Some critique

[MonoXideAtWork]

Originally Posted by GenghisTron

I've never in my life had a 'problem' with spies. They're easy to see, 99.99% of them don't know how to play (Elwood and Snaple are pretty awesome spies, Elwood is just amazing), and the only time you would even want a spy on offense is in a pub, where anything goes.

check with elwood, I've seen some awesome pickup plays from him!

[GenghisTron]

I've done a few pickups, but none with Elwood :/

[squeek.]

Spy, in competitive play, is very map dependent. One map it gets played on is siege.

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by GenghisTron

They're easy to see

No, they're not. If it's a good spy, you will never see them unless it's luck (unless you're just camping one spot with your back to the wall and never move). Prior to 2.1, it actually took some skill. If they were standing 100% still, you could spot them with a careful eye. I found many people walked right by me as a spy back then when I was completely still. Only about 10-20% would spot me.

Since they get TOTAL invisibility now, there's no skill involved with trying to root them out if you didn't spot them beforehand. You simply have to spam the shit out of the entire area systematically and hope you get lucky. And that's only if you think a spy is there. He may not be there. Attacking something that you can't see that may or may not be there isn't fun, it's annoying. It doesn't inspire paranoia and fear as some would like to romanticize, it just makes me want give up and go focus on an enemy I can fight without a whole annoying process to find them first.

And to anyone who thinks spies aren't a problem, I'll be happy to play a game of hunted with you where I'm a spy.

[Credge]

Protip:

Good spies lose to average pyros.

[Raynian]

People who think spies are useless in competitive play have never played against Drakonal.

Seriously, he's crazy good. I don't even know how he manages to get frontstabs almost every time, or how he sneaks past the front line to begin with.

[Ronzui]

Im confident that cooler, smarter, decisions will prevail when it comes to the spy,and the changes that are coming for that class, of course we shoudnt want it nerfed for those who truly enjoy playing it, but maybe some changes to the tranq and the effects it may have, and possibly some changes to the knife attack damage.
Has anyone ever thought about giving spies a defensive posture by allowing them to see other spies when cloaked, or maybe thats not practical, but I would like to see the NG given the ability to destroy his own sabbed build, which I think is only fair, the spy has already successfully completed his goal of turning the sg against the opposing team, the NG should be able to counter by attacking the build and destroying it before it completely devastates nearby defenses.

[Iggy]

Figure it this way.... the sabotage would bypass the control circuits for the key'd self destruct.

[MonoXideAtWork]

Originally Posted by Iggy

Figure it this way.... the sabotage would bypass the control circuits for the key'd self destruct.

Once sabotaged, it should no longer count as friendly for friendlyfire purposes, so the engineer can nade or shotgun it before it goes nuts. IMO.

[GenghisTron]

Originally Posted by chilledsanity

No, they're not. If it's a good spy, you will never see them unless it's luck (unless you're just camping one spot with your back to the wall and never move). Prior to 2.1, it actually took some skill. If they were standing 100% still, you could spot them with a careful eye. I found many people walked right by me as a spy back then when I was completely still. Only about 10-20% would spot me.

Since they get TOTAL invisibility now, there's no skill involved with trying to root them out if you didn't spot them beforehand. You simply have to spam the shit out of the entire area systematically and hope you get lucky. And that's only if you think a spy is there. He may not be there. Attacking something that you can't see that may or may not be there isn't fun, it's annoying. It doesn't inspire paranoia and fear as some would like to romanticize, it just makes me want give up and go focus on an enemy I can fight without a whole annoying process to find them first.

And to anyone who thinks spies aren't a problem, I'll be happy to play a game of hunted with you where I'm a spy.

