ok with Ambassador, Flare gun and Overdose, but these unlocks don’t make a noticeable difference at all, so why allow them?

Quoted from envy

[…]
Sorry, but after reading this, I actually lost all the hope you have decent reading skills. No offense. Please, read again my previous post, it’s embarrassing to quote it. Even though, I will state a bit more things.

No, I don’t admit that these unlocks are not balanced. It has been said, medic’s life may (I doubt, tho) become more difficult, so I suggested to add even more medic unlocks in this case, because some of the unlocks were added previously to the ruleset of every other class.

First of all, Equalizer do at it best 113hp damage; so it can’t be called a “one shot” weapon. Secondly, amount of health with such damage output is close to 0. Light scratch with splash damage or random hitscan spam, and he is dead. Yes, I am okay with such a small mistake, because in your words “it will increase skill” of “seek and destroy” in case, if solly going to hide and ambush.

The only thing you stated here as a dogma, that adding a few unlocks will “reduce a skill”. If someone like to play on jumpmaps, he surely will do vanilla rollout at his best. Others prefer to triple airshot enemy and don’t care about jumping/3-seconds-to-mid-rollouts at all. Third group love to perfect these both etc. People won’t perfect things they don’t like to do; laziness or a sad sack attitude is not an answer here. Even actions with Equalizer and Gunboats, as you say, are easy. But those “easy” things may be perfected on the level when they are not easy at all; I get impression, it’s you who was uncreative enough to “abuse unlocks” and prefer to play by patterns of vanilla. As a conclusion, it does matter how little skill it removes, because it don’t remove it at all and the way you are doing rollout not related to overall skill in the class. Or are you going to say NA soldiers are horrible tryhard shitters?

And to make it clear. Thread subject is “a few unlocks”. It means making not another copy of ESEA, but maybe something close to ozfortress with at it best of ~8-10 (including medlocks, of course) items would be wonderful and not harmful in any way.

Sorry I misread a bit, but lets be honest, the pyro will 9/10 be killed by the sniper if he tries to flare him.

But you have now come to the worst agruments for unlocks. The ” you can’t adapt” argument. Do you think for a second that prem players get to the level they are without being to work on new strats? I abused the fuck out of the equalizer when it was allowed, it is one of the most broken weapons in the game. My team leader actually got mad that I got out of situations, because I overextended so far and could still get out. Prem players showed that Bonk was broken as hell. You can block house on BL mid with one scout. Or on pushes, bonk your best DM scout behind and that will force two people back every time. So the idea that people can’t adapt to unlocks is a complete false argument.

The equalizer should not even be up for discussion.

Also you seem to be saying that we should cater for those who don’t want to put in the work to be good. This is literally the opposite of competitive play.

By perfecting the same skill, that is made easier with unlocks, you are are not perfecting it.

Also you seem to say that rollouts require no skill, lets see if you can maximise health of all 5 players on Badlands every mid. When you can do that everytime, then I will concede that rollouts take zero skill.

But the problem with a few unlocks, those that are truly balanced, are that they open up the debate, then the leagues disagree, then all the points I made about why Vanilla is better fall apart.

Can someone explain to me what the downside of the equaliser is supposed to be? Not seeing it atm
Oh and btw, apart from the evolution of new strategies (unnecessary really) what are the upsides of having a few unlocks?

Personally, I think the majority of unlock affociandos never played when they were actually allowed, so they don’t know how horrible they were.

@crashsite

first up, I do not really care about the unlocks rules.
I do like how you present your arguements and agree with most of them, but I’m kinda bored atm and thought I’d state the few I don’t completly agree with.

Quoted from CrashSite

[…] People always think that if you can’t kill someone on 15 hp, then it is your fault. But if that was the case then nobody would use equalizer. I can dodge scout shots even when running as solly normally, equalizer makes it far too easy.

I’d argue that you cannot dodge hitscan and that getting away from a scout, equalizer or not, is still their fault.

Quoted from CrashSite

[…]

First point, that is flawed logic. You are confusing two things, you are right when you say the other team is punished if they fail to spot an equalizer solly, but that is not where the reward for failure happens. The reward comes from taking damage as a solly, the speed and damage come from not doing your job right.

(…)

It doesn’t matter how little skill it removes, it still removes skill. And in fact getting an actually prefect rollout is still hard. For example on Badlands, taking no damage on first jump, then getting a surf up stairs, then taking as little damage on third.

I wouldn’t say taking damage as solly always equals failure. Actually I’d say that the in the vast majority of encounters with opponents you have absolutely no way to avoid taking damage, especially solly vs solly. Even if you have hight advantage, get jumped and triple airshot him, you will take some splash damage from him.

About the rollout on badlands, while I agree that “the perfect” badlands rollout as solly is not easy, nailing it, will result in you waiting on wooden bridge for your medic to catch up. Although I do agree that getting both sollys on 300 is a lot easier with the equalizer.

In general I’d prefer the arguements to be more about the effects on the game instead of comparing it to vanilla.

for example the equalizer:

most arguements are: You get out of situations, you shouldn’t get out of. hence it’s broken.

I’d like: You get out of situations, you shouldn’t get out of, here is why that is detrimental to the game.