Anyone else feel that there are 2 fundamental problems with TF2?

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: 43st
LOL, overtime being called just means the better team was playing defense. The fact that it went into overtime just means some sucker was near the goal a few times before getting mowed down. It certainly doesn't mean or imply balance.

The goal? WTF are you playing? A soccer mod? And how would somebody get that close if their team wasn't close to the CP? Why would I be holding my breath watching the battle if it was one sucker being mowed down?

Mind posting your TF2 community page?

 

[PsharkJF]

Re: Removal of Soldier DR against own rockets:

The way I see it, the Soldier's in a bit of a general catch-22, especially against Pyros. If I want to be effecient with my rockets, I have to get as close as possible to the enemy, where I will take every point of damage they do, even if I 'ace' them on the model. If I back off and not take any splash damage, my rockets are less effective. The shotgun does less damage than the flamethrower at the flamethrower's range, and, when combined with the health boost from the Backburner, essentially means that I have no effective way of dealing with a Pyro;

a) I can't kill him in two rockets unless I'm damaging myself in the process. Three rockets against one foe is highly ineffecient, and leaves me wide open to any other player that happens to be around;
b) The Pyro has more health and does more damage than I'm capable of doing, flamethrower versus shotgun, at point-blank range;
c) The first rocket must be at his feet to knock him back. No longer am I able to aim at low ceilings above the Pyro or cramped walls to either side of him, since neither of these things will give him any pause.

Re: Pyro in general:
He's overpowered in non-ideal situations.
Take Scout as an example. In the ideal situation - flanking the enemy, surprise, Scattergun - the Scout can do a lot of damage and retreat before being killed himself.
Let's make it considerably less ideal - add a Sentry in the mix, and the Scout must respect the SG and can't flank as effectively. As such, his effectiveness starts going way down. A similar situation happens with the Spy.

The Pyro is the 'ambusher' - and that's fine. Crit from the back, okay. That's his 'ideal' situation. That implies that Pyros should avoid head-on confrontations as those would be less ideal.
He can bum-rush a Soldier with little to no response.
Similar things happen when he charges a demo. (of course, if the Pyro isn't running into/over a field of stickies)
He can destroy a Level 3 sentry without help.

The solution to the first is to increase rocket damage - define a range in which soldiers should be most effective - say, 1-3 "explosion diameters' away from the soldier - and throughout this range, the rocket does the most damage. Before and after this range you have a sharp decrease in damage.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Na. Soldier and pyro are pretty well balanced against each other. Not saying every class should be, but those two are. It comes down to the skill of the player. Before soldier was impossible to get close to. Between rocket jumping and firing downward and just plain foot rockets, they were point blank pwnzer machines and needed a tweak.

Demo, however, is helpless against a pyro if the pyro is using the compression blast. No way to damage the pyro. That needs to be tweaked. Make stickies.....uh.....stickier so that they don't go flying with a compression blast.

 

[slugg]

So to everyone flaming me and saying that this is TEAM fortress and implying that you shouldn't be able to solo against a team and that I should go back to TFC:

Have you considered that the normal playing conditions in TFC is NOT soloing the other team? Examples: assuming that all players are of equal skill, a 4 vs 4 match will be extremely close. Assuming one team's skill is vastly superior to the other team, the points separation will be HUGE. In TF2, you'll still get a separation, but the spread won't be nearly as dramatic. So if 1 player is 4 times as good as each person on a 4 man team, why SHOULDN'T that be a fair fight?

And if you want to tell me that you've successfully defended against 5 people in TF2 before, or anything else like that (offense against 5 people, whatever), then you must realize that it was an extreme case. On the AVERAGE case, my points regarding player skill are pretty true. But if you want to talk about extreme cases, then I could mention that I've soloed against teams of 9 people in TFC and completely dominated them... See? If I take it out of context, I can sound like a jackass too.

^^ This same concept applies to skilled Blackjack players. If the player can maintain a perfect count of the cards, he/she could maintain an average of +2% to 5% winnings, depending on the table (how many decks, deck penetration, etc). This means that if you wagered a total of $100 in one night and left with $200, your average winnings is NOT +100%, you just had an extreme case. The same would be true if you left with $0 - you wouldn't have an average winnings of -100%, you just had an extreme case. If you were to stay at the table for years (and assuming that you're a perfect player), you'd approach the range of +2-5% total overall winnings. So what do you wanna say, that I'm whining about Blackjack now?

