Hale clones and potential power creep (1 Viewer)

[Autismo]

Hi, hello, so for the uninformed there's to be a bunch of hales related stuff coming to the server at some point in time, probably a year from now but regardless of that, when that time does come, plenty of hales are going to spike in terms of their capabilities and what they're able to do and when I mean spike, I mean everything's about to get messy real quick since this is probably the biggest content drop panda will have since ever.

there're:

• 10 hales retweaks/reworks
• ass pancakes
• painis cupcake
• energineer
• ninja spy
• cuddly heavy (will discuss this)
• rattleton
• beepman
• st. heffe
• sexy duo
• handsome jack

and 4 new hales

1. Degroot royal (a necro smash hale)
2. Super duck (4 in one ability related mobility hale)
3. Senator Armstrong (windup ability related hale)
4. Ja_bot_rc9 (vanilla rocket jumping hale)

and losing 3 hales in the process

1. Mimicer
2. Chuck norris
3. Blightcaller

now that I've clarified the obvious, what the hell do I mean by clones?
Hales with similar abilities that function identically from one another, now I'll be putting up a chart of every hale (except the ones listed above that'll be receiving new changes, they at least have something dependent to themselves which I'll address

Name of hale:	Faster swinging speed	Stun on rage	Weapon	Buffs	Extra?
Demopan	no	yes	no	yes	Charge
Gabe Newell	yes	yes	no	yes	rocket rain | matrix lifeloss
Handsome Rogue	no	yes	yes	yes	timestop lifeloss
MeeM	no	yes	no	no	minions
Hotline Sniper	no	yes	yes	yes	matrix lifeloss
Mlg hales (both)	no	yes	yes	yes	matrix lifeloss
Nightmare medic	no	yes	no	yes	afterburn | hellfire
Piss cakehole	yes	yes	no	yes	lunge
Human sandvich	no	yes	no	yes	matrix lifeloss
The Rock	yes	no	no	yes	no
Gentlespy	no	yes	yes	yes	no
CBS	no	yes	yes	no	custom weapon change on kill
Dic Soupcan	yes?	yes?	kind of (2 part rage)	no	Lunge

A lot of these currently have similar abilities or function nearly identically, some being exceptions like CBS, Gentlespy, The Rock and Demopan.
Currently I think a few things (with disclosure to what I've mentioned already, setting aside the ones I've made exceptions for) might need touching up to make them a bit more unique and stand out from the rest of the roster since the currently pending rework related stuff changes those hales enough to the point where they can stand on their own.

 

[Autismo]

Doing this here because I accidently posted the thread early by somehow pressing a shortcut.

Now with those reworks/new additions in mind, there comes the potential power creep for every attempt with trying to make them stand out, now a great example of this was a hale that was in rotation awhile ago.

Major crits JR:

• originally had no fancy stuff except a grappling hook
• used to have the ability to teleport (was exploited)
• anti melee hale

then he got reworked, making him the first hale, I think for this server to become a special hale but still sucked because of how gimmicky he was

• could rocket jump indefinitely
• had trouble catching up with certain classes due to the unreliable nature of how the rocket jumping worked
• had his knees broken most of the time

despite everything he was removed, he sucked, that's kind of it and I can agree with this.
setting ja_bot_rc9 aside with him being the same hale but functionally better.

what I'm saying is that there's no clear cut example of what's going to happen when the reworks happen, if the new hales will be borderline broken or garbage or if it'll end up making them harder to balance, problem being is actually getting the server patched in the first place as a matter of fact.

---

The new reworks I'd like to address the most key outliers that I think personally will be the ultimate advocates for this power creep:

• Ass pancakes

This hale will gain two unique things, a rage that denies an area in a great aoe as to where he rages and a very strong reload/special? ability that'll give extra movement which you can combo with his super jump to go really fast, close distances instantly and juggle the rage % with by turning it on then off quickly.
Any person worth their money will realise once they've gotten a hang of this hale that they've got themselves a distance closer that can shut down scouts quickly and ultimately make hell for any class that relies on back pedaling heavily, this is something you'll see once it arrives.

• Cuddly heavy

This hale is going to get new changes, hasn't been officially stated but this hale is going to become a lot better, primarily with mind to his rage and new dot ability

• rage will cause:
• people to become love cursed and connected to one another
• everyone's model switched to cuddly heavy's

which doesn't sound bad, but since you're connected via a love curse you'll be pulled together, now add the illusion ability and you've got yourself the most confusing rage to exist, everyone wants to spread out and away from each other but you'll keep getting pulled together, quite a fun change.
the other change that's going to shock a lot of people is his new dot ability:

• Suck and chuck (let's call it hug and throw)
• Pulls anyone into cuddly, trapping whilst draining rage
• Throws people away from once it ends

sounds simple enough, what if I told you there's no way to do anything about it, ubers, quickfix, resistances, he'll just suck you in and can pin you against a wall in a tight spot, this is something I experienced nearly 10 years ago now but this was an incredibly strong tactic that the hale in question had, it can be tweaked to be more fair but ultimately it's going to be something hard to work around

• Super duck

First hale to ever have 4 mobility related abilities, super jump, lunge, teleport and a rage that increases movement speed + jump height, I don't need to really say much after that because it's already said and done, the amount of coverage this offers is stronger than any hale has ever had.

So what's the power creep supposed to mean then, am I just typing words mindlessly, ranting about things that may or may not happen, what about all of this talk about clones?

what I'm entaling is that the red side may need buffs as a result of this, stronger weapon tweaks generally, things are like a cauldron currently and there's no telling what's going to happen, what to do with the hales that functionally play the same (why're there 5 matrix ability related hales) and what can honestly be done with them to make them stand out as their own thing.

I'm mostly just asking what you might want to do or see, I'm currently out of it when it comes to that part since I've blown a lot of what can be used but maybe there's a few spitballers who've got some good ideas for what to do.

• what do you think could be done with certain hales to make them stand out
• what you think red side might need if things get too hale sided
• what you personally think should be done if the reworks or new hales make gameplay worse or too hard to keep up with

that is all.

 

[Memez Jr.]

buff medics primary syringe guns so they arent overshadowed by the crossbow
rework medics mediguns because they are all copy+paste, possibly making a battle medic subclass
rework spy knives (also overshadowed by kunai)
rework some pyro primaries because its currently dominated by the (braindead) phlog
I dont have anything else im just spewing what came into mind first