"Dispenser goin' up!" [Music: Frontier Justice by Dapper Dog] (Uncle Dane) "Well, guess that'll-" *glorious explosion* *Arm falling down* *Wild Soldier mating call* Randomness has been a core part of game design since forever. From rolling dice, to drawing a card, having a certain amount of random chance involved often has the effect of making games that much more exciting. But when it comes to PvP games: introducing random elements can easily become a slippery slope towards imbalance, and blurs the line between what is fun, and what is fair. I believe it is possible to strike a balance here. You can create a system where the player doesn't feel cheated out of something when they lose, or you can just base your entire game around random chance, and then have a pre-existing expectation to occasionally lose to getting unlucky. But, when you have this middle ground, where random chance elements conflict with a clearer focus on mechanical skill, it becomes misleading, confusing, and just downright ridiculous. And this is exactly how I would describe the decade-long mechanic in TF2 called "random critical hits". Misleading. Confusing. Ridiculous. Now as many others have in the past, there are a lot of different ways that you can approach this topic. I'm certainly not the first person to call into question the merits of the existence of random crits in TF2 before. And I could just sit here and rant about how they're not fair, how they're not balanced, and just talk about how much I despise them. But, I intend to approach this long overdue dissertation on why random crits should be removed from TF2, by approaching it from the opposite side of my own. So I've been a hardcore participant of the TF2 community for over five years now. Up until now, I've read just about every random crits discussion on Reddit, Steam, Discord, Facepunch, and the in-game chat that could ever exist. I've seen countless polls, participated in by every sub-community in the TF2 community sphere, including my own nieces and nephews right here on YouTube. As you can see, the obvious answer is never quite clear, but by now, I think I have heard it all. In order to formulate my argument against random crits in TF2, I'm going to represent a hypothetical debate with this picture of a Scout, who will represent the most common reasons people have for keeping random crits in the game. Now, you might think that I'm just going to present all of the worst arguments, and leave out the ones that are actually decent in order to make my own opinions look better, but don't worry. As an ambassador of true fairness, I am not gonna do that. In fact, let's start this debate with a point that I actually don't have any disagreements with. Pazer : "Scout behind you..." "'Pffffft ha haha ha... hahaha" "Oh my god!" [Pro-random crits argument #1:] It feels awesome to get a random crit! Right out the gate, I think this is hands-down the best case for random crits. But it's an unfortunate case, because while I believe there is a truth to the observation that most people can get a certain amount of pleasure from scoring a kill that they know they didn't deserve or clutching an unfortunate situation with a stroke of luck, you have to keep in mind that this is also the only good argument for random crits that is completely subjective. But basically, yeah, getting a random crit feels... awesome! Slamming some poor soul with 300 damage right as they round the corner gives you a dopamine hit that all video games rely on to keep you playing and most people don't give a shit of the other person didn't appreciate dying for no reason. I got a kill.... that guy sucks.... get owned idiot. BUT... at what cost does your selfish quest for more free kills come with? I mean, there is an obvious imbalance of enjoyment happening here. Let's compare the hypothetical amount of positive feedback the random crit pitcher gets to the hypothetical amount of negative feedback the random crit catcher gets. *clears throat* [Fast:] Now if you were to calculate the amount of enjoyment the pitcher person gets from killing someone unfairly with a random crit, compared to the amount of frustration you have the person feels when getting killed unfairly by a random crit. Then factor in the situational advantages that come from winning a fight you weren't supposed to win, compared to the situational disadvantages that come from dying in the situation you shouldn't have died, along with the respective pleasure and frustration that comes along with that. You can conclude that positive experiences will almost be always be less memorable and cause less of an effect on the human psyche than negative experiences will, which is commonly called the "Negativity Bias"! *sniff* *WHOO!