1UP TF2 Vid

[Jiggles]

Speculation is fun and all, but I don't see much point in forming hard opinions yet until we see/read a lot more about TF2. Well, other than to bicker pointlessly on the internets

It's true a game like TFC is complex enough that many casual gamers get frustrated with it. I've seen it happen with some of my friends. Still, I would hate to see some of TFC's deep gameplay removed just so it would suit a larger audience.

I guess I'll make a bad analogy: Street Fighter II vs Super Smash Bros. One has somewhat tricky controls to pull off special moves, the other has very simple controls. One of the skills involved in being a good SFII player is being able to pull off special moves in a pinch. In SSB, however, not so much. It might be logical to remove a level of complexity from SFII -- make the special moves very easy to do -- to appeal to a wider audience. But, I think the game would be fundamentally changed if Capcom did so. Special moves would become significantly less "special" w/o the added risk of failing to do them properly. Plus, more powerful moves typically have harder-to-do key combinations -- that would be lost as well.

Anyway, the point of that crappy analogy is that it would be sad to see SFII change to "compete" with SSB, even though SSB probably has a wider audience than SFII. Not that SSB is a bad game; I think it rocks. TF2 will probably rock as well, but I don't think FF should necessarily follow the same route as TF2.

I think the best thing we can do is make the skills of FF more accessable. Another comparison to fighting games: Some fighting games have included a "practice mode" where you are shown the special moves and how to pull them off. Granted, I'm sure many people never even tried the practice mode of these games, but again, some games aren't for everyone. A wide audience is vital for a game, but so is depth of gameplay.

[Circuitous]

Practice mode is the first thing I do.

[Pixel]

Loading... Loading... Loading...

[Circuitous]

Okay, so it didn't just take forever 'cuz I was on the school's connection.

Nuts.

[Jiggles]

Originally Posted by AmazingNurseEnrique

Grenades are one of those things that are pretty difficult to use for newbs...just the entire grenade system is pretty complex from the get-go. For players that really sink their teeth into stuff (like this whole community), it's not that hard a concept to get. For your average gamer, it definitely is.

I don't know. I think the grenade system isn't complex; it's just explained poorly (not at all). Heck, I didn't know I could prime grenades for at least a month when I first started playing TFC. Remember that there weren't even grenade timers until the 1.5 patch

Originally Posted by AmazingNurseEnrique

You're half-right on NS...the game started dying around when NS:C came out, but it's because it served to divide and already small community and not allow players a smooth transition from "new and confused" to "useful team member." Making it more accessible wasn't their problem, it was how they implemented it. Combat also didn't make the normal game any easier to understand.

I think the hint system in NS did a pretty good job at giving some asstance to the player in learning the basics. Later on, many players did a pretty good job of ostracizing new players.

But, I think the root problem is more that NS is a very complex game. The maps, for example, are large and confusingly laid out. This was mostly by design (so the aliens had interesting places to hide and such), but it made maps tough to learn. NS could have benefitted a lot from a "Descent-style" 3d map, rather than the 2d map that was included.

Also, there was the fact that each side had a totally different playstyle. And the biggest challenge (for standard ns maps) was the need for a competent commander and obedient players. Get a 'tard in the chair or players that refuse to listen and the marine side is screwed.

Again, though, I'm glad NS was the way it was -- it took a risk where it could have "played it safe" by removing the commander element and simplifying each side. It is still a darn good game and a pretty successful mod overall.

[AmazingNurseEnrique]

Originally Posted by Jiggles

I don't know. I think the grenade system isn't complex; it's just explained poorly (not at all). Heck, I didn't know I could prime grenades for at least a month when I first started playing TFC. Remember that there weren't even grenade timers until the 1.5 patch


I think the hint system in NS did a pretty good job at giving some asstance to the player in learning the basics. Later on, many players did a pretty good job of ostracizing new players.

But, I think the root problem is more that NS is a very complex game. The maps, for example, are large and confusingly laid out. This was mostly by design (so the aliens had interesting places to hide and such), but it made maps tough to learn. NS could have benefitted a lot from a "Descent-style" 3d map, rather than the 2d map that was included.

Also, there was the fact that each side had a totally different playstyle. And the biggest challenge (for standard ns maps) was the need for a competent commander and obedient players. Get a 'tard in the chair or players that refuse to listen and the marine side is screwed.

