2.42 First Impressions

[Jay Mofo Mills]

I'm gonna weigh in again on classes then map types:

scout: Jumppad is now near useless. There is almost zero reward for setting one. You may get away with one near your base. I like that there is no timer on them. But I would like to see a little more balance. Maybe indestructability for 25 seconds or something. As a scout now, especially in a pub it's pointless. If not, just remove it. Why give me a tool that's not worth using?

sniper: meh. Pointless class but w/e.

soldier: I like the laser nade and am glad to not be exploding randomly when I conc around a corner. Would be good if when the lasers finished it 'poofed' like someone mentioned. You could use the overpressure, that would be perfect. something so someone hopping right next to it might get effected away, not necessarily damaged.

Demoman: Might like it if he had a slownade and the fatty a mirv. Personally I like the idea of detting a scout. It's very rewarding to get good at something.

Medic: I'm interested to see the changes. He is now kinda pointless.

Pyro: Not worth playing unless you just want to make people scream.

Engy: I like the engy.

Spy: Needs a gren2. I dislike the softclipping as disguised team. Part of finding the spy to me is accidentally running into them. Oh shit I can't run through this space..... Must be a spy!

Okay play styles:
CTF: If before offense wasn't much fun it's worse now. For me, I think the flag SHOULD be captured. Thats the fun in CAPTURE THE FLAG. Now it's just plain annoying. When I play offense I work my ass off, whether as scout or medic (the main offensive classes) to get the flags out. It's very likely to see my score -4 kills and 75 deaths. That's not likely to change, but now you'll get 1/8 the number of flags. Yay. And when they build 2 sg's and have a front door pyro and demo and hw that you can't kill as a medic anymore shit man, I Think I'll just go play D with everyone else. ON a side note: To break the defense now properly you have to take DEFENSIVE classes on offense. Am I missing something? Just what FF needed is feeling forced to play offensive soldiers and demos because you can't do it with offense classes.

AvD: I like the concept of the time limits I would suggest tweaking it this way. Have like a 4-5 minute limit per cap. If you cap the point, the timer resets and you continue on to point 2. If you don't cap in the 5 minutes then the round swaps. Stalemating at rd 1 of a 3-4 point map is kinda silly.

Just a few suggestions.
Much love
M0f0

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by CrazyCarl

I think now, with four minutes per cap, timing out will be fairly rare on any map if the teams are balanced. The ideal would be for the round to end just about the time the offense feels like giving up. So let me ask you: how long is too long for a round to go on without any caps? 10 minutes? 20?

It's been my experience in old FF and TFC and totally in 2.0 - 2.41 that total defensive lockouts were relatively rare in I/D. They're simply not designed to be as punitive as something like AvD. I can't remember offhand the situations it did happen where the teams weren't skewed. I think it's at least worth seeing how often it really happens with the 2.43 if the time limits are raised. Assuming it is a problem however, I think time limits are a poor way of fixing the issue. While it would require map editing, I think the BEST way to solve this would be to give O an advantage or D a disadvantage the longer the round went on. So say the round is going on for X minutes and O still isn't capping. Move everybody's spawn point on O up, move D's back. If the spawns are pushed far enough, I think that would solve the problem pretty quickly.

Asking how long for each cap I don't think is the right question since you have to factor in a lowest common denominator. Caps for Napoli are going to be a hell of a lot faster on average than caps for palermo. Also on the flipside, I've played plenty of AvD games where the first 2 caps were breezed through, but the last one probably constituted half the game and it still felt pretty exciting because the whole game rested on that. While you can argue that's being done for I/D with the 2 rounds, the maps aren't designed to hold people back the same length of time.

I've already given some suggestions for how the scoring would work, my main issue with this is that the "reward" now for no matter how I play is a shorter map time on what's already a more marginal game mode compared to CTF, which doesn't have any additional time reductions. If I do well on O, the round is over faster and there won't be any repeating. If I do well on D, the round is over after the prescribed time limit, which is almost certainly shorter than it would be. No matter how you slice it, it means a shorter game. The bottom line is I want to be able to play MORE I/D, not less, no matter which side I'm on.

Originally Posted by CrazyCarl

I've fixed the issue with maps ending way too soon (basically I forgot that 20 minutes is the default time limit; I always have it set much higher for testing purposes). Now, maps may end only a couple of minutes before the server's time limit, or they may go a round or two past that.

If they will only end within a certain range I think that's a pretty good compromise for now. Maybe consider making CTF score-based within a certain time limit as well if you want to make the gamemodes a little more even.

[Iggy]

Originally Posted by chilledsanity

It's been my experience in old FF and TFC and totally in 2.0 - 2.41 that total defensive lockouts were relatively rare in I/D. They're simply not designed to be as punitive as something like AvD. I can't remember offhand the situations it did happen where the teams weren't skewed. I think it's at least worth seeing how often it really happens with the 2.43 if the time limits are raised. Assuming it is a problem however, I think time limits are a poor way of fixing the issue. While it would require map editing, I think the BEST way to solve this would be to give O an advantage or D a disadvantage the longer the round went on. So say the round is going on for X minutes and O still isn't capping. Move everybody's spawn point on O up, move D's back. If the spawns are pushed far enough, I think that would solve the problem pretty quickly.

That's like rewarding the O for poor performance. Shouldn't a "bonus" be earned, rather than given? Or are you considering it more of a "handicap" adjustment?

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by Iggy

That's like rewarding the O for poor performance. Shouldn't a "bonus" be earned, rather than given? Or are you considering it more of a "handicap" adjustment?