* I'm sure you've seen people bring up the negativity bias when talking about random crits and it's definitely worth mentioning, but because measuring the feelings of players is never going to be reliable I don't consider the negativity bias to be the end-all be-all magic bullet for killing off random crits and once and for all. In fact, I'm getting this negativity bias thing out of the way early on, because I don't plan on bringing up points that have their entire basis in feelings, opinions, emotions, love, hate or the human condition. This video is going to be 100% science from here on out. "God..." *Knocks over empty drinks* "...dammit!" Well, like 99% science. [Pro-random crits argument #2:] Random crits break stalemates. Back in the ancient era of 2007 AD, there were six maps in TF2. There was no such thing as unlockable weapons. There was no Kritzkrieg, there was no Direct Hit, there was no air blast. You couldn't even pick up your buildings as Engineer until 2010. It was certainly a different time. But, I don't know. I didn't start playing TF2 until 2012, long after they added in years worth of additional content. I don't know what it was like back then but I can assume that maybe, because there wasn't a whole lot of play style variety due to there being no such thing as loadouts, maybe because the only maps in the game included 2fort and Dustbowl, maybe because stalemates might have been a natural side-effect of a groundbreaking, original concept being introduced to a gaming audience that wasn't accustomed to casual class-based team shooters requiring a decent amount of teamwork and communication *breathes in* Maybe because of all that, random crits might have been a good call in the early stages of TF2 and who knows, maybe if the game launched, never got an update ever again, and remained in its original state up until now, we might not even be having this conversation. But in reality, we have this: A chaotic clusterfuck of 9 different classes with thousands of different weapon combinations, all with varying degrees of strengths and weaknesses. All clashing together and servers populated with people sporting varying degrees of skill. Ever since TF2 launched over a decade ago, the game has become a completely different experience entirely. It's practically unrecognizable. And I can confidently attribute the increasingly slow but steady content updates and balance changes to the continued success of TF2. Without the constant adaptations that have changed the game for the better up until now, TF2 would have been dead long ago. And I believe that random crits are a mechanic that remain in TF2 as a relic of the past. Over time, the game has evolved to address the issues of stalemates: Maps have gotten much, much better in the tight chokepoint department and people in general have gotten way better at TF2. Some gamers putting thousands upon thousands of hours into practicing the art of pushing through a choke point. We don't need handicaps to prop up the original faults of the gameplay that happened to be the standard over a decade ago. We simply don't need random crits anymore. The game is now entirely random all on its own and even better, it now achieves that feeling of randomness without a need for random crits. Which is actually a major part of the answer to the following argument: [Pro-random crits argument #3:] Random crits make casual TF2 more casual and silly. This is a very common argument and I personally get a little offended on the game's behalf when I hear it, because I don't think it gives the brilliance of TF2's comedic value very much credit at all. The silliness, the goofy and casual nature of pub TF2, can be very easily attributed to many, many things that have nothing to do with the game mechanics such as the characters; the way you can interact with your teammates and enemies alike and the ridiculous concepts for weapons, gamemodes, maps, cosmetics, and of course, ragdolls. "Hello and welcome back to another edition of Ragdoll Theater with your host Uncle Dane." "Today we're gonna be taking a look at the left top window there." "Uh... and if you just see that Soldier get back stabbed, takes a dive out of the window" "And lands on the crates. Now, if we could just take a look at that again in slow motion" "Keep an eye on the soldier: gets backstabbed," "Then takes a fucking..." "Swan Dive!" "out of the window there and lands on the crates." "Probably one of the funniest things I've ever seen in TF2." "Ummm...." "Thank you-for for watching." I mean, I don't really have much else to say on the matter, but I'll finish up the answer to the ridiculous claim that TF2's comedic nature is propped up by random crits with this: ask anyone who is moderately familiar with the game what they think of when they think of TF2. More specifically, what they think is funny about TF2. Do they say: "Oh! The random crits." No! Heavy says "Pootis." Engineer says, "Nope." TF2 is a hat game, not a random crit game. [Pro-random crits argument #4:] Random crits give new players a chance at getting kills, which makes them want to play even more! While it's definitely true that random crits do give new players kills that they normally wouldn't get, the fact that random crits do not benefit new players specifically suggests that the game is not designed around coddling newbies feelings. In fact, the suggestion that random crits are there to benefit the poor souls who are just so bad that they only ever get to see their name in the kill feed when they get owned by some big bad