And again, I'm using TFC as an example since it's such a closely related game and easy to compare. I'm not a TFC fanboy. My same arguments are also analogous to a lot of other first person shooters, such as Counter-Strike, the Quake games, the Unreal games, the Halo games, and more. In fact, it even applies to MMORPG games such as World of Warcraft. Example: a skilled level 70 player with decent will outperform a not-so-skilled level 70 player with the best gear in the game.

TF2 is analogous to Mario Kart in that you can get extremely lucky and the gap between 1st place and last place isn't that big, just like TF2's score gap between the winning team and losing team isn't that big compared to the skill gap. This isn't necessarily a BAD thing - both TF2 and Mario Kart are very good games, and they're both on my list of favorite games, but to simply ignore this trend just because you're a TF2 fanboy is a bit immature, in my opinion. Whether or not you think its a good or bad thing is a totally respectable opinion, but to disregard it is pretty low.

Another thing to note - the size of the competitive community for TF2 is nowhere even remotely close to that of QuakeWorld Team Fortress or TFC. While correlation is not causation, it's still an interesting point to note.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

I think the point you're missing is that twitch skill is not the only type of skill in existence. Tactical skill is a huge part of it. And well.....if you're in a 4 versus you situation, you've obviously failed at tactics. No point in worrying about what life would be like if you were 4 times better then they, you're not, they've managed to get you into a 4 vs 1 situation. Take your lumps and brush up on tactics.

 

[Born2bwire]

I have absolutely no clue what the OP's point is any more. I just don't think he is able to grasp that the game is TEAM Fortress 2.

 

[Dumac]

Yes.

 

[slugg]

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
I have absolutely no clue what the OP's point is any more. I just don't think he is able to grasp that the game is TEAM Fortress 2.

If you read my posts, I totally acknowledge the team play.... and I played "TEAM Fortress" competitively for a few years. I'm pretty sure I've grasped the value of "TEAM" in the name "TEAM" Fortress.

But hey, the purpose of this thread was to see if I'm the only one with this opinion. Turns out I am.

 

[43st]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor

Originally posted by: 43st
LOL, overtime being called just means the better team was playing defense. The fact that it went into overtime just means some sucker was near the goal a few times before getting mowed down. It certainly doesn't mean or imply balance.

The goal? WTF are you playing? A soccer mod? And how would somebody get that close if their team wasn't close to the CP? Why would I be holding my breath watching the battle if it was one sucker being mowed down?

Mind posting your TF2 community page?

If you're holding your breath because you dominated the other team then you have a pretty low threshold for entertainment and/or a short attention span.

The way I see it, and I won't belabor the point, is that TF2 is cheap high, with no real lasting satisfaction. The game is designed to be a grind for all players regardless of skill level. For as much as Valve talks about pace in games, they've completely abandoned the concept in their recent multiplayer offerings.

Before they pulled the Gamespy rankings last week TF2 was ranked around Solder of Fortune 2 and falling, so it would seem something is wrong with the game. Hopefully they can fix it.

 

[BadRobot]

first of all, lawlz gamespy
2nd of all what grind
And there is no lasting satisfaction why? because you cant gain levels?

Sounds like you are complaining because you cant sink your whole life into the game and pwn noobs because your 80 levels higher than them or because you have tier 12 gear and they dont

The game is about short rounds of combat against other people and balance between teams


EDIT: demoman is the answer to stacking teams by class. Answer to stacking teams with demoman is a good sniper.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: slugg

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
I have absolutely no clue what the OP's point is any more. I just don't think he is able to grasp that the game is TEAM Fortress 2.

If you read my posts, I totally acknowledge the team play.... and I played "TEAM Fortress" competitively for a few years. I'm pretty sure I've grasped the value of "TEAM" in the name "TEAM" Fortress.

But hey, the purpose of this thread was to see if I'm the only one with this opinion. Turns out I am.

You started out saying how teams stacked with one class unbalances things....presumably allowing one team to dominate the other. Later you say that the game is so noob friendly that there is parity across the board regardless of how good you are. People are right to be confused on what your actual problem with the game is.

You complain that scouts have no chance against engineers. I proved you wrong. You brought up blackjack and Mario Kart? Call us all immature fanboys?

Can we get a breakdown of your actual thoughts on the game cause right now it's like three or four discussions going on and you're making up new ones as you get rebutted.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: slugg
It's my opinion that TF2 is a very fun and well designed game, but it has (and has always had) two major issues with game balance. My definition of ruining the balance of the game is deeper than damage balance - it goes into overall game play.

