are you still playing FF?

[Iggy]

No, everyone thinks you're trolling because you talk a good game, but don't actually PLAY the game. Nevermind how often it's updated. YOU, as a tester, have the access to change values in the server. Since you constantly claim this and that is fucked up, why don't YOU go in the server, find what you think works well, and post THAT instead of a flame-filled rant that few people are going to read and even fewer will take seriously?

Need other players to help do that? Don't have the free time when the organized testing is going on? Go through the tester list, and hit some of us up in Steam.

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by Iggy

No, everyone thinks you're trolling because you talk a good game, but don't actually PLAY the game. Nevermind how often it's updated. YOU, as a tester, have the access to change values in the server. Since you constantly claim this and that is fucked up, why don't YOU go in the server, find what you think works well, and post THAT instead of a flame-filled rant that few people are going to read and even fewer will take seriously?

Need other players to help do that? Don't have the free time when the organized testing is going on? Go through the tester list, and hit some of us up in Steam.

I'm not going to argue against that dumb argument again. I don't have to continuously play Fortress Forever to have experience playing it, especially when it hasn't been updated enough to justify "active duty". Second, I have said this before in the past: Tweaking variables might be redundant if the entire implementation is seen as unnecessary or sub-optimal. Imagine you make the Heavy kill every class in one hit, but allow testers to tweak how many bullets come out of his gun. I'm the guy that's arguing against the whole concept of Heavy killing people in one hit while you guys just insist that tweaking the variables will make it work. Last, you make it seem an easy task to just get a bunch of beta testers together on the beta server to test out some minor variable tweaks done for my personal research. You guys couldn't even get people to show up for the weekly beta tests (understandable why they wouldn't show) back when I was active, much less a spontaneous test middle of the day for your personal curiosity.

[Iggy]

*Cough*SG*Cough*

[Raynian]

Fortress Forever dev team caused 9/11.

You saw it here first, folks.

[Raynian]

Also: Bridget is using the Slippery Slope fallacy, with a hint of Straw Man. Any time the dev team proposes a change, Bridget blows it out of proportion (...the Heavy kill every class in one hit, but allow testers to tweak how many bullets come out of his gun...), then bases his opinion upon this new idea he has created.

His argument is invalid.

[Raynian]

in b4 bridget shitstorm about me not knowing how to debate, I see him replying already

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by Raynian

Fortress Forever dev team caused 9/11.

You saw it here first, folks.

FF Dev: Okay guys, listen up. We're gonna do 9/11.
Beta Team: Great! Get to work.

[Months past]

Beta Team: Well?
FF Dev: We decided to do the Holocaust instead.
Beta Team: Err. Okay. Great! Get to work.

[Months past]

Beta Team: Weeeeeeell?
FF Dev: We decided to do Hiroshima instead.
Beta Team: Ugh. Alright. ALRIGHT.

[Months past]

Beta Team: WELL!?
FF Dev: We ditched Hiroshima. Here's Pearl Harbor. Tell us what you think.
Beta Team: Genius! Genius! This will justify US entry into the war.
FF Dev: Any problems with it?
Beta Team: Yeah, there are a few problems, thou-
FF Dev: Well, we're gonna go work on The Great Purge now.
Beta Team: Wait, what abou-
FF Dev: Busy working on TGP.

[Months past]

FF Dev: We're finished with the Great Purge.
Beta Team: Okay, but what about Pearl Har-
FF Dev: As you can see, this will kill most of our prized generals.
Beta Team: Yeah, Pearl Harbor problems aside, this isn't such a good idea.
FF Dev: They were useless anyway.
Beta Team: No. Not at all! You need them fo-
FF Dev: Welp, time to work on the Great Leap Forward.
Beta Team: SON OF A BITCH.