veteran is simply not true. The percentage rates of random crits are based on the damage you've recently done which means that in summary, the better you're doing, the more likely you'll continue to do well. If that sounds familiar to you, then that probably means you've already heard it directly from a TF2 developer's mouth. Roll the clip! Kelly Thornton: "Critical hits are one of the features that resulted from our focus on pacing." "The critical hit system attempts to slightly influence the highs and lows of the game" "by increasing the chance of a critical hit based upon the player's recent performance." "In summary, the better you're doing, the more likely you'll continue to do well." "This helps create those rare 'high' moments, where a single player goes on a rampage" "and gets three or four kills in rapid succession." So no, the random crit mechanic is not designed around helping those Gibus players get a kill. In fact, the system tends to help people who are already good at TF2. And on top of that, it tends to mainly help the people who are playing classes that are able to put out more damage per second. This is actually where the sarcastic statement "Random crits are fair and balanced" comes from. (The joke is they clearly aren't.) But while we're on the subject of new players apparently benefiting from random crits, I want to bring up what is quite possibly the most under looked problem that giving free kills to new players creates. It's a very stupid method of rewarding damage. What giving a random crit does to a new players continually learning brain is likely more damaging in the long run than it was to the blood pressure of the person they just crocketted. When a new player discovers that they could possibly get a kill just by spamming repeatedly or by running towards someone while swinging their melee weapon, they're going to keep doing that because "Hey!" "Just pressing W into a crowd of people worked really well for them once when they randomly" "killed five people with a crit grenade launcher." "So why wouldn't they just keep doing that over and over until it eventually happens again?" This is not a good learning experience, this is not what TF2 should be. It shouldn't be played like a 'throwing shit at the wall simulator' because that's not what it is. The goal is to get kills on other players by being better than the other person not to wait until one of your Rockets randomly becomes shiny! And to the average freshly installed TF2 player who starts learning how to play the game from the moment they join the server, the way that random crits work or even the existence of random crits at all is pretty much guaranteed to be the last thing they notice or care about. All they're thinking about is... TF2 Newbie: "Wait a minute. You shoot at your feet, you can catapult yourself?!" "What the frick?!?!" "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!?!?!?!!!!" And when they randomly fire a crockett into a group of people they probably won't even notice what happened. But their brain will. Their brain will subconsciously take note that they got kills by doing whatever they were doing, which considering that they're new and don't know what they're doing, they were very likely playing like an idiot. And that's fine! Playing like an idiot is a part of the learning experience. You slowly and subconsciously learn that playing like an idiot get you killed, and if you play smarter your brain will take note that making that specific decision got you a kill and you should do it again when you have the chance. But when you have the chance to get a kill when you play smart, and play dumb, then what value does playing smart ever have? What's the point of learning how to play well, when you don't have to play well to get a kill? Obviously the better players will always be more consistently owning people but a system that rewards players for not attempting to get better is basically a bad tutorial. But hey, At least it's something right? Also something really specific to touch on about random crits damaging the learning environment and basically shitting on the value of skill and TF2: Damage numbers! Ggglygy: "DAMAGE NUMBERS!" "PLEASE!" A valuable skill in TF2 is the ability to know how much damage you should do to someone in order to kill them, and how much damage your opponent can possibly do to you, versus how much damage you can currently take before dying. You know, reading damage numbers. This includes remembering how much damage every weapon can do, so it's not something that you can learn overnight. And knowing how to count damage and make decisions based on your own knowledge in the moment is a pretty big part of deathmatch skill and often sets the good players apart from the better ones. Okay, you guys need an example you need? Okay, So say I'm playing Soldier and I round the corner to see a Demoman. I have the Battalion's Backup equipped, so my health is at 220. I noticed he doesn't have overheal particles coming off of him, so I can safely assume that he's at most 175 health. So I shoot him with a rocket dealing 90 damage with a direct rocket. I dodged the