First, if any ONE class is stacked on a team, the balance is completely ruined. This has always been the case, even before the class achievement unlockables were released. The class stacking issue is even more noticeable right now due to the recent pyro update. Why is it that when an entire team is one class, the team is able to dominate even harder? It makes no sense; isn't it more intuitive for a diverse team to overpower a class-stacked team? Example: try playing offense against a purely pyro defense on a CTF map.

Second, I feel that the game is too situational. What I mean by that is a lot of the time, it doesn't matter how good of a player you are - you're screwed. For example, if you're a scout trying to get through a room with a sentry, as long as the engineer camps his sentry gun, there is really NOTHING you can do. A counter example is that in Team Fortress Classic, even if the engineer had the advantage in this same scenario, an extremely skilled scout could still get through the room. I feel like TF2 doesn't depend enough on player skill. Please don't take these two examples as the ONLY examples, they're just the first two to pop up in my head.

I'm probably going to get a bunch of flame for this. What are your thoughts?

There are times when I agree. I sometimes wonder if a team composed entirely of engineers is beatable.

Someone told me a couple of demomen would murder it, but I'm unsure.

I was thinking the same thing as you: I wish there were intrinsic advantages to more diverse teams.

Perhaps the fact that I'm agreeing with you is testament to the fact that I'm terrible at the game. All I'm really good at is medic.

 

[Anubis]

1) no one plays as a team
2) it runs off of Steam

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: Atreus21
There are times when I agree. I sometimes wonder if a team composed entirely of engineers is beatable.

Someone told me a couple of demomen would murder it, but I'm unsure.

I was thinking the same thing as you: I wish there were intrinsic advantages to more diverse teams.

Perhaps the fact that I'm agreeing with you is testament to the fact that I'm terrible at the game. All I'm really good at is medic.

One good demo + medic combo, if left unchecked, could take out unlimited sentries.

But, you know, the great thing about the game is all the variables. An all engie team COULD win, just as an all scout team could win, or an all anything team could win. It depends on the variables. Does the other team know what you're doing? Can you all get coordinated enough? What is the talent level difference between teams' players? What map is it?

Last night on Badlands. My team had 7 pyros and no medics. We took the central point, but couldn't get the fourth point because they had heavies and sentries. It wasn't until a couple pyros switched and I went spy for a while that we were able to secure the fourth cap point and eventually win. We couldn't have done it without a balanced team because the other team had good players who had adjusted to our predominately pyro team.

One of my favorite rounds was one we lost. It was the Hydro map with the two openings on the top. We secured that area inside the mountain and set up shop with sentires and demos and medics ubering and heavies and pyros and were slowing wearing them down. I'd been ninja capped before on that map, so as a demo, I began running back to our base. After a few steps, I stop to type, "Is anybody watching the cap point?". literally as soon as I hit enter, I see our cap point being captured. I run as directly as I can back there and nobody has spawned to take him out. He's almost got it and as I'm nearing the edge of the bowl surrounding the CP, I charge a stickie and launch it towards one of the windows. It's a crit! But it lands on the very outside edge of the window and as I detonate it, it doesn't kill the spy and we lose. I thought that was awesome. Through luck or good timing that spy jumped on the point exactly when he needed to. We hadn't left anybody on defense and paid for that lack of tactics. My stickie was a crit and would have killed him, but my aim was so slightly off....had I had better aim I'd have killed the spy, saved the point, and we would have probably pushed through and won. The outcome of the game rested in the hands of all those variables of timing, skill, teamwork, tactics, and luck falling into place.

 

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: Anubis
1) no one plays as a team
2) it runs off of Steam

1) wat?
2) and....?

KT

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: KeithTalent

Originally posted by: Anubis
1) no one plays as a team
2) it runs off of Steam

1) wat?
2) and....?

KT

1) too many people just run around solo and dont play as a team, how was the hard to understand the first time

2) steams fucking sucks

 

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: Anubis

Originally posted by: KeithTalent

Originally posted by: Anubis
1) no one plays as a team
2) it runs off of Steam

1) wat?
2) and....?

KT

1) too many people just run around solo and dont play as a team, how was the hard to understand the first time

2) steams fucking sucks

1) Not sure where you play then, because I rarely run into that. Poor server choices on your part I guess.

2) Well no, it doesn't.

KT

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Yeah, you have to wonder how much he's actually played to have come up with that conclusion. What class can play outside of the team and not get destroyed? Spy maybe?