[Months past]

FF Dev: Okie-Dokie! Great Leap Forward done! Millions dead! Hooray!
Beta Team: Look, guys, slow the fuck down.
FF Dev: Noooope.
Beta Team: You didn't finish Pearl Harbor. The Great Purge left us with more problems.
FF Dev: Don't worry, we'll fix those. We plan on digging those dead generals up and beat their corpses with sticks.
Beta Team: NO! What? Why!? That's unnecessary. Work on Pearl Harbor instead.
FF Dev: Busy digging up dead generals!
Beta Team: Fuck this bullshit. My input is irrelevant when you guys just do what you want, even if unnecessary.
FF Dev: Well, you have to give us your input.
Beta Team: I fucking have. You ignore it and substitute your answer of what's right.
FF Dev: Nah! You just don't put in enough effort.
Beta Team: Fuck you guys.

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by Raynian

Also: Bridget is using the Slippery Slope fallacy, with a hint of Straw Man.

Nope.

Originally Posted by Raynian

Any time the dev team proposes a change, Bridget blows it out of proportion

Nope. My point was that tweaking variables might be redundant if I believe the entire change is unnecessary or sub-optimal. This is easy logic to follow, but I guess when you have an obvious mental disorder (I'm not a doctor, so you should see one to get the specific diagnosis) it's difficult.

Originally Posted by Raynian

(...the Heavy kill every class in one hit, but allow testers to tweak how many bullets come out of his gun...)

It's called an analogy, bro, look it up.

Originally Posted by Raynian

His argument is invalid.

You're invalid.

[JackBauer]

can't say your arguments ain't interesting to read guys. the forum is quite alive at the moment.

[moosh]

Originally Posted by JackBauer

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by JackBauer

can't say your arguments ain't interesting to read guys. the forum is quite alive at the moment.

Yeah, people only make an effort when drama's abound. All those threads made in the past with sincerity in an attempt to balance or fix the game never received this much attention. That's because FF's community is full of sociopathic tryhards.

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by chilledsanity

As for the beta, when I was told that hypothetically if I could prove that I could win on offense 90% or more of the time that it was no guarantee anything would be changed balance-wise, that discouraged me a great deal. That's like saying there's no amount of evidence I could present that a problem existed for anything to be done about it. If so, then what's the point of testing?

The point is that playtesting is not all about the win/loss ratio of maps. Sorry if we just answered your question without a full explanation (the straightforward answer is still that O winning 90% of the time in the beta would not guarantee a balance change). We assess things in context. There are countless factors that can lead to O winning that have nothing to do with balance (afk players, bad players, luck, a rare/good play, stacked teams, players goofing around). We take these into account. But, we also look at specific things as necessary. If SGs aren't doing well, then we look at the SG, etc. We talk about these types of things the whole playtest if people want to talk about them. If you demonstrate that certain push and damage values will improve certain parts of the game without breaking other parts (we sometimes adjust values on the fly in beta tests), then we'd gladly use them. That isn't to say there might not be some debate, as everyone wants different things, but it is certainly possible to get things changed as long as you are reasonable and serious about wanting something to change.

Furthermore a beta test member (not Bridget) told me that he actually submitted values to test out for the sg a long time ago that he spent a long time experimenting with and a dev member flatly refused to do so. Maybe I'm getting a half-truth, I don't know.

I think I know what you're talking about, and I was in the server while they were experimenting with the values and I helped them test them. I disagreed with their goals, and discussed why I thought their values were not going to work. They were pretty insistent on not compromising. I believe we even tried their values for a map or two in a full playtest and no one liked them. If that's what you want to call flatly refusing, then go ahead.

Basically the message I get from all beta testers I talk to and the devs themselves is that I'm largely helpless as an individual to influence anything, unless it's cosmetic changes. That could be wrong, but I'm sure you know I've to influence AvD balance and that hasn't turned out so hot.

It's wrong. You are not helpless. You are just limited in the sense that you need to convince others that your values fix some problems without causing others. The devs have the same limitations.

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by Iggy

The reason people are willing to read you walls of text, Chilled, is because you don't constantly bash other players, the dev team, testers, server owners, etc... You form coherent arguements, make your point and back it up without stooping to flaming.