first grenade that he shot at me, but he hits me with the second one doing 100 damage and putting me down to 120 health. Now, I know both from experience, and from witnessing that firsthand in this particular fight, that his grenade launcher will do 100 damage to me. I also know that due to my first rocket doing 90 damage to him, that he has 85 health left. Meaning that, if I can manage to hit him with another direct rocket he's toast. But, my enemy is also well educated in damage numbers so, he realizes that he is not able to take a second direct rocket. So he attempts to juke my next rocket hoping that he can take it least a bit of splash, which will give him enough time to hit me with another pipe. But I know I'm able to take at least one more pipe from him due to my health being at 120. So I can afford to not focus on dodging in order to track his movement better so I can land a direct rocket easier. But my opponent turns out to be better at jukes than I am at hitting a direct, so I only hit him with a 50 damage splash rocket and he connects his second pipe. Luckily, he did not notice that I'm wearing a backpack that increases my health and he's caught off-guard by my survival. But on the bright side this experience has taught him a lesson. In the future, this Demoman will be sure to take note of any health altering items the enemy might be wearing so he can plan his attack better. So now I've done 150 damage and taken 200 damage myself. I'm at 20 health and he's at 25. Because the next pipe he fires will undoubtedly be my demise if he connects it, I start to increase my jukes to stay alive, but coincidentally, it is much easier for me to hit a second splash rocket, which will be enough to finish him off, than it would be to go for another direct rocket, which would do an unnecessary amount of damage. So I shoot a rocket and his feet before he can fire his last grenade, the splash hits him and he dies. I have now won this exchange, and I retreat to a health pack. Now keep in mind that this entire fight along with the thought process of both myself and my opponent took place over the span of less than 5 seconds. The observations that we made, the decisions that we executed, might seem pretty obvious when you slow down and deconstruct it like I just did. But the ability to think about damage and make choices based on what you know from experience and what you know from what is in front of you, in real time, is a very real, very important skill. But let's take a look at this situation one more time Say I'm playing Soldier and I round the corner to see a Demoman. He fires a crit pill at me doing 300 damage and I die instantly. "Cool!" All of my knowledge of damage numbers, the entire skill of anticipating damage, the whole concept of deathmatch outside of aiming and movement, is completely invalidated by a random crit that neither I or the Demoman could have predicted to happen. Even if the crit pill happened partway through this battle instead of at the very start, it still would have been an upset since the decisions that are made are entirely based around what is happening and what has happened instead of what might happen. In summary, random crits invalidate skill not only on the broader scale but on the individual scale as well. "Okay? Okay, okay" "We get your point Dane," "random crits are bad for the game in more ways in the one." "You're so very cool and smart and handsome," But, lets say we actually do remove random crits from the game; [Pro-random crits argument #5:] Removing random crits would make a lot of weapons unbalanced. So the simplest way to dispute this common argument, is to just ask to name a single weapon in TF2 that is over, or underpowered, in either third party or in game competitive mode because of random crits being disabled. You can go ahead and pause the video here to look it up, or you can just take my word for it, that there's literally not a single weapon that changes the gameplay in a significant way in an environment without random crits. Maybe the Southern Hospitality is a little bit better. But I mean we're talking about 20 weapons here. Yeah, that's right. There are only 20 weapons out of the 133 unlockable weapons, not including reskins, swords, spy melees, sniper primaries, or weapons that do no damage, that have a no random crits stat. So when people assume that removing random crits would be a massive undertaking by the TF team to rebalance a bunch of weapons They're quite mistaken. In fact, the only change the TF team would have to make would be removing that line of text that says 'no random crits' on those 20 weapons and the balance would be pretty much unchanged. And even so it's not like the TF team is a stranger to making balanced changes in massive waves anyway. [Pro-random crits argument #6:] But what about if you remove random crits from the melee weapons? Wouldn't that make them not viable? Yes, removing random crits would prevent people from doing this, or this, and would probably prevent people from getting away with things like this. But the ability to do 195 damage, at a significantly higher rate than other weapon types