To be honest, I was completely fine with the old method, but I believe Crazycarl wants a system to prevent a defense lockout so I'm trying to find a way to do that that doesn't involve cutting the game short.

[eomoyaff]

Originally Posted by Jay Mofo Mills

I'm gonna weigh in again on classes then map types:

scout: Jumppad is now near useless. There is almost zero reward for setting one. You may get away with one near your base. I like that there is no timer on them. But I would like to see a little more balance. Maybe indestructability for 25 seconds or something. As a scout now, especially in a pub it's pointless. If not, just remove it. Why give me a tool that's not worth using?

sniper: meh. Pointless class but w/e.

soldier: I like the laser nade and am glad to not be exploding randomly when I conc around a corner. Would be good if when the lasers finished it 'poofed' like someone mentioned. You could use the overpressure, that would be perfect. something so someone hopping right next to it might get effected away, not necessarily damaged.

Demoman: Might like it if he had a slownade and the fatty a mirv. Personally I like the idea of detting a scout. It's very rewarding to get good at something.

Medic: I'm interested to see the changes. He is now kinda pointless.

Pyro: Not worth playing unless you just want to make people scream.

Engy: I like the engy.

Spy: Needs a gren2. I dislike the softclipping as disguised team. Part of finding the spy to me is accidentally running into them. Oh shit I can't run through this space..... Must be a spy!

Okay play styles:
CTF: If before offense wasn't much fun it's worse now. For me, I think the flag SHOULD be captured. Thats the fun in CAPTURE THE FLAG. Now it's just plain annoying. When I play offense I work my ass off, whether as scout or medic (the main offensive classes) to get the flags out. It's very likely to see my score -4 kills and 75 deaths. That's not likely to change, but now you'll get 1/8 the number of flags. Yay. And when they build 2 sg's and have a front door pyro and demo and hw that you can't kill as a medic anymore shit man, I Think I'll just go play D with everyone else. ON a side note: To break the defense now properly you have to take DEFENSIVE classes on offense. Am I missing something? Just what FF needed is feeling forced to play offensive soldiers and demos because you can't do it with offense classes.

AvD: I like the concept of the time limits I would suggest tweaking it this way. Have like a 4-5 minute limit per cap. If you cap the point, the timer resets and you continue on to point 2. If you don't cap in the 5 minutes then the round swaps. Stalemating at rd 1 of a 3-4 point map is kinda silly.

Just a few suggestions.
Much love
M0f0

Fucking christ, + 10. All of this.

[spambot2.1]

i mihgt try out the new patch but are the servers still empty like before? or are there more players right because of the update?

[KubeDawg]

The servers are empty because you aren't in one filling them up!

I know it can suck waiting in a server for 15 minutes or so before someone shows up, but just be patient. If you chill in the server for a bit, grab a snack or something and come back, unless it's 3 in the morning, people will have joined.

I've just started a new server because I believe this recent update will cause more people to play.

Word-of-mouth advertising is the biggest thing you can do as a player to do your part if you would like to see this mod succeed. So tell all your friends about this incredible game and how we need more players.

[Elmo]

They defnitely seem more active again. Seems Euros (such as myself) are quite used to going over to play on US servers these days as well so there's less divisions.

[Iggy]

Ok, I installed 2.43 last night, and gave it a whirl. I've still got a ton of shit to do before I can reformat, so I figured fuck it.

Training- Very well done! I did have an issue with it crashing at one point, but I just quit the "server" and it was fine.

I jumped onto Kubes new server. There were already 5 people on. I went offense as Solly. Given that Soldier is my favorite class on both TFC and FF, and I figured to be rusty as hell, it seemed like the best class to start with.

An O Soldier, with a Scout and Medic, can get shit done. I didn't realize how usefull the laser grenade could be on Offense. Not only can it take out an SG, it can cause the Defenders to treat it as a temporary obstical. While giving your lighter classes a clear path that way.

The SGs that I encountered did not seem overpowered, nor did they go down easily.

I tried a few of the other classes here and there, but overall, I'd say Soldier is still my favorite class.

For those who want to define certain classes as Offense and Defense only... think outside the box. Medium classes should be defined as "Support" classes because of their versatility. Demo, Pyro, Spy, and Soldier can do well as both Offense and Defense, depending on the skill of the player and the needs of the team.

[carryonplease]

I think I said this is another thread or this one but I want to reaffirm that I think its a great idea to give the HW the mirv and the demo the slowfield

[KubeDawg]

Originally Posted by carryonplease

I think I said this is another thread or this one but I want to reaffirm that I think its a great idea to give the HW the mirv and the demo the slowfield

I don't agree and I'll tell you why. Currently, the slowfield works well only with teamwork. Giving the demo this nade only makes him extremely OP because not only can he choose where to set the pipes, but he can control exactly where the slowfield nade goes, right on top of his pipes. No one will be able to make it through that. At least with the current setup, the HW has to work with the demo in order to achieve this.

[carryonplease]

Originally Posted by KubeDawg

I don't agree and I'll tell you why. Currently, the slowfield works well only with teamwork. Giving the demo this nade only makes him extremely OP because not only can he choose where to set the pipes, but he can control exactly where the slowfield nade goes, right on top of his pipes. No one will be able to make it through that. At least with the current setup, the HW has to work with the demo in order to achieve this.

80% of the time a hw throws the slowfield on the pipes anyway, so I don't think it would really make a difference. plus there are other tactical locations for it.