 

[BadRobot]

even then spies do better when they have targets that are chasing his teammates.

 

[slugg]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
You started out saying how teams stacked with one class unbalances things....presumably allowing one team to dominate the other. Later you say that the game is so noob friendly that there is parity across the board regardless of how good you are. People are right to be confused on what your actual problem with the game is.

Okay, I stuck to my original 2 arguments - I just started giving more examples. Read them again and put them into context.

You complain that scouts have no chance against engineers. I proved you wrong.

I did point out that a scout has no chance against an engineer in a favorable position, and no you did not "prove me wrong" because all you did was show one theoretical example that MIGHT work against a really bad player. Do you think a normal player will just stand there and let you snipe out his dispenser? Even if he did, what about how much TIME it takes to snipe out his dispenser, start sniping his sentry, wait for him to run out of metal, and THEN you can start damaging his sentry? Did you think about in all this time, the engy could request assistance? Even if the whole team was dead except for the engy, this is enough time for a team mate to respawn and come help the engy. Hell, if the engy was confident enough, he could just kill the scout himself.

Even if you've done ^^ that before, see my example about blackjack. Blackjack is designed in a way that even the best of players only get a SLIGHT, very SLIGHT advantage over the house. Just because you've wiped the house clean doesn't mean you had a huge advantage - it just means that you got lucky. With TF2, just because you defeated an engineer in this type of scenario doesn't mean your player skill gave you a clear advantage; you may have had a SLIGHT advantage and the rest was chance. Blackjack works like that BY DESIGN, so I used it as an example to illustrate my opinion of TF2.

You brought up blackjack and Mario Kart? Call us all immature fanboys?

In addition to blackjack, Mario Kart is also like that BY DESIGN. How many times have you gone from last place to first place in the final lap? It's not that you're amazing at the game - it's that the game tends to give losing players better powerups and what not, keeping it super balanced between expert and novice players.

TF2 is also designed to minimize the gap between expert and novice players, just like Mario Kart and Blackjack (in the case of blackjack, the expert player and the house). I don't understand how pointing this out is in any way related to calling you all immature fanboys. And for the record, I didn't call you all immature fanboys. I said that ignoring arguments only because you're a TF2 fanboy is immature. If you want to disagree because you have real reason to (other than you like TF2), that's fine and not fanboy-ish. It just seems to me that out of all the people in this thread, you seem to be the only one defending TF2 on a personal level...

Can we get a breakdown of your actual thoughts on the game cause right now it's like three or four discussions going on and you're making up new ones as you get rebutted.

Sure. Here's the breakdown of my thoughts:
- Too many of 1 class on a team ruins gameplay, has weird balance issues
- The game does not scale well with player skill (too situational)
- I'm not saying TF2 is a bad game - I think it's really fun and I do play it.
- I didn't make new arguments, I just gave more examples

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: slugg
I did point out that a scout has no chance against an engineer in a favorable position, and no you did not "prove me wrong" because all you did was show one theoretical example that MIGHT work against a really bad player. Do you think a normal player will just stand there and let you snipe out his dispenser? Even if he did, what about how much TIME it takes to snipe out his dispenser, start sniping his sentry, wait for him to run out of metal, and THEN you can start damaging his sentry? Did you think about in all this time, the engy could request assistance? Even if the whole team was dead except for the engy, this is enough time for a team mate to respawn and come help the engy. Hell, if the engy was confident enough, he could just kill the scout himself.

At this point you're backtracking. You're factoring in his teammates into the TF2 equation, but not the TFC equation. Your original statement was "In TF2, an engineer holding a defensive position against a scout has a CLEAR advantage. In fact, as I've previously said, as long as the engineer just holds his position repairing the sentry, there is NOTHING the scout can do." Nothing? I proved there is something he can do and with the same very low success rate as he did in TFC just through different means. In fact the scout in TF2 will have a 90% success rate against most engies with probably a 50/50 chance against a great engie.

In that scenario, which I've personally been involved in from both ends many times, is tough for the engie and he pretty much needs to sit tight because 1) he knows if he can last long enough one of his teammates will happen upon the scout and 2) if he leaves the safety of his sentry he's going to be dueling a much faster class and in so doing will 3) leave his buildings vulnerable to a passing spy or soldier or somebody. You'd know this if you played more.