I might add, is not what makes melee weapons viable. As far as I'm concerned, melee weapons have always had two very clear uses in TF2: last-resort damage in close combat situations and utility. The first obvious use of a melee weapon, last-resort damage in close combat situations, is completely nullified by the existence of random crits. When you think about it sixty five damage is already a pretty good chunk of health, you can 2-shot four of the nine classes in the game with that, but the entire point of a melee weapon that isn't used for utility purposes, such as the stock melees, is to pull it out when you've expended all of your ammo and you're up against the wall with no other quick options left. If you manage to hit someone for just enough damage to keep them hanging on by a thread and you're all out of bullets and they're running at you with a crazed look in their eye, knowing that your sitting duck, that's when melee weapons come in handy. But when you throw in a very high chance of being able to 1-shot seven out of the nine classes in TF2 just by running towards someone, you begin to wonder why spy even exists. Seriously what is the point of using conventional weapons when you can just press W into people and have a pretty good chance of killing whatever doesn't kill you first? This harkens back to my earlier point that the ability to kill someone outright just by running at them is a terrible way to teach players how to do well in this game. And even if the weapon is just used for utility, which is the second use for your melee slot in TF2, the ability to randomly crit someone creates a monster of a weapon that invalidates most of the other options. A great example being the Ubersaw which is notorious for getting a ton of random crits, but also giving the Medic a huge reward of 25% ubercharge. The slower swing speed doesn't even matter at this point because you only need to swing it once most of the time. And some might even argue that random crits prevent the medic from fully taking advantage of the Über gain on hit because you often tend to kill your targets when you would have been better off keeping him alive for a second swing and twice the Über. And that's just one example of random crits of ruining what could be an interesting way to use melee weapons but instead, Kelly Thornton: "this helps create those rare high moments." [Pro-random crits argument #7:] If you don't like random crits so much, Why don't you just go play competitive mode then? Well...umm, That's because I like casual mode. I like competitive mode a lot and I play it as much as I can but, casual TF2 is fun for different reasons and I don't think that I should be confined to one type of the game just because there's an antiquated mechanic that occasionally ruins it for me. But the main non-self-centered reason is quite simple: because TF2's casual and competitive modes should be as similar as possible in order to make the transition from learning the ropes to testing your abilities as seamless as possible. This is actually why Meet Your Match introduced a lobbying system. This is why there's an MMR rating in both casual and competitive. This is why stopwatch mode was in casual for a week. (Please bring it back) The TF2 team is slowly and surely attempting to bridge the gap between casual and competitive modes. Something that I 100% support because I know, just like anyone who understands what makes modern online games successful, that having as little of a divide between sub-communities in your game is the key to a flourishing player base. They did it in 2012 when TF2 had become free-to-play. Valve recognized that the pay-to-play business model was becoming outdated so they tried something new and it brought tf2 Into the modern era. And I am very confident that five years from now there will be an entire generation of TF2 players who will cite competitive mode as a reason why they started to play the game in the first place, just as there are tons of people who attribute TF2 becoming free-to-play as their reason for them playing it today. Right now they just need to add better incentives for playing competitive mode, but that's a story for an entirely different video. Anyway, Removing random crits would be eliminating one of the biggest differences between casual and competitive mode and not only would it be a good thing for any of the reasons that I've already stated in this video, It would be good for the growth of TF2 as a game. "Hey ankle danes." Yeah? "I get it, right." "You don't like RNG I get it. You don't like freedom. You don't like fun." I never said... "What about this?" [Pro-random crits argument #8:] What if they just added a voting system for turning random crits on or off during casual mode games? I would be moderately ok with this compromise, but I personally don't think it would help. I think it would only increase the number of people leaving in the middle of games due to their preference not being voted for and I honestly don't think that the issue of random crits can be half assed here. I'm all for the 'remove them completely' kind of solution and not a half-baked