Again, though, I'm glad NS was the way it was -- it took a risk where it could have "played it safe" by removing the commander element and simplifying each side. It is still a darn good game and a pretty successful mod overall.

Oh for sure, I adored NS, it was awesome. I wish we could make more games like NS and have them be successful -- maybe when micro-distribution becomes a bigger deal (like Steam-style digital distribution), publishers can take larger risks.

Another area we're seeing get a -little- more play in the commercial market is niche titles, like The Ship. That game's got innovation coming out of its ass, but it's one of those games that won't appeal to a large number of players. I think if we see more ways of getting these games into players' hands without huge monetary risks from publishers, we can see more games like NS and Tribes get produced.

I'm not saying complexity is bad, I personally prefer really deep and complex games. Luckily, mods (like FF and NS) are the places we can see these types of gameplay come out, when design is purely for the love of games as an art, and you don't have to support a company on it. Valve can't make another TFC, they are a business after all and need to think like one.

My biggest worry is that TF2 won't have the ability to be a strong competitive title by being -too- simple, but from the little I've seen from the people I know at Valve, it seems like it's still hard to master, just in very different ways. We'll see when it comes out though

[Serik]

Originally Posted by AmazingNurseEnrique

Another area we're seeing get a -little- more play in the commercial market is niche titles, like The Ship. That game's got innovation coming out of its ass, but it's one of those games that won't appeal to a large number of players. I think if we see more ways of getting these games into players' hands without huge monetary risks from publishers, we can see more games like NS and Tribes get produced.

When The Ship came out last summer (almost a year ago already...damn!) I was excited as hell. But last time I played, the game still felt buggy, laggy, and the server selection sucked. So while the core game was innovative and fun, the technical issues were never flushed out in time...

[Dospac]

Valve saying frag grenades made the classes too similar is not a reason to remove grenades. It's a reason to remove frag grenades. That would be a fairly obvious step in simplifying the game. Grenades then, after we remove frags, make all the classes more unique not less. Or in other words, taking away all grenades actually has made the TF2 classes more similar.

It seems apparent that this wasn't the primary reason for removing all grenades then. Just guessing, maybe they wanted to restrict the game more to two dimensions and make it console friendly for their cross-platform aspirations?(ugh)

--

Regarding the game complexity and learning curve balance challenge, I don't think you're approaching the problem from the right perspective for the TF genre, AmazingNurseEnrique.

The traditional problem of creating complex, interesting multiplayer action games and then getting people to continue playing them is that the structure of the market really doesn't support the development of this type of game and/or community. Developing for and maintaining a genre like TF has to be approached from a completely different perspective if it is to be maintained. I don't believe the market for video games, at least in the US, is mature enough to establish a game like TF as its own self sustaining genre and see it succeed over the long term like we see with other longstanding popular games in our culture(baseball, chess etc).

What my point is, is you have to approach TF from that perspective, or maybe a better way to put it is, TF introduces the possibility of that whole concept to electronic gaming, along with games like Starcraft and Counter-Strike. But TF is a stronger contender than those two, I would argue. What it has lacked is support in the manner that we see of other popular games like baseball or chess as I mentioned before. Improving accessibility, developing the support infrastructure required to teach the game to new players, those kinds of things are where you could take a game type like TF.

If Valve had played their cards right over the lifespan of TFC, we wouldn't be discussing TF2's grenade axing. We would all be talking about how great it was that Valve was helping broaden the community by marketing all the amazing stuff that evolved in TFC and providing a means of carrying that stuff over into the revamped game without the terrible lack of documentation etc that hamstrung TFC. TF needs to be improved, brought forward, explained, not given stripped down cartoon sequels or nerfed and adapted to consoles. Getting the game onto the consoles isn't a bad idea, I'm just not sure it's a good idea to try and design an identical game to go on every platform.

In the electronic games of our generation, this stuff just hasn't caught up yet for many reasons. Of course this doesn't just apply to TF, but really to any skill based multiplayer game that's struggling to "find a place" amongst players. Anyway enough rambling, sorry!