Even if you've done ^^ that before, see my example about blackjack. Blackjack is designed in a way that even the best of players only get a SLIGHT, very SLIGHT advantage over the house. Just because you've wiped the house clean doesn't mean you had a huge advantage - it just means that you got lucky. With TF2, just because you defeated an engineer in this type of scenario doesn't mean your player skill gave you a clear advantage; you may have had a SLIGHT advantage and the rest was chance. Blackjack works like that BY DESIGN, so I used it as an example to illustrate my opinion of TF2.

I'm seeing it now. More below.

- Too many of 1 class on a team ruins gameplay, has weird balance issues

Sometimes yes. In general, no. Going all one class is a valid tactic. I've been a part of teams that did that just messing around and we did great....so long as we had the element of surprise. A failed intial scout rush or a well balanced enemy team or just really great players on the enemy team lead to a wipe and a long time to recover. It's one of the great things about this game.....the factors are ever changing requiring you to quickly assess and adapt and work together.

- The game does not scale well with player skill (too situational)

It is somewhat situational. That's a good thing. It means you get the chance to mold your own situations to give yourself the greatest advantage. There ARE times when it works against you, but just as many times it will work FOR you. I literally have lost count of the number of times I've found a safe spot, started to decloak only to have some guy randomly come around the corner and discover me.....or an engie turn to spy check just as I decloak....or a heavy with medic be coming through the sewer just as I jump in.....or a crit rocket or nade intended for somebody else hit me. Hell, I was headshotted while fully cloaked by a sniper aiming for somebody else. I think that's freaking awesome. Adds unpredicitibility.

But you're absolutely wrong about skill not mattering. It's why people stack teams. Precisely BECAUSE being on the more talented team means getting more kills and fewer deaths. As I said, stacking is the biggest problem right now with the game.

- I'm not saying TF2 is a bad game - I think it's really fun and I do play it.
- I didn't make new arguments, I just gave more examples

Your arguments were for different topics not associated with the OP. Hence why this looks like five threads smashed into one.

Look, I think I figured out your issue. Your blackjack reference gives it away. You want to be able to count cards in competitive multiplayer gaming. In CS:S, being a good player with lots of experience puts you at a distinct, almost overwhelming, advantage over new or average players. One of the results of the nature of that game. It's also why CS:S matches are far more predicitible than TFC or TF2.

In TF2, with so many different classes and weapons, there's just no way to have that kind of predicitibility. The really good players are noticeable. They have an impact on the game and usually have the highest scores, but they will, with certainty, run into many situations, matchups, or twists of happenstance that lead to their being killed despite their experience and talent. Hence you're problem, accepting the minor role that random crits, bad timing, luck, situationalness, and all the other factors of chance in your fate. You can't count cards and have to rely on your pure blackjack skill and, for some reason, that's unappealing to you whereas it's wildly appealing to many of the rest of us.

What I don't get and remains to be explained, is how you can have played and loved TFC and NOT get this?

 

[slugg]

^^ well if you must know...

You're factoring in his teammates into the TF2 equation, but not the TFC equation

Okay... you want the TFC equation? The scout does a double concussion jump onto the flag and out of the room. Who said anything about waiting for team mates? TFC has no waiting. This maneuver is extremely hard to do, but if the player has it mastered, it happens.

What I don't get and remains to be explained, is how you can have played and loved TFC and NOT get this?

Umm... I do get this, I just don't agree with it. I believe the better team composed of better players should ALWAYS beat the lesser team with more novice players. There's a degree of uncertainty for both games, but like you said, TF2 is relatively unpredictable. This unpredictability comes from the very small spread between novice and expert players. If the spread was bigger, it'd be more predictable. My opinion is that the spread SHOULD be bigger and therefore SHOULD be predictable.

QWTF and TFC totally scaled with the player's skill. Combine all of this with the teamwork and you have a LARGE range of team effectiveness. This is why I played and loved them both (since you didn't understand why).

^^ Thus, I feel that TF2 does not scale well with player skill.

 

[Born2bwire]

TF2 really scales more with TEAMwork than anything else I think.

 

[slugg]

Agreed... whereas QWTF and TFC (and Halo, and a few more) scale more equally between TEAMwork *and* player skill. That's all I'm saying...

 

[Born2bwire]

Look we go back and forth like this all day. I'm not looking to point fingers at the people who can't seem to grasp the TEAM concept, refuse to read posts, or falsely report posters to the Mods as sending life threatening IM's involve acts with spatulas and Lederhosen. Maybe if you had at least played the game once you'd understand.