Well to be honest, I do bash the dev team in some of my posts, even though I try to restrain myself on that. The problem is I don't who makes what decisions or works on what, so just laying blame on "the devs" isn't entirely fair, even if the net result I have problems with. Plus it's an awkward situation. I'm sure many people on the dev team have worked very hard on the mod. Some things are a 100% improvement, other things, some big things, would be better if the devs never updated the game at all. So on one hand I recognize a lot of hard work went into something and I don't want to upset people who really were improving the mod; on the other hand, the game's gotten ruined for what I enjoyed most of it as a direct result of the changes people were working hard on, so it's a frustrating situation for all.

As for Bridget, I agree with several of his points, though a lot of his accusations I really have no prior knowledge to know how truthful or colored they are. And yes, he does insult a lot of people and all the devs and vocal people on the forum seem to hate him, so he's not exactly an impartial observer. How correct he is on different topics, I don't know. One thing I do see is that it's rare that people logically attack his arguments (or most peoples' for that matter). Alternately in the past at least I've seen groupthink RAMPANT in the forums, so besides having his own list of enemies, the fact that he pushes ideas that don't fall in with the general consensus, regardless of their merit or not, leads to a lot of retaliation from others that exacerbates the situation so I don't know what to believe.

While I joke now and then, in general I think throwing insults and flaming is just fucking counter-productive. I really wish there was a more rigid process for evaluating ideas and arguments solely on their logical merit. The forums simply abound with ad hominem attacks and counterarguments that misunderstand the point being made.

Originally Posted by squeek.

The point is that playtesting is not all about the win/loss ratio of maps. Sorry if we just answered your question without a full explanation (the straightforward answer is still that O winning 90% of the time in the beta would not guarantee a balance change). We assess things in context. There are countless factors that can lead to O winning that have nothing to do with balance (afk players, bad players, luck, a rare/good play, stacked teams, players goofing around). We take these into account.

Okay, I never meant to imply that winning against players under extraordinary or stacked circumstances was an indicator of balance. There's always a chance of that happening. The primary way to eliminate that is to get a larger sample. 4 out of 5 games with O winning is almost meaningless. 95 out of a 100 (where the games at least appeared to have skilled players on both sides) is not.

Same goes for steamroll victories in I/D. First team on O wins the whole round (4 caps) against D in 2-3 minutes. That's very fast and not fun. Teams switch. The new team wins the whole round (4 caps) against the new D team in 2-3 minutes. That's still bad. If it keeps happening over and over again, you can't really point to the players then, because they're switching sides after each round and taking on the reverse role. It becomes a fundamental weakness in defense at that point.

I've said before that I enjoy close games. I enjoy the long attrition that used to be found in AvD. I enjoy having a challenge regardless of which side I'm on. In TFC in a map like dustbowl, it was never known who would win. D could lock down O, or O might punch through at the right time, it was anyone's game. In 2.1+ FF, I'm often so confident O will win that I'd be willing to bet money on the outcome. O winning 90% or more of the time (at least when I play) is NOT a close game experience. If that metric isn't used in beta testing, or tested in pubs after the game is released, I understand, but how is balanced determined then? Is having close games even considered a goal for AvD balance?

Originally Posted by squeek.

It's wrong. You are not helpless. You are just limited in the sense that you need to convince others that your values fix some problems without causing others. The devs have the same limitations.

Well again, it's obvious how successful I've been trying to convince others of the need for a stronger defense. If you think the devs have the same limitations, I think that already showsbias towards the current modes. I could be mistaken, but here's my reasoning:

If I understand you correctly, you're saying devs have to be able to convince others that their proposed changes won't cause problems for the game either. If that's true, what was the rationale for giving jump pads, pyro jumps, and simultaneously weakening sg push and hwguy damage against 1.x values and explaining why WOULDN'T cause problems in AvD and I/D? Let's ignore the beta test for a minute and ask about the rationale that was going on before it was ever even agreed upon to code and test out. That's a clear change skewing the balance of power towards O, which has big repercussions for AvD just at face-value. Since you're saying this is the procedure on the dev end, what was the REASONING as to WHY this would NOT cause problems in AvD? What were the convincing arguments there?

