Bringing back flight for Vampire

[AmericanNewb]

The Vampire kit should be able to fly again just like it did in Project Mayhem. I believe that the current kit has little to offer, and giving it flight again would give it a healthy buff. In addition, flight would also help out balance some human favored maps like Carrier and Downturn.

 

[Brejas]

As a vampire main I approve

 

[Aj ツ]

I've been talking about this in discord for a while, mainly amongst staff and in passing with other people, but this idea of Map structures is important to address as a whole. For my point, I want to look at a few maps, mainly Goron, Downturn, (Old)Vector, and then Underpass. It's going to be a bit long and difficult to explain, so bare with me.

Lets start with Goron. One of the biggest issues of Goron comes at the bottom of the map. We added in fall damage prevention on infected spawn to help with maps like this, but we still see issues when more players are on. What ends up happening is the room in the back is barred from others because there is a wall or tankers who are all full irons. On their own, commanders are not that bad to take down. They can take at most a 1v5, and then will be severely crippled for the rest of the game. They can't do much alone, but in groups they become annoying. One infected can only get like 1-2 hits at most on one single person in a group of commanders rushing at them. The solution is to infect other people, but everyones behind the commanders. The only kit to breach the wall and start spreading is enderman, which is horrendously weak. Adding in another pathway could help, too. Another fix to that though, is Vampire fly. They can simply fly past the wall, and maybe get hit once otw in. From there is just another means to pushing out consistent damage, but at least faster than enderman and with potential to perform better (combos are more rewarding because you heal).

The issue I mentioned there is just a horizontal barrier, but the entire concept of vertical maps is a bad one to have. This is where Downturn and (Old)Vector come in. Both of these maps suffer from incredible linearity and difficulty for infected to traverse. You can obviously clear horizontal areas much faster than vertical, and getting hit off the vertical areas means you take fall damage. It slows the game to a crawl and is nearly impossible for infected to do relatively well on. Fly on vampire would help remedy this issue as it would provide another class, like enderman, that can breach the defenses and actually spread the infection. Vector is mentioned on here because the Old one would be a one shot if you got hit off in most cases, and the time it took to travel was insane. The revamp has more pathways and has made the ways to get up much most secure and safe, as well as lowering the overall height of the map.

Now lets look at one of the more even maps in MCI, Underpass. The entrance straight from spawn that leads to the open area is usually guarded like Goron, but there are 2 other sides you can collapse from, as well as plenty of other spots people go to. You can slowly make your way from outwards in, and then kill the game that way. Vampire fly accelerates the process by letting you get to the side spots quicker, and helps liven up the game and increase the pace.

Vampire fly, though not necessary to help all maps, adds another dynamic to the game and helps better a class that is severely lacking in relevancy. My standpoint is that it fixes core issues with maps without having us edit them, as well as accelerates the pace of the game a bit more while keeping things engaging and fair. The kit itself shouldn't receive changes (like its healing or armor), but this allows it to infiltrate and deal with humans better. We also don't have leveling on paths, so the strength of it won't be any higher than what it is right now. Thats an issue we had with Vampire on PM, where the healing it got ended up being ridiculous with fangs. I can't remember the exact numbers, but it made the kit FAR stronger than it is now. And, worse comes to worse, the kit can be nerfed or reverted if it throws the balance of the game off that much. As of right now though, maps are a huge issue and a very easy solution is to add fly to Vampire to make it useable as well as another tool for infected (as we don't have really enough for them right now, imo)

To clarify, this doesn't reflect what the staff team as a whole believes. I want to bring this part up as its important because it tackles two different aspects of the game, and bringing this point forward adds to the discussion and enhances the details we have to look at when voting one way or another.

 

[Jaz]

-1. Vampires are already strong enough

 

[Rockin]

I've been talking about this in discord for a while, mainly amongst staff and in passing with other people, but this idea of Map structures is important to address as a whole. For my point, I want to look at a few maps, mainly Goron, Downturn, (Old)Vector, and then Underpass. It's going to be a bit long and difficult to explain, so bare with me.