[Ihmhi]

Originally Posted by Jiggles

Speculation is fun and all, but I don't see much point in forming hard opinions yet until we see/read a lot more about TF2. Well, other than to bicker pointlessly on the internets

It's true a game like TFC is complex enough that many casual gamers get frustrated with it. I've seen it happen with some of my friends. Still, I would hate to see some of TFC's deep gameplay removed just so it would suit a larger audience.

I guess I'll make a bad analogy: Street Fighter II vs Super Smash Bros. One has somewhat tricky controls to pull off special moves, the other has very simple controls. One of the skills involved in being a good SFII player is being able to pull off special moves in a pinch. In SSB, however, not so much. It might be logical to remove a level of complexity from SFII -- make the special moves very easy to do -- to appeal to a wider audience. But, I think the game would be fundamentally changed if Capcom did so. Special moves would become significantly less "special" w/o the added risk of failing to do them properly. Plus, more powerful moves typically have harder-to-do key combinations -- that would be lost as well.

Anyway, the point of that crappy analogy is that it would be sad to see SFII change to "compete" with SSB, even though SSB probably has a wider audience than SFII. Not that SSB is a bad game; I think it rocks. TF2 will probably rock as well, but I don't think FF should necessarily follow the same route as TF2.

I think the best thing we can do is make the skills of FF more accessable. Another comparison to fighting games: Some fighting games have included a "practice mode" where you are shown the special moves and how to pull them off. Granted, I'm sure many people never even tried the practice mode of these games, but again, some games aren't for everyone. A wide audience is vital for a game, but so is depth of gameplay.

Best analogy I have ever heard thus far.

Like usual many are judging a game before anyone has even played it, which is utterly pointless but not surprising since most will be bias on here. Although there are some valid points about the things taken away / added.

Personally I’m looking forward to Team Fortress 2. The general appearance of it is unique, although some things I’m unsure about.

Now grenades being removed.

In order to understand how grenade removal will affect the game you will have to of played TFC since the beginning really. I’d take a guess most people on here won’t recall UKTFCL seasons 1/2/3/4/5 etc… Back then grenades, conc jumping didn’t really play a massive role within the game. Complexity of conc jumping only really reached the level of up through the water on well and getting across the map more quickly. In addition grenades weren’t being used to inflict the massive blow they do now.

I personally liked those days. They were simply “extras” to your class’s, which is how they should have remained. Instead they now become an integral part of every class, each one relying on them to either play a defensive of offensive role.

For those who remember when they eventually became that allot of the community left, many defence players became frustrated with the game. It became increasingly harder to play defence and less hard to play offence. I know this as I played top level defence and would switch to offence sometimes, which wasn’t difficult at all.

Clans after that struggled to find good soldiers and yet were swamped with offence players. Instead of players trying to find interesting and tactical ways of getting passed a defence player they would death match each layer until they reached the core, the game became a series of 1 on 1s. Utterly boring and I feel it hurt the community in a massive way. Bhopping / Chopping etc were seen as “skills” by offence players but majority of defence players saw them as exploits which ruined the game and gave unfair advantage to offence players who could attack more often. What made it even worse was it seemed the offence players had more of a grip on the community, maps released were all slightly geared towards giving them the advantage.

Removing grenades in my opinion will make every player rely on the class’s individual traits to best play a defensive or offensive role.

People can preach to me forever how grenades, concs, bunnyhopping and chopping improved the gameplay. There is no denying it hurt the community, made allot of defensive players leave and ruined what was a balanced game.

Invisibility mode for medic though, not quite sure how that will pan out.

[summit]

Originally Posted by Ihmhi

Best analogy I have ever heard thus far.

There was a reason he stated it was a bad analogy. Maybe you meant something else.

What I got from the interviews was that they were trying to make sure people didn't die and not know what killed them. Sprite said it very well - if everyone has the same tool, and the devs want the focus to rely on the traits of the class, not a tool everyone has, then it only makes sense to remove them. No one is left at a disadvantage (although there should be significant tweaks to compensate for) because everyone is affected by the same move.

You can complain/speculate about the affects the removal of nades in TF2, but the fact is you can only substitute another game into the argument at best.

I find it frustrating everyone makes the connection between making things more defined and "dumbing" things down for noobs. I swear the hypocrisy can be off the charts at times - people argue so hard VALVe should pay attention to them as loyal customers, and yet already refuse further iterations simply because they're unwilling to change?