If I'm to believe what you're saying about devs being subject to the same procedure, I think I'm obviously missing something here. As soon as I heard about jump pads ferrying the whole team to the cap faster, my first thought was "that's a major boost to O, what counter is D getting to compensate for this?" to which the answer was basically "nothing."

By all means, correct me if I'm wrong, but if what you said are rules for the devs, I think there's possible bias being displayed here on the dev end that would make attempts at change more futile than you might think. I see three possible scenarios here:


1. The concerns I immediately had towards hearing about the changes 2.0 and 2.1 had regarding AvD balance were never brought up or really addressed on the dev end, because it didn't occur to anyone or wasn't considered important enough. If this is the case, I think there were no serious AvD dev players. For an AvD player, these differences were far too obvious not to understand the immediate consequence it would have for the gamemode. If this is what happened, then bias was present simply because AvD just wasn't paid attention to by anyone on near the scale that CTF was, so it wasn't factored-in properly and therefore semi-neglected, likely unintentionally.

2. The concerns about AvD were raised and were answered with glib statements that didn't really address the problem. This happened a lot in the forums a couple years ago. I would mention my concern, explain exactly why it was eroding defense and the answers I got back were often something like "you just need skill", or "FF is not TFC, you need to learn to adapt." So in other words, the game was being made more difficult for one side and easier for the other and the only explanation as to why it would work was that D players were magically going to get more skillful in between patches. OR that I needed to "adapt" over 1.x even though I wasn't getting any new abilities to adapt with. Anyway, if this is what happened on the dev end, then it's very blatant bias via a willingness to disregard the problems mentioned. I don't think this is the most likely scenario, but it's a possibility.

3. The concerns were raised regarding AvD and they were addressed logically with some explanation I haven't yet seen to this day and has remained buried dev side. If this is what happened, then there obviously wasn't a bias, although I'd love to know what that reasoning was.

The other option is that there is a flaw in my logic somewhere, in which case, please enlight me. Otherwise, I'm curious what exactly happened there. I'm not accusing you, however I am trying to determine whether bias exists or not in the means you're describing for changing the game.

[squeek.]

I wasn't on the dev team for the jump pad + pyro push addition. I was on the beta team during 2.0 testing, and I can say that from my point of view the testing during that patch was how you imagine it (and maybe even how Bridget wants it). We didn't seem to do much balance testing. We tested things to make sure they worked, weren't abusable, and moved on.

And, in that sense, you might be right about what happened in the subsequent patches. The pyro + jump pad may be the real culprits. We may have balanced the game without fully realizing the impact of 2.0 changes on public AvD, as the 2.1 dev team was about 90% composed of different people to the dev team that released 2.0. A lot of the new devs weren't involved in the creation of the jump pad. The pyro push was put in largely on a whim in a playtest while messing with ffdev_ vars and having fun with flying pyros on openfire. I can't speak to how the dev team worked in 2.0 or to the original logic of the jump pad.

That said, I've never really experienced the blowouts you seem to have, on public servers or in the beta (during 2.1 beta, dustbowl was played frequently and it was always a close game), but hopefully the changes in the next patch will help to remedy your problems, and we will go from there. I still recommend joining the beta team and giving your input in a fashion that can have a stronger impact.

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by squeek.

I wasn't on the dev team for the jump pad + pyro push addition. I was on the beta team during 2.0 testing, and I can say that from my point of view the testing during that patch was how you imagine it (and maybe even how Bridget wants it). We didn't seem to do much balance testing. We tested things to make sure they worked, weren't abusable, and moved on.