You're talking about pub play, where anything goes. Guess what, snipers piss me off in pubs, but I don't see them sniping in pickups or competitive play. Sure, there are good spies out there that can perform well on offense, but playing a scout and bypassing every form of defense (including SG's) is far more effective as an offensive player, than playing a spy. Unless the defense is REALLY locking you down, or your medics can't seem to get an SG down

I've been playing hours a day in pubs for the past three weeks or so, and I've been owned by a spy, sure, but after that spy owned me, I played vigilantly from there on (in that game) and the spy never got past me unless I was distracted by something more pertinent, was dead, or they took a really long backway. If you have graphics on high, and you don't fall asleep at the keyboard, you'd have to be blind to not see a spy. I see spies even when I'm fighting other players. You have to know how and where to position. Besides, spies like Elwood, Drakonal, Snaple, etc., they don't stealth into bases, they come in disguised, and often times undisguised, and just fuck your shit up. They don't fuck around, because they realize that the way to cap flags is not to waste time, but to die as many times as possible, achieving the maximum amount of progress per death as possible.

Your problem is you're judging the game based on pub play, and while pub play is a large part of the game, it's hardly an accurate indicator of balance. Naturally a spy while wreak havoc on ff_hunted... when you have 10+ people to blend in with, the bodyguards have a tough task of guarding the civilian. Here's the shocker, when you play ff_hunted, your goal is to free the civilian, if the assassins are half-way decent, they'll kill the hunted more than he will escape. That's just how it is, it's SUPPOSED to be more challenging for the bodyguards/hunted.

I've pulled spies out of complete invisibility in the path, just by using smarts. I was playinf ff_aardvark last night, and I saw a spy approaching in the yard, but I had to move up closer to try and find him. He stopped moving, so I just fired randomly into the yard with my railgun, and pulled him out.

[GenghisTron]

Originally Posted by Raynian

People who think spies are useless in competitive play have never played against Drakonal.

Seriously, he's crazy good. I don't even know how he manages to get frontstabs almost every time, or how he sneaks past the front line to begin with.

Yes, but great spies like Drakonal and Elwood don't waste their time stealthing around a base, they bhop in, possibly grenade jump around, etc.

[Iggy]

Originally Posted by MonoXideAtWork

Once sabotaged, it should no longer count as friendly for friendlyfire purposes, so the engineer can nade or shotgun it before it goes nuts. IMO.

Drop that one in the suggestion box.

[Ceremony]

Originally Posted by Ronzui

Im confident that cooler, smarter, decisions will prevail when it comes to the spy,and the changes that are coming for that class, of course we shoudnt want it nerfed for those who truly enjoy playing it, but maybe some changes to the tranq and the effects it may have, and possibly some changes to the knife attack damage.
Has anyone ever thought about giving spies a defensive posture by allowing them to see other spies when cloaked, or maybe thats not practical, but I would like to see the NG given the ability to destroy his own sabbed build, which I think is only fair, the spy has already successfully completed his goal of turning the sg against the opposing team, the NG should be able to counter by attacking the build and destroying it before it completely devastates nearby defenses.

Or maybe go back to the original sabotage style, where the gun becomes jammed. maybe add a time bar for the engi to hit the gun for three seconds with his spanner, or whatever. there's a lot of strategy especially in competitive play when you have a spy go in with the other offense and sab the gun. i know i remember good clans using this strategy in ctf maps in tfc a long time ago

[Ceremony]

on second thought, it'd be easier just to add a detonate sabotaged bind for the engi, but perhaps it could be on a 1-2 second timer so the gun has time to shoot a couple people

[battery]

Honestly, how would a sentry gun become sabotaged if the Engineer keeps it in his line of sight? Engineer is to supposed stay behind and watch the flag. The point of sabotage is to severely punish those engineers who AWOL to the front line to spam EMP's.

If you plan to play offense engineer, just forgo building a gun! There is no shame in doing that. Ask a teammate to take over defense duty.
________
Vapir No2

[MonoXideAtWork]

Originally Posted by Ceremony

on second thought, it'd be easier just to add a detonate sabotaged bind for the engi, but perhaps it could be on a 1-2 second timer so the gun has time to shoot a couple people

Do you really want to do something because it's easy?