Lets start with Goron. One of the biggest issues of Goron comes at the bottom of the map. We added in fall damage prevention on infected spawn to help with maps like this, but we still see issues when more players are on. What ends up happening is the room in the back is barred from others because there is a wall or tankers who are all full irons. On their own, commanders are not that bad to take down. They can take at most a 1v5, and then will be severely crippled for the rest of the game. They can't do much alone, but in groups they become annoying. One infected can only get like 1-2 hits at most on one single person in a group of commanders rushing at them. The solution is to infect other people, but everyones behind the commanders. The only kit to breach the wall and start spreading is enderman, which is horrendously weak. Adding in another pathway could help, too. Another fix to that though, is Vampire fly. They can simply fly past the wall, and maybe get hit once otw in. From there is just another means to pushing out consistent damage, but at least faster than enderman and with potential to perform better (combos are more rewarding because you heal).

The issue I mentioned there is just a horizontal barrier, but the entire concept of vertical maps is a bad one to have. This is where Downturn and (Old)Vector come in. Both of these maps suffer from incredible linearity and difficulty for infected to traverse. You can obviously clear horizontal areas much faster than vertical, and getting hit off the vertical areas means you take fall damage. It slows the game to a crawl and is nearly impossible for infected to do relatively well on. Fly on vampire would help remedy this issue as it would provide another class, like enderman, that can breach the defenses and actually spread the infection. Vector is mentioned on here because the Old one would be a one shot if you got hit off in most cases, and the time it took to travel was insane. The revamp has more pathways and has made the ways to get up much most secure and safe, as well as lowering the overall height of the map.

Now lets look at one of the more even maps in MCI, Underpass. The entrance straight from spawn that leads to the open area is usually guarded like Goron, but there are 2 other sides you can collapse from, as well as plenty of other spots people go to. You can slowly make your way from outwards in, and then kill the game that way. Vampire fly accelerates the process by letting you get to the side spots quicker, and helps liven up the game and increase the pace.

Vampire fly, though not necessary to help all maps, adds another dynamic to the game and helps better a class that is severely lacking in relevancy. My standpoint is that it fixes core issues with maps without having us edit them, as well as accelerates the pace of the game a bit more while keeping things engaging and fair. The kit itself shouldn't receive changes (like its healing or armor), but this allows it to infiltrate and deal with humans better. We also don't have leveling on paths, so the strength of it won't be any higher than what it is right now. Thats an issue we had with Vampire on PM, where the healing it got ended up being ridiculous with fangs. I can't remember the exact numbers, but it made the kit FAR stronger than it is now. And, worse comes to worse, the kit can be nerfed or reverted if it throws the balance of the game off that much. As of right now though, maps are a huge issue and a very easy solution is to add fly to Vampire to make it useable as well as another tool for infected (as we don't have really enough for them right now, imo)

To clarify, this doesn't reflect what the staff team as a whole believes. I want to bring this part up as its important because it tackles two different aspects of the game, and bringing this point forward adds to the discussion and enhances the details we have to look at when voting one way or another.

I agree. This is needed Imo, along with a +0.5 enderman dmg buff. The paths did make vampire pretty broken, I think It'll be fine in its current state. Also I think the numbers on most paths were way too high. For example, instead of +5% per level for scratch on zombie, it could have been +1%, and +2% at level 5 with a 5% base, so that it ends up at 10%, double of what level 1 did, instead of 5x the effect. I think we can bring infected paths back, just with much lower numbers. All I want is a progression system ;(.

Edit: Sorry for late reply, I never seen the thread.

 

[Irum]

+1
Either gives infected ways to get in to strong spots or start balancing maps.

 

[Mew]

I've been talking about this in discord for a while, mainly amongst staff and in passing with other people, but this idea of Map structures is important to address as a whole. For my point, I want to look at a few maps, mainly Goron, Downturn, (Old)Vector, and then Underpass. It's going to be a bit long and difficult to explain, so bare with me.

Lets start with Goron. One of the biggest issues of Goron comes at the bottom of the map. We added in fall damage prevention on infected spawn to help with maps like this, but we still see issues when more players are on. What ends up happening is the room in the back is barred from others because there is a wall or tankers who are all full irons. On their own, commanders are not that bad to take down. They can take at most a 1v5, and then will be severely crippled for the rest of the game. They can't do much alone, but in groups they become annoying. One infected can only get like 1-2 hits at most on one single person in a group of commanders rushing at them. The solution is to infect other people, but everyones behind the commanders. The only kit to breach the wall and start spreading is enderman, which is horrendously weak. Adding in another pathway could help, too. Another fix to that though, is Vampire fly. They can simply fly past the wall, and maybe get hit once otw in. From there is just another means to pushing out consistent damage, but at least faster than enderman and with potential to perform better (combos are more rewarding because you heal).

