ETF

[o_3xternal]

This might be flaming...

But i really hate ETF...
All the Q3 people come in and ruin it with thier Bhop mastered. Hit boxes are huge. It is the most unbalanced game....
i know the 1.1 patch is coming out soon but...still
I guess this thread is just to discuss it, but I wanna start it off with the fact that I hate the game...prolly cause i feel like it is a parody of TFC, instead of homage.

[o_rebo]

For me ETF looks like a polished and well mademod and seems pretty much identical to the Q3F mod on which it is based. I dont think this is the TFC style but that doesnt make it a bad game. Im sure those who like the Q3F style like to play it. From what i hear, the sniper is too powerful, and as you say the hitboxes seem too big. Personally I dont think i would like this play style.

As with all things on this forum its fine to say if you dont like something, as long as you give a well thoughtout and reasonable explaination why.

3xternal, in view of this do you think you could be a bit more clear about what you dont like about that game rather than just say you hate it. If you do this maybe the mod maker can improve their game.

It also might help us from making the same mistakes that you think they make.

The reason i ask is because this forum isnt about flaming, but you can definitely say what you think if you back it up with a well thought out argument and in a non inciteful way.

[o_anthraxium[wu]]

the ETF community is super small as well. It appears that the main people who play ETF are just pompous q3 clans who think they are better than everyone.

The game doesnt really cater to the nubs so its hard to imgine this game ever taking off ... idk ... just my opinion and the opinions of many around me ...


anyways -- take a look @ this http://archive.gamespy.com/stats/ this will allow you to currently view the amount of players in a mod at the given time you load the page.

as of right now:
TFC has about 1300 players.
ETF has about 155 players.
Sven co-op has about 165 players.

the ETF community has less members than sven co-op ... thats just a little thing to think about ...





i cant wait for FF :)

[o_rebo]

It probably also demonstrates how difficult it is to get a new mod off the ground nowadays. I think that we at FF will have a great mix of fun and interest for new players but also depth and subtlety for the old pro's. It sure is hard to get that balance right tho.

[o_anthraxium[wu]]

thats the thing, this mod has a large community and many voices are heard and taken in as the mod is being created ... ETF it seems was made more for the "old pros" and didnt support the new players.

You cant have a game take off unless you get new players ...

I think due to all the FF team's involvement with the community, this game will please everyone, thus taking off and expanding to what we all hope it will ;)

[o_3xternal]

Well, rebo,

It boils down to this. Snipers have actually said that they have missed and still hit people. That is how bad the hit box problem is. Rockets seem to have about a 20 meter splash damage raduis. The medic, which in TFC is on equal playing ground with the solly, is underpowered. It takes a TON of hits to kill a solly in ETF. Grenades have a small blast area. The Q3 bhopppers come into the game as vets.
Class balancing is horrible. HWs have a quick spinup, a fast rate of fire and each bullet does too much damage. Soldiers can bhop alot bc they have the RJ. Sentries can see for almot infinite distances, they can even shoot you beneath the water line (which doesnt make sense bc players beneath the water line cannot see what is above it)

What the bottom line is: I'm used to the HL engine. The physics, the explosion sizes, everything. The game, besides the faults mentioned above, feels slippery, and that could just be the engine. The thing that pisses me off the most really, is ALL THE OVO. People have no honor what so ever. I rarly make it to the enemy base with full health, unless I use a conc. The conc effect affects movement as well as aim, which is soemwhat ingenious, somewhat insanly annoying. Lastly, reloading. When you reload, you have to wait till the weapon is FULLY loaded to fire it again, u cant reload 8 shells then shoot if your in a tight spot.

Like i said, I'm prolly just a die-hard HL d00d, and this engine is new territory. But the balancing needs fixed, cause the community is smaller today than the day the mod opened.

[Defrag]

Heh the main problem (from my perspective) is that the bhop airaccel is dependent on your FPS. On smooth I can hit 550+ ups by the time I reach the front door as soldier bhopping from the water pool spawn (no ramps or other boosts used)... but it's only possible to get so much speed up by having com_maxfps 250 or thereabouts. With a lower com_maxfps setting I accelerate a lot more slowly.

Sniping is also ridiculous. I made 125 frags in 20 minutes on forts and it would've been a lot more if people didn't start going defence instead of attacking. I'm not much of a sniper either. I shudder to think what compact or wlz would do in that mod :P

[o_curly]

I'm actually going to disagree a little on the balance issue and some of the things that have been said.

Are the snipers very overpowered? Absolutely, but that was not intentional, and they will be seriously nerfed/unbugged in the upcoming patch.