The idea is that once you discover your gun is sabotaged, BEFORE it goes off and starts shooting people, it should count as an enemy so you can damage it. At the moment, you're stuck with a gun you can't do anything with and will eventually own a teammate.

[Ceremony]

Originally Posted by MonoXideAtWork

Do you really want to do something because it's easy?


The idea is that once you discover your gun is sabotaged, BEFORE it goes off and starts shooting people, it should count as an enemy so you can damage it. At the moment, you're stuck with a gun you can't do anything with and will eventually own a teammate.

i dont really want to do anything, but that sounds like a good idea. are you suggesting delay the sg from shooting ?

[MonoXideAtWork]

Originally Posted by Ceremony

i dont really want to do anything, but that sounds like a good idea. are you suggesting delay the sg from shooting ?

Currently, the spy deploys a sabotage on a sentry gun, and the option to activate becomes available from the radial menu. During this time, the engineer cannot control the gun, all options on the engineer's menu pertaining to that item are disabled and he receives a message saying ~"your gun has been hacked", other than that, the sentry acts as normal, awaiting actuvation from the spy. In situations with "mp_friendlyfire 0", the only way to remove the sabotage is to kill the spy.

I'd like to see the gun take damage from friendly fire when the sabotage has been deployed. The engineer is then faced with a decision whether to destroy the gun or hunt the spy.

That's what I meant, in detail, sorry for the confusion.

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by GenghisTron

Your problem is you're judging the game based on pub play, and while pub play is a large part of the game, it's hardly an accurate indicator of balance. Naturally a spy while wreak havoc on ff_hunted... when you have 10+ people to blend in with, the bodyguards have a tough task of guarding the civilian. Here's the shocker, when you play ff_hunted, your goal is to free the civilian, if the assassins are half-way decent, they'll kill the hunted more than he will escape. That's just how it is, it's SUPPOSED to be more challenging for the bodyguards/hunted.

Yes, I am judging off of pub play, that's all I play. I realize that's only one side of the story v. leagues and pickups, but it's working the wrong way. If a change is trivial to one mode, but devastating to another, that's a balance problem. I was mainly responding to what waywardspooky said. Personally, I don't find spies to be too big a problem in most games, because like you said, the lifespan is too short for things to matter.

I like to bring up hunted because the difference there is so obvious. Of course assassins have the advantage. That's the way it was in TFC and it was a challenge. That's the point, I like a challenge, not a foregon conclusion. What I'm complaining about is that a good spy on hunted now is basically like a "win" button. If I'm the spy on hunted, I'd be willing to lay money that I'll win at least 9/10. And I mean ME win, acting as a one-man army regardless of the opposition or teammates on my side. It's that easy. But of course you sometimes have normal games because if the spy is incompetent, he won't make a difference.

So what's happened here is that compared to TFC, the team that already had the advantage was given even more of an advantage by having a spy, then in 2.1 given an incredible advantage by the upgrades. In pub play, defense was eroded further in some situations, league play wasn't affected much, and in hunted, balance has been fucked with one competent player. I think it's worth considering all the game modes when talking about balance changes.

Originally Posted by GenghisTron

I've pulled spies out of complete invisibility in the path, just by using smarts. I was playinf ff_aardvark last night, and I saw a spy approaching in the yard, but I had to move up closer to try and find him. He stopped moving, so I just fired randomly into the yard with my railgun, and pulled him out.

While I personally find this gameplay aspect less fun period, I was accounting for this in my earlier post:

"Since they get TOTAL invisibility now, there's no skill involved with trying to root them out if you didn't spot them beforehand."

[Iggy]

Total invisibility is only when the spy isn't moving(yes, I know you know that). That pretty much takes that player out of the game for as long as they stand still. That's part of the reason clans don't play like that. In pubs, the difference is almost unnoticable, because it's usually pure chaos.

Even a good spy shouldn't be able to dominate on Hunted, IF the D players are doing their job.... which means LOOKING for anyone/anything that can hurt the Hunted.

Hunted is a fun map to play, but you can't expect balanced play on that map in a pub environment. The variable is the skill level of the players.