11-27-2010, 06:19 AM | #141 | |
sKeeD
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Longer sg build time with higher push, removal of jump pad, balance and more definition for pyro, a more structured environment for newbies etc etc. Im excited for 2.42 and to see the changes it brings to the table, but until we see what has been done about the current issues, theres only room for speculation |
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11-27-2010, 12:37 PM | #142 | |
Heartless Threadkiller
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I think part of the reason for the Jumppad in the first place, was to help promote teamwork and balance Offense.
A scout can make 3-4 runs, dying each time and getting nothing accomplished, in the time it takes a Demo, Solly, or other support class to make 1 run.
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11-27-2010, 04:05 PM | #143 |
Join Date: Nov 2010
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not playing yet...though reading through a few of these threads makes me question purchasing HL2 for it though. Is it really that bad??
I've recently rediscovered the greatness of TFC, but with only one working server available to me, I was hoping FF had a decent following..TF2 looks too comical |
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11-27-2010, 05:40 PM | #144 | |
Heartless Threadkiller
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FF is worth a try, if for no other reason than to come here and state what you feel needs improvement. The Dev team is working on updating the game, and while some may think they take too long, just remember that this isn't a paying job. It's a hobby that they do because they want to make the game better.
Some people think an older version is better, and to them, it may well be. I have personally disagreed with some of the changes made, but I don't make a career out of bitching about them or putting down the Dev Team. As it stands, the game is FUN for me. The only way to know if you will consider it fun, is to play it. So, seriously, give it a try(it IS free)... and provide us with feedback. Constructive criticism is always welcome.
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11-27-2010, 08:18 PM | #145 |
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HL2 is worth purchasing in itself.
I don't think the jump pad is such a big problem. Before the skim cap, yeah, it gave everyone super speed. But now you're saving about five seconds max by using one. The same balance problems happen even if no jump pads are built. Even so, we're nerfing them slightly in the next patch. |
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11-28-2010, 01:06 AM | #146 | |
Stuff Do-er
Lua Team
Wiki Team Fortress Forever Staff |
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As a whole, I think we've done very well. AvD is not as absurdly imbalanced as chilled claims, in my opinion, but it is probably more difficult for the defense. CTF is balanced fairly well. Bugs are few and far between. The gametypes are nearly limitless with Lua scripting. The game is good. It only has the opportunity to become "bad" when you look