I've actually found the classes to be much more balanced than in TFC. The HWguy is now unable to move while fireing, and is now much more of a defensive class that I'm no long ashamed to play as. Much more balanced there. The pyro and demo are much more useful in ETF than in TFC, and they are much more balanced in comparison to the rest of the classes. Actually, the medic isn't balanced, but it's not underpowered, it's overpowered. Among other things, the supernailgun is too powerful. This will probably be addressed. The grenade damage radius is about the same as in TFC, not smaller. As for the soldier's rockets, the damage it does from splash is rather low, and it benefits more to hit someone with the rocket. The pyro's rockets act a little differently; instead of having relatively low damage, but a sick splash range, they have a fairly normal splash range, but do a significant ammount of damage.

Anyhow, I do agree, the game isn't very newb friendly and that's been a major concern. It's very hard to get into the game as a newplayer. Also, many of the servers are kinda stupid; I recommend one of the Railbait ones for a good game.

Some things that I miss from HL-engine games are a working minimize, voice chat, and good positional audio. These are lacking in ETF. Also, to enter commands in the console, you have to use a / , which is annoying. I also miss certain maps like dustbowl.

There are some things that I like over TFC besides the balance improvements: The sentry cam=cool. FF=on by default=even cooler. I like how the pyros can burn the gas. The grenade timer and voiceovers rock. Also, each map can have several different game modes, so you can play reverse ctf, regular ctf, and some other modes with every map. Anyhow, good stuff, I've been playing it alot lately.

And btw, the community is actually a very good mix of QWTF, Q3F, and TFC players. (there are some megatf players too, but they are treated as second-class citizens; I'm sure the same would apply for neotf)

[o_lektrik]

Rockets seem to have about a 20 meter splash damage raduis.

Funny, I found the rockets harder to hit with than in TFC, even though they come from the center of your screen rather than an angle.

The medic, which in TFC is on equal playing ground with the solly, is underpowered. It takes a TON of hits to kill a solly in ETF.

The ETF medic is pretty balanced in my opinion, although they aren't much fun to play due to the **** conc effect.

Grenades have a small blast area.

And rightly so! The blast radius in TFC is ridiculously large.

The Q3 bhopppers come into the game as vets.

What's wrong with that, really?

HWs have a quick spinup, a fast rate of fire and each bullet does too much damage.

They can't move while shooting, though...

Soldiers can bhop alot bc they have the RJ.

You have to remember they lose health/armor everytime they "launch" themselves to bhop.

What the bottom line is: I'm used to the HL engine.

Definately. I don't like the feel of ETF either, but some of the points you make aren't really fair to the game.

[o_3xternal]

I asked Q3player freind of mine, and he summerized that I just love teh HL too much, and need to expand my 3d shooter realms. So mebbe I should play it... in moderation

[o_curly]

I'm actually a hardcore HL player too, and what I'm really looking foward to are HL2 mods in the future. My main game that kept me busy for the longest time was Natural-Selection on the HL engine. Great, great stuff there. Recently, ETF has had my attention, as TFC used to be my thing, and this brings back some nastalgia. I do happen to find many of the things which I didn't like about TFC fixed in ETF, and I can say that I like ETF much more. However, being a Quake3-based game, there are some issues that really turn me off after being a HL-man for so long: You can't minimize, the positional audio sucks, and there's no voice chat. Arg. It's still a great game though.

[mirvin_monkey]

Yeah I've noticed that a lot of the complaints about ETF are just from how the community prefers the way they've learnt to play from TFC, which is perfectly understandable. I really prefer the TFC style conc to the ETF one, although I like the way the ETF reloading works.

My main problem with ETF is that I haven't been able to find any servers to play on, every time I've looked for some UK servers I've found either empty or completely full ones! I'd like to play it more I just can't :(

[o_curly]

Check out the Railbait servers. I think they're US-based, but try them out anyhow. They're usually full, but if you let the connect idle for a while, you'll get in pretty quick.

[o_lithium]

ETF gave me diarhea for 3 weeks. I just ... ew. They tried to do something and they failed doing it.

[o_rebo]

someone do that crowbar www.fortress-forever.com thing in ETF , gogogo !!: ))

[o_3xternal]

I ahve actually been playing it a little more and am getting decent at it. Its alot faster than TFC and it helps with precision nade timings bc explosions are really small. But other than that, snipers still suck. It's a decent distraction till FF comes out. Then, ETF who?

[o_paddn ur stats]

Well, I notice that most of the ETF servers limit engys to 2 but no limit on soldiers and HWs. Which seems rediculous to me (also biased) because quite a few of the maps need more than 2 engys on a pub for any kind of defense. All I ever encounter is mirv/nail gren spam relentlessly. When I find im on a craptastic team or theres no hope, Ill play pyro for shiz n giggles.