attempt at a middle ground. Plus, community servers that feature random crits would become more popular which would help those communities gain more traction. [Pro-random crits argument #9:] Yeah, but what about MvM? I personally wouldn't see a problem with keeping random crits enabled in Mann vs Machine because the mode is very much an alternative gamemode. And the robots don't feel frustrated or upset when you get them or the crocket. The only exchange in a human player versus an NPC when a random crit happens is positive which is why I think random crits and single-player co-op games are completely fine and MvM is basically a single-player experience. Especially when you get paired with a bunch of 1 tour snipers. [Pro-random crits argument #10:] What about random bullets spread? Oh, yeah random bullet spread, that ugly cousin of random crits. A little lesser known to the average TF2 player, but still just as pointless, in case you're not familiar: In casual mode most scattered guns and shotguns have random bullet spread also known as bloom. This means that when you fire the shotgun, the pellets come out in a random pattern. So unless you are practically shoving the gun in someone's face, you will often do a random amount of damage depending on where the bullets land. With random bullet spread disabled, which is the standard in competitive mode, the bullets come out in a fixed pattern, which means that it's much more consistent how much damage you will do at certain ranges. It's a small thing, but the reasoning behind disabling bloom on scatterguns and shotguns is practically the same for removing random crits: It raises the skill ceiling and makes individual situations that much less frustrating. "Let me ask you this," "What would you do if they removed random crits from TF2?" I would be very happy. Not only for reasons pertaining to my own mental sanity when playing casual TF2, but I would be happy because I know that it would be beneficial for everyone. It would help the new players get better at TF2 in a way that actually makes sense. It would reward the veteran players who play intelligently. It would bridge the gap between casual and competitive, which will contribute to the longevity of TF2 overall. Maybe the only negative result that could come from removing random crits would be that blood pressure medication sales would drop, but in the end is a net positive. So if you found this video informative, and has either convinced you or reassured your existing belief that random crits have to go, please share this video or at least the message behind it. The TF team listens to this community, even if the response is very slow. Things do happen when we ask for it. And despite the fact that Valve being at the cutting edge of modern gaming is more in the past than in the present, the ability gaming communities have to change the game that they play is undeniable, and we should use it. So send Valve an email, make a post on your message board of choice, speak out about what you think about random crits, whether you agree with me or not! The TF2 dev team wants to know, I'm sure of this because they straight-up asked us a few months ago in an in-game survey. And if we know anything about their methods of gauging reactions, it's that they like to throw little things at us to start a conversation, and if those conversations aren't made public then things will take even longer. Just remember if you think that the one good reason for keeping random crits: that they're 'cool and make me feel epic' is more valid than the multiple counter arguments to a number of less subjective pro random crit points Just keep in mind that cocaine is pretty cool and makes you feel epic but cocaine is not good for you. *sniff* *WHOO!* Don't do cocaine. [Music: Ocean Drive by Miami Nights 1984] Wait... I have new merch Do you like Uncle Dane? Well maybe not anymore since he just wasted a half an hour your life explaining something that you pretty much already knew But if you like Uncle Dane enough to wear clothing that makes subtle or direct references to his existence then pay attention Why am I talking in third person? I recently added a bunch of new designs to my merch store So head on over there and start adding stuff to your cart mindlessly like a true American Such as this Uncle Dane the Engie Main t-shirt. I happen to be wearing it right now it's a pretty good shirt or this shirt with a wrench and a Widowmaker on it, you know, Just Engie Things Don't wear shirts? Me neither! So check out these ankle Danes they're socks with little "BAP"in' Uncles all over them Isn't that cute? They're called ankle Danes Because they're their socks they go on your ankles Get it? Have none of these new shirts or any of the classic designs tickle your fancy then don't worry I'm adding new designs to this shop all the time. So keep checking up on it All right video is finally over so roll that outro Alright, god damn That was a good three months well-spent, huh? What? They want more?? How do they want more? They want more engineer content? I Already, I already made a video about how to build a turret as a cowboy guy