And, in that sense, you might be right about what happened in the subsequent patches. The pyro + jump pad may be the real culprits. We may have balanced the game without fully realizing the impact of 2.0 changes on public AvD, as the 2.1 dev team was about 90% composed of different people to the dev team that released 2.0. A lot of the new devs weren't involved in the creation of the jump pad. The pyro push was put in largely on a whim in a playtest while messing with ffdev_ vars and having fun with flying pyros on openfire. I can't speak to how the dev team worked in 2.0 or to the original logic of the jump pad.

That said, I've never really experienced the blowouts you seem to have, on public servers or in the beta (during 2.1 beta, dustbowl was played frequently and it was always a close game), but hopefully the changes in the next patch will help to remedy your problems, and we will go from there. I still recommend joining the beta team and giving your input in a fashion that can have a stronger impact.

Well this is interesting to know, would you say the current group is more like the 3rd generation dev team? See from my perspective, I thought the same people who added the changes without thinking them through were the same ones running the show now. If not, I can't really hold that against the new team. I'm consider joining the beta then, although I may wait until 2.42 since it sounds like that's headed in the right direction anyway. What times/days do betas usually playtest?

As for push values, my proposal is that if you're running straight at the sg, the push be at least high enough so that you won't keep progressing forward. Something to encourage players to try alternate tactics, or simply coming in at more of an angle.

[punkrockrocks]

Ahh, I miss FF... Redownloading now. Sad to hear about bad patches.

[Crazycarl]

Originally Posted by chilledsanity

What times/days do betas usually playtest?

It's Sunday, 9pm GMT and/or EST but you can test any time if you can get another person to jump in with you.

[Eon Seig]

I was playing today....but then Talos turned into the largest FF clusterfuck I've ever seen. There were soldiers and, strangely, spies everywhere, and nearly the entire Blue team when Engineer for some bizarre reason.

Excuse me while I go take a break and try to get into Tribes 2.

[Credge]

Just tossing the same thing I've said since the jump pad.

It ruined the game.

There is nothing redeemable about it. There is no reason a demoman should be able to fly across maps like a scout and medic can without penalty. There is no reason a heavy should fly period.

There was never a reason in CTF or AVD to ever give the scout something to use. The original problem wasn't that the scout sucked.* The original problem was that the medics firepower was greater than the scouts movement speed.

That's all it was in CTF and that's all it was in AVD.

The only reason CTF ever took importance over AVD is because this game had more CTF players that cared about balance (read: the competitive community). The resulting CTF 'balance' change (jump pad) completely destroyed the CTF dynamic (5v remained unchanged, 4v went from four medics to scout, demo, two medics... with the demo having full health).

Of course that wasn't always run but it was, and probably still is, the typical setup.

The problem with FF has, and always will be, the jump pad. Fortress gameplay has never been about flying fast. Fortress gameplay has been about movement. All the jump pad has done is made movement trivial and watered down the game.

Back then, I played just as much as everyone else and the jump pad was always a problem. Just remove it. Problem solved. Game is more balanced in CTF and AVD.

After that dedicate the pyro to either an O or D class, having him either deal sustained damage on O or burst damage on D.

* Ironically, subsequent patching to fall damage proved this. Medics were highly unaffected by it yet scouts were. Look at how the game has evolved, how each patch, other than 2.0, was done for a reason, and then look at it in contrast to the jump pad.

The thing just doesn't fit.

[zE]

Ok in my opinion the most important thing to implement in Fortress Forever atm is the "Round-Based CTF - Both teams are on offense and defense. A round ends when a team reaches a small capture limit. The first team to win so many rounds win, and the map is switched." thing with some tweaks maybe i dunno, but that would make public CTF a lot more competitive organized and fun for everyone.

Im a big defender of "laissez faire, laissez aller, laissez passer" but CTF Pub its just not fan at all, because theres no team work, no organization, except when you have like a 2 vs 2 game.

And then you look at maps like Palermo, Ksour , napoli and etc and you really see team work in those maps and all dudes working for the same objective or the majority at least, so that Round base ctf general idea would help it i think.