I whole-heartedly agree that making things simpler isn't necessarily an ideal approach to take - IF they're taking it at all. By simpler I mean enforcing a skill-ceiling ... making it a very shallow game. Do I think they are? I wouldn't know until I play it, but I'd say no. I think there will be different things to learn, and because of that many people will claim it's a stupid game that's become noob friendly (purely because their skillset will not transfer from one game to another).

The biggest point people will have to realise is that the skill-set, as the dude in the trailer said, won't come across. So unless you plan on giving it a fair go, you're probably going to be disappointed.

[AmazingNurseEnrique]

Originally Posted by Dospac

Valve saying frag grenades made the classes too similar is not a reason to remove grenades. It's a reason to remove frag grenades. That would be a fairly obvious step in simplifying the game. Grenades then, after we remove frags, make all the classes more unique not less. Or in other words, taking away all grenades actually has made the TF2 classes more similar.

It seems apparent that this wasn't the primary reason for removing all grenades then. Just guessing, maybe they wanted to restrict the game more to two dimensions and make it console friendly for their cross-platform aspirations?(ugh)

--

Regarding the game complexity and learning curve balance challenge, I don't think you're approaching the problem from the right perspective for the TF genre, AmazingNurseEnrique.

The traditional problem of creating complex, interesting multiplayer action games and then getting people to continue playing them is that the structure of the market really doesn't support the development of this type of game and/or community. Developing for and maintaining a genre like TF has to be approached from a completely different perspective if it is to be maintained. I don't believe the market for video games, at least in the US, is mature enough to establish a game like TF as its own self sustaining genre and see it succeed over the long term like we see with other longstanding popular games in our culture(baseball, chess etc).

What my point is, is you have to approach TF from that perspective, or maybe a better way to put it is, TF introduces the possibility of that whole concept to electronic gaming, along with games like Starcraft and Counter-Strike. But TF is a stronger contender than those two, I would argue. What it has lacked is support in the manner that we see of other popular games like baseball or chess as I mentioned before. Improving accessibility, developing the support infrastructure required to teach the game to new players, those kinds of things are where you could take a game type like TF.

If Valve had played their cards right over the lifespan of TFC, we wouldn't be discussing TF2's grenade axing. We would all be talking about how great it was that Valve was helping broaden the community by marketing all the amazing stuff that evolved in TFC and providing a means of carrying that stuff over into the revamped game without the terrible lack of documentation etc that hamstrung TFC. TF needs to be improved, brought forward, explained, not given stripped down cartoon sequels or nerfed and adapted to consoles. Getting the game onto the consoles isn't a bad idea, I'm just not sure it's a good idea to try and design an identical game to go on every platform.

In the electronic games of our generation, this stuff just hasn't caught up yet for many reasons. Of course this doesn't just apply to TF, but really to any skill based multiplayer game that's struggling to "find a place" amongst players. Anyway enough rambling, sorry!

This is why I <3 Dospac. Well thought-out posts make me happy

I agree that there's a lot of routes to take here...I think if it had been my decision, I'd have changed the grenades -system,- but left in special grenades. It'd be interesting to see the effects of changing the way grenades are used in TF while maintaining the abilities they grant, such as conc-jumping. I think the confusing part is not grenade usage and functionality, just the non-intuitive nature of using a weapon in combat that you're not equipped with. I think you're right that it makes classes more similar, although "making the classes more different" isn't really the primary reason I believe -- it's a piece of the larger accessibility movement.

The name "Team Fortress 2" comes with a ton of baggage and expectations -- systems, balance, gametype, everything really. If TF2 were named something not associated with Team Fortress at all, I wonder what the opinion of the presented game would be? I'd wager a lot better. I'm trying to view TF2 as a seperate entity to TF, and look at is qualities in a vacuum, and from that perspective I think the game looks damn good.

I disagree that their art direction was a poor decision. Opinions of the look aside, it does something extremely important for mass-marketing TF in a non-gameplay sense -- you look at TF2 and never once think it's realistic, or anything like CS. It doesn't seem strange that it takes a bunch of rockets to kill you, people can turn invisible, a guy can double jump, and so forth when everything is so heavily exaggerated in the art style. This creates expectations for the player right when they look at the box, and doesn't sell something it can't deliver. Plus, even in its day, TF never was a great looking game, nor did it have a lot of style...I think taking the opportunity to give it some is smart.

