Tranquilizer Gun damage reduction only reduces critical damage by 10%

[mercurialisbetter]

The Tranquilize status effect is supposed to reduce damage by 30%, but on critical damage, it is only reduced by 10%. It appears that the dart only reduces the base damage by 30%, and ignores the critical damage. Expected behaviour is that critical damage is reduced by 30%.

The video shows a critical rocket, which deals 270 damage, dealing 243 damage. If the damage reduction worked as stated, it would be reduced to 189 damage.

https://github.com/tf2classic/tf2classic-issue-tracker/assets/113199408/4aa6d0fe-f28d-4bd7-a895-5b3b77377ef0

[Trotim]

TF2C works like live TF2 in that only base damage is reduced, correct.

Should that be changed?

[mercurialisbetter]

There's a saying in engineering: "the purpose of a machine is what it does". The most immediate consequence to doing such a thing is that critical hits become slightly less powerful. The suggestion of a 30% damage reduction is that it reduces damage - as in, the damage that is displayed on the user's screen when an enemy is hit. While 30% damage reduction on base damage is internally consistent, it is not intuitive, and to the end user, it appears as a 10% damage reduction on their screen. If the user experience is more important than internal consistency, then it should be changed.

Furthermore, as the only two things in TF2 Classic that have damage resistance are the Civilian's aura and the Tranquilizer Gun, this change would have minimal effect on the metagame and the design space for future additions. The Tranquilizer Gun is a very weak weapon outside of point-blank range, and since its tranquilizer effect is reduced based on the Spy being far away from the shot player, it would also have a minimal effect at range against Kritzkrieg charged patients or enemy Snipers. Patients who are being healed while tranquilized would very quickly have their status removed. It would not affect the damage of melee crits, as the tranquilize effect does not reduce melee damage at all. So for the Tranquilizer Gun, such a change would be minimal.

The VIP is often killed by Kritzkrieg critical hits, and his resistance aura does not apply to himself, so it would not affect his own survivability. While his teammates benefit from the resistance aura, they are secondary considerations to shooting the VIP within the 8 second Kritzkrieg charge. In fact, such a change would encourage overhealed teammates to tank damage for the VIP instead of running away immediately, encouraging more teamwork and cooperation in that specific instance. In this case, a small buff to damage resistance would passive encourage players to focus on the good of their team instead of their own individual survival.

On the basis above, I would be in favour of changing it to reduce final damage and not just base damage.

[Trotim]

You make good points, we'll have to think about it

Changing Civilian's damage resistance aura to include crit damage does make one important difference: Sniper Rifle quickscope headshots would go from 140 damage to 120

Similarly, Tranq Gun would make it go from current 135 damage to 105