The issue I mentioned there is just a horizontal barrier, but the entire concept of vertical maps is a bad one to have. This is where Downturn and (Old)Vector come in. Both of these maps suffer from incredible linearity and difficulty for infected to traverse. You can obviously clear horizontal areas much faster than vertical, and getting hit off the vertical areas means you take fall damage. It slows the game to a crawl and is nearly impossible for infected to do relatively well on. Fly on vampire would help remedy this issue as it would provide another class, like enderman, that can breach the defenses and actually spread the infection. Vector is mentioned on here because the Old one would be a one shot if you got hit off in most cases, and the time it took to travel was insane. The revamp has more pathways and has made the ways to get up much most secure and safe, as well as lowering the overall height of the map.

Now lets look at one of the more even maps in MCI, Underpass. The entrance straight from spawn that leads to the open area is usually guarded like Goron, but there are 2 other sides you can collapse from, as well as plenty of other spots people go to. You can slowly make your way from outwards in, and then kill the game that way. Vampire fly accelerates the process by letting you get to the side spots quicker, and helps liven up the game and increase the pace.

Vampire fly, though not necessary to help all maps, adds another dynamic to the game and helps better a class that is severely lacking in relevancy. My standpoint is that it fixes core issues with maps without having us edit them, as well as accelerates the pace of the game a bit more while keeping things engaging and fair. The kit itself shouldn't receive changes (like its healing or armor), but this allows it to infiltrate and deal with humans better. We also don't have leveling on paths, so the strength of it won't be any higher than what it is right now. Thats an issue we had with Vampire on PM, where the healing it got ended up being ridiculous with fangs. I can't remember the exact numbers, but it made the kit FAR stronger than it is now. And, worse comes to worse, the kit can be nerfed or reverted if it throws the balance of the game off that much. As of right now though, maps are a huge issue and a very easy solution is to add fly to Vampire to make it useable as well as another tool for infected (as we don't have really enough for them right now, imo)

To clarify, this doesn't reflect what the staff team as a whole believes. I want to bring this part up as its important because it tackles two different aspects of the game, and bringing this point forward adds to the discussion and enhances the details we have to look at when voting one way or another.

Let me preface this by saying I have and will always be against Vampire flight; I think it negates the usefulness of far too many spots to an unreasonable degree and gives lower ranks even more pains than they already deal with. But I also want to address some of the maps you mentioned because I disagree with them being problematic.

I wanna start with Underpass, primarily because... I don't understand what you're getting at? You call it an even map (I'd say Infected have an advantage on it, but I digress), and the whole point seems to revolve around it speeding up the game. I fail to see how this is healthy; if the map is already even, this would skew it further into the direction of Infected by quite a large margin, as you would be able to bypass the main camping spot and immediately fuck over the leathers on the roof. This example, to me, comes off as not a change to improve gameplay but one to shake it up. That's not necessarily a bad thing---League of Legends loves to do that---but I think it's rather pointless in this case.

Goron City I agree has fundamental map flaws because of its design; you mention the concept of vertical maps later, and I think it fits well under that category too. Although there are paths down to the bottom that don't force fall damage, and there was the fall damage prevention feature added semi-recently, the backroom is still problematic because of a lack of accessibility. This is further amplified by the routes to reach it safely being cumbersome to take unless you've just respawned and several tankers always guarding it. I can't deny that Vampire flight would solve this issue, but I personally feel this issue is entirely because the map is shit and should be addressed through map design rather than buffing an Infected kit. I feel we shouldn't try to fix problems without actually addressing them, the problem in this case being Goron City's poor design.

Downturn is a weird one to bring up in my opinion because most games the Infected do rather well from my experience. I think the main issue is the main spot being so defensible due to there only being two ladders up (there WERE more, but it seems when adding back the underground to the map those extra ladders got removed. Was this intentional? I can't imagine so). Overall, I find the map relatively balanced, although I do acknowledge humans generally win because of the lack of access to that top spot. Much like Goron, though, I find this to be a map design flaw.

And look, I'm definitely not defending Vampire's state of balance here; the class is awful and arguably the worst one because of its low armor, poor damage, and kind of weak passive. But I don't think adding Flight back is the way to address it; I'd rather look at buffing its healing or, as Rockin eluded to, add back paths. And shit, maybe without paths Flight would be balanced; they were rather over-tuned after all, and perhaps without all the upgrades Vampire wouldn't be so bad. My main issue with this post though is it implies there is a need to buff an Infected class because of poor map design; I think this is working around a problem rather than directly addressing it.