The mod itself seems to be dead imo but i dont play prime time, and the only servers that are full are euro/aussie servers so i have a 200+ ping.
Im not going to rebuy my CS retail just to play a dead HL tfc mod, so ETF will have to gimme some kinda practice til FF is completed. I dont care for ETF but it was free. /shrug

From what I remember, the soldier in hl was much slower than the etf soldiers. Say, can anyone tell me the correct bind for build sentrygun and det dispenser ? Ive been lookn all over but cant find it. I tried opening up my class.cfgs with notepad but theyre blank.

[o_curly]

One thing we can all agree on: The snipers in ETF mess with the game badly. They will, however be fixed soon. (and btw, I agree, the speed of the soldier is slightly too fast in ETF; I prefer the TFC speed. However, they're not really unbalanced, perhaps because of the no reload-interrupt [which I like, btw, forces you to plan/think things out])

Btw, as for the no solider/hw limit, I think soldiers do not need a limit, but HWs need a limit of maybe 2. Hws in ETF are not overpowered, and they're forced into a more defensive role as they can't move and shoot at the same time. In all TF games, soldiers are the standard class that makes up a bigger part of your team than any other class. There's no reason to cap them.

Also, pyros are not a class to underestimate in ETF. I've become very good with them, and they can be a very strong class if used correctly. (they can take out hws in seconds as you prolly know, among their other perks) In TFC I would play as pyro often, but as more of a challenge than anything else. I would do alright most of the time, and piss some people off in the process, but I did it more as a challenge than anything else. In ETF, I play it more seriously, as a class I use to waste the enemy team with. I'm your sniper/hwguy's worse nightmare, but other classes aren't an issue either, except for maybe another pyro. (sry, dunno the engie commands)

[o_paddn ur stats]

Well, the nail spam nades need to be capped, cause thats far worse and annoying than anything 3 engys could posibly do. 4 soldiers running into your base each spamming a nail nade after the other is rediculous. The engy supershotty seems pretty weak too, Ill pop a soldier for about 4-5 hits and then hell 1 shot me. (Im guessing hes got a nice aimbot)

[o_3xternal]

that brings something up...are there many Q3 hacks, or has that been all worked out? IknowPB can be turned on and off from the menus...

[o_curly]

Actually, I can't say I've seen a single hack. There's a chance that I've missed some hackers, but hacking has not been an issue so far from what I've seen. Nearly every server worth playing has PB enabled, and is a pure server. This has some disadvantages howver, as you can't add custom models as they make your client "unpure". (and the built-in V models look like shit, they said they need a new modeler) The reasoning behind this is that many aimbots are made to lock on to solid-colored models. Basically your answer is "no, hacking is not much of an issue in ETF."

Oh, btw, one thing that hasn't been brought up before: Bunnyhopping. It works different in ETF. First off, you do not need to use the mousewheel or a script-- the jump key automatically works like it has a script. (and it won't fuck with your firing/doing stuff) (this is good imo, as it helps even the playing field for those interested in bhopping and making it less of a pain in the ass) You cannot generate speed/acceleration from simply straffejumping etc in ETF. Hopping just maintains a speed. You need to gain momentum from either a ramp/elevation change or a push such as an explosion or hit from a sniper/hw. I like this method much better.

Oh, and another thing: None of the weapons go into slot 5--- that was a pain in the butt for me to reach to it. This was most noticle on classes that require switching weapons often, such as the pyro. Actually, the secondary fire pans between the napalm cannon and the flamethrower, making it super-easy. I know, in TFC secondary selects the flamethrower, but it would be great if hitting it a second time would bring out the cannon. It really really makes life as a pyro easier. (either get it out of slot 5 or making it toggle with secondary fire; both is even better)

[o_billdoor]

The reasoning behind this is that many aimbots are made to lock on to solid-colored models. Basically your answer is "no, hacking is not much of an issue in ETF."

As far as I can see, that would probably be the most inefficient and hardest to code type of aimbot in a Q3/ET mod. It's far easier to have the aimbot lock on based on vertex counts, which are fairly constant. Other aimbots work on the actual textures that are in the model skin (not the colours, but the checksum of the textures themselves). The irony is that if most people were to download one of these two types of aimbots and then change to custom models, there's a fair chance that the aimbots would stop working.

[o_3xternal]

em sew enlightened :wink:

[o_paddn ur stats]

They arent very bright on the maps they port/make... Most of the shizzlemastic maps (not related to craptastic but a close relative) seem to have 2 respawns and next to each other for easy camping when one team has put the other down on O and D simultaneously. I can say about 85% of the maps they have atm I truely dislike with a passion. I still enjoy Well, 2fort... ummm.. heh thats about it. I havent seen much else thats enjoyable. I miss the variety that TFC had for maps but it had a large following for many years. <sigh>

[o_3xternal]

They etf webby practically begs players to give it a second chance after the 1.1

We again apologize for any headache these issues might have caused you and ask you to please try the game again if you were turned away by the problems in 1.0

No wonder the community is so small