Minion Madness represents everything wrong with PVP. A Meta of sniping & camping [ Edited ]

[Pheesley]

This mode was fun, but it got old very quickly for me. Sniping and camping happens a lot, and the drones (dandelion and yeti imp) being so powerful makes camping even more difficult to play against.

Best strategy is to find some high ground, place your spawn point, and snipe down enemies from above. Then you can also drop drones from above.

Turns out, the new swarm classes are perfect for camping. They can set their spawn points in their camping spots. Snipe because there is no dropoff. (And why would anyone try to close the gap when they will most likely die to a drone or another ability?). And send in drones from a safe distance.

Primary damage is too low and fights are too slow, especially with armor, making camping and sniping the best and safest option. No incentive to close the gap, and damage isnt high enough to combat sprinting or get a kill fast enough before you get teamed on. And this goes for pretty much all of PVP. Is this really the type of gameplay that was intended?

[Pvz300085]

@Pheesley The way to camp and use your dandelions and ice zombie drones has become the main weapon of the players, especially if you have the improvement of a greater resistance and more speed when you use a drone.

[shurikeninja]

@Pheesley Nah, that's not how normal PvP works. This mode isn't enjoyable and I'm not a fan of it, but normal matches don't play out as stale and static as this.

[Pheesley]

@shurikeninja but it is a great strategy, and it is used plenty of times in my experience. Camping and sniping is pretty relevant in pvp and is really good strategy for doing well.

[TheSprinter85]

I know for a fact that I would drastically change my playstyle if damage drop-off was added. 

Another thing is that damage drop-off would mostly prevent this. The main reason of why this is needed in PvP. I reckon this is really important.

[voidlistener]

I mean, isn't Turf Takeover, like,  the whole definition of sniping and camping? Minion Madness just boosts it with having no means to push other than outcamping.

Other game modes have more sideways to engage and objectives usually can't be guarded with one position. You can choose your own skirmish.

[Iron_Guard8]

I played a lot of this event over the week, although I saw someone that was grandmaster 5 on TV head so some obviously played it a lot more than I did! I really liked the characters, a lot more than I expected despite not being as interested in these characters than other more original ones that are in the pipeline. I had a lot of fun with it but there are definitely issues though and I think you brought them quite well @Pheesley .

The ability to set a spawn point manually that can be destroyed (and I destroyed a lot of the pots and buckets, I made it a habit to check for them as we advanced) is cool and I love how it creates a new spawn dynamic. An idea that creates some interesting tactical situations and tests your situational awareness. 

The idea of having teammates support each other by being close to stack and share armor is cool too. You have to balance the desire to increase your survivability and the vulnerability of being so close together.

My biggest issues are that I got easily 75%+ of my player vanquishes with the drones and again, the lack of damage dropoff means most fights are at extreme range, barring the desire to get close enough to use the powerful drones.

I would do the following:

• Reduce drone damage and increase their cooldown (so it takes longer to use it again) so they aren't the way to get vanquishes. Currently they cause a lot of damage in a large area and due to their fairly low cooldown timer, are ready for re-use far too quickly. 
• Add damage dropoff in general and not just for these characters, but this event reinforces the idea that the game needs damage dropoff to avoid being 'Battle for Sniperville'.
• Adjust the buff that gives you and your drones extra health so that drones either get less health from the buff, would have reduced speed, or reduced lifespans. 
• The speed of these drones really brings home how slow garlic and parrots are in comparison. The flying drones need to be faster than they are.

In summary; the swarm characters are actually pretty fun overall, but their drones are too good right now, and damage dropoff really needs to be added.

[benn1nat0r]

@Iron_Guard8 This list of changes is on point.

[agqwpe663oe6]

@Iron_Guard8 Gotta agree with this list. The meta is just based around camping with friends and bumming the yeti imp and dandelion. I think they should deal 75 damage cause of how fast they are and with the small hitbox.