Ambassador Successor? (Open Discussion)

[toxic gate]

The Ambi is one of the very few spy unlocks that I see players say is 'respectable'— giving skilled spies the ability to deal sigificant burst damage at a much longer range than other classes at the cost of having a reliable damage tool to fallback on. I think the idea melded with spy's gameplay really well, especially as spy is already known for his high-risk high reward style of play.

Would an Ambassador-Like weapon be a good addition to tf2c? It doesn't have to nessecarily be a crit on headshot, but something along the lines of the kinds of niches it filled.

Also they should add an open discussion tag

I like those threads

[chrome hedge]

no add the enforcer

[slow quiver]

Give it scope too, and make it a .50 BMG revolver

(Yes, those exist) with only 3 shots in the cylinder

Mini-crit on headshot, +50% dmg, incresed dmg fall-off, and maybe make it recoil/knock back slightly the spy?

Big stronk gun, that kill quicly, but has less ammo

[scenic bough]

What if it flat out instant killed if you shot in the back of the head

but only in really close range

[crystal cedar]

might as well remove the sniper class from the game and give everyone a long ranged weapon at this point

[scenic bough]

That sounds pretty good actually let's do that

[toxic gate]

i dont see how a single 100 damage shot at shotgun range equates to 150s across the map in a short peroid of time

apples to oranges to me

[crystal cedar]

"giving skilled spies the ability to deal significant burst damage at a much longer range than other classes"
"shotgun range"
pick a fucking side

[toxic gate]

Context

a spy can do 100 when a mid range shotgun deals 40

shotgun range means like any damage a shotgun can do before its considered chip (so like below 20)

[crystal cedar]

anyway explain to the class how increasing the damage spy can deal with his revolver correlates to "high risk high reward" when the risk of shooting someone is basically the same as any other class

[toxic gate]

In live, the ambi has a -20% slower firing speed and a -15 Damage% penalty. this makes it slower to kill if you miss your followup shot(s) and substantially slower if you only go for body shots. The risk of shooting someone (with the exclusion of landing a first headshot hit while disguised) is substantially higher as it's much harder to use as a fallback tool. Not to say whether that is or isnt enough- its one of the main reasons why I wanted to make this thread and hear what other people think of the concept- but its clear that you're taking a greater risk with this option

even if you assume that it always headshots, there's still a substantial headshot delay, so theres still alot of reaction time that stock eliminates completely

[crystal cedar]

(the risk is 0 because you're playing the spy class who can read enemy health)

[toxic gate]

how does being able to read health negate the ambi's weakness as a fallback tool

[crystal cedar]

why are you picking up a fight on an enemy that is stronger than you?

[toxic gate]

because enemies that find you arent going to be at 107, and you have a significantly weaker stock revovler after your first shot

[toxic gate]

could you explain more on what you mean here?

like you only go for backstabs on wounded targets? or really isolated players?

[crystal cedar]

if you don't want to die after every stab that's the only choice anyway

[toxic gate]

I'm trying to understand your point but i cant if you dont help me out 😭

[crystal cedar]

if you fuck up and get caught by someone you always have two options: shoot the guy and pray he dies or run away
if you know your weapon can't kill him before he kills you then what would you do

[toxic gate]

fighting or running arent always equally effective options in every context when you get caught out. yes you could always attempt to run off but this will put you as a huge disadvantage alot of those times

and that's not even considering if you have the cloak on hand

[crystal cedar]

well you either die or run away with cloak, which one is the least bad option

[toxic gate]

what im saying is when you remove a spy's fallback tool, 30-40% of the time that becomes die/die

Also, I want to reiterate that I'm not asking for the Ambi to just be ported over, im asking what other people think of the ambi and ambi adjacent weapons. the stats could look completely different

[crystal cedar]

90% it's a die or die situation anyway increasing that number by 30% won't make a difference

spy's cloak is the most useless tool in the game and it's the most reliable thing he has

[crystal cedar]

bad game design and it creates a dangerous precedent

weapons should be balanced around being consistent as much as possible instead of "it's useless unless you hit a rare high moment"

[toxic gate]

Its not random chance

the whole point of the rare high moments comment, it adds tons of randomization so all players get chances to break stalemates. Its not just the fact that a weapon is focused on a burst hit

[harsh sun]

I would say no

1. I dont think its a good idea to have a weapon thats potentially a straight upgrade for those who can aim well, and unusable in the hands of average-skill players, considering the playerbase of TF2C leans far more toward the average in skill level

2. it feels a lot more annoying to play against the Revolver compared to the Ambassador because the damage of the Ambassador is so volatile; with the Revolver, you know how much damage a shot from a given range will deal, and you can pick fights with the knowledge that you have X amount of health, the Spy will likely land Y amount of shots, so you're likely to last long enough to take the fight and survive; just like how when playing against a Demoman, you always know that pills will deal 100 damage and can plan accordingly. but with the Ambassador, this goes out the window because a midrange shot could either deal 34 damage...or a massive 102 damage.

3. the Spy is already a challenging class to learn with a lot of complex skills, and Spy as a class was designed in large part for those who are more proficient in gamesense and reading the enemy rather than having the raw aim. and I dont think the message that you might need to have as good aim as a Sniper to be a good Spy player is a particularly healthy one to be sending

and a relatively small point against it: a weapon whose selling point is rewarding raw aim rather than enhancing the Spy's gameplay in other ways will lead to a lot of players who only play Spy for Gunspy, rather than comboing it with the rest of Spy's kit. which can be especially annoying if the people trying to play exclusively Gunspy are the kind who already dont aim well with the Revolver, let alone a weapon that necessitates more precision

now I'm not the type to police how people play the game, and I disagree with the claim that weapons like the Gunslinger attract the wrong kind of players to the class

but I think other Spy primary concepts would be a lot more synergistic with enhancing the kit as a whole, rather than just existing in their own bubble. like how the Demo Gunboats are just kinda...there, and dont cultivate particularly fun/interesting player behaviors

this is all without assuming the weapon is capable of dealing high damage even at long range like the Diamondback or pre-nerf Ambassador are, which just isn't fun to deal with when 7 of the 9 classes have no chance of retaliation with either sheer amounts of damage falloff + telegraphed delay for the projectiles to hit, or damage falloff + high bullet spread (people already hate Sniper for a reason lol)

[lone garden]

It probably won’t ever happen cause of the no live weapons rule, but if that were ever discarded I would be ok with this