This being said, I think FF is a good direction as well...I'm very excited to play it and get back into "Fortress as we know it." I've stopped really viewing TF2 as "a new TFC" because it's not, it's just something new with only the most basic ideas intact -- that I'm cool with, because the game they're making is something no one else is doing right now.

And that's exactly what the FPS genre needs.

[Jiggles]

Originally Posted by summit

There was a reason he stated it was a bad analogy. Maybe you meant something else.

When it comes down to it, though, all analogies are "bad", because someone can always find a difference and say, "See, these things are totally unrelated!"

[Coronius]

I think tf2 will play good, instead of concing over to the enemy base you have to gun your way through with a small team and bring down the defence, get the flag and bring it back together. IE team play in small teams all off's go together, and all defs work together.

Even if TF2 isnt what i thought it'd be it appeals to me after seeing this vid. And its good that FF and TF2 is diffrent games. so i dont see why saying tf2 is going to be shit ill play FF(not pointing any fingers) is going to do any good snice they are totally diffrent games.

[Beetle]

Originally Posted by Coronius

I think tf2 will play good, instead of concing over to the enemy base you have to gun your way through with a small team and bring down the defence, get the flag and bring it back together. IE team play in small teams all off's go together, and all defs work together.

Even if TF2 isnt what i thought it'd be it appeals to me after seeing this vid. And its good that FF and TF2 is diffrent games. so i dont see why saying tf2 is going to be shit ill play FF(not pointing any fingers) is going to do any good snice they are totally diffrent games.

I agree. We won't be able to really compare FF and TF2. They went different ways, and lucky for me, I like playing both styles.

[barronofhellion]

ill be the 1st to say, watching that video made me not want to play it more and more.. it looks imo to be a goofball spoof on tf.. i hate the medic class in tf. i 90% of the time dont use it. while most would say its a great class... and i dont even have to say this but what there doing to tf2 will change everything on how it plays... i dont know about you people but i like tf and want to play it how its plaied. sure conc jumping is a pansy way to gain footage on the map and (probably from the start) was not intended to use it to an advantage. i am against conc/bhoping, does that mean i dont want to play ff when it comes out? hell no... i have learned how to smash people that do that and its all apart of the game,,, the tf game that we all love. and that is the same way i feel about nades.... ALTHOUGH if some if you think about it... what if they programed in where you could do conc nade physics where it displaces other objects including other nades... that way when somebody drops 5 mirv next to you .. you just conc and they get all thrown back in the mirv'ers face.... eh eh ??!?!? you like ? ehhh ok ill shut up now

[summit]

Originally Posted by Jiggles

When it comes down to it, though, all analogies are "bad", because someone can always find a difference and say, "See, these things are totally unrelated!"

That's true

[Foxtrick]

I'll take the opinion that TF2 will definately be different but a whole huge-ass aspect of TFC is being took completely out, yes this is easy to say for current and past hardcore players that we are talking about a different game but it mayaswell be. I don't think you could say even that this is the evolution of the game(ie a sequel) its going to be so different.

Yet if we go by how many people played TFC, it was a sucess, a good balance. The whole fun of the grenade was that for 4 seconds after priming, skill was removed - sometimes - between players, as was classes and clan tags. Just remember that people played TFC for probably 4 years happily, loving it, every single day for a hell of alot of hours before people started complaining about spam.. grenade spam.. and putting in class restrictions. I fail to see why people can't see the general good side of that in the fun factor.. and the clan factor.

Its just unforunate that TFC got to such a stage that defence or offy was getting pissed off with players killing them with grenades and odd shots(grenade doing the main damage obviously) when they knew(or didnt know as the case may be) that they are better. The only real justification for a class restriction was for decent teams that had alot of HW on certain maps and kept using the resup

[barronofhellion]

i plaied tf and tfc for years and never once .. said omg that guys nade spaming ... i do remember saying omg is like a warzone out there with all the 100's of explosions going off

[Ihmhi]

Originally Posted by Jiggles

When it comes down to it, though, all analogies are "bad", because someone can always find a difference and say, "See, these things are totally unrelated!"

Analogies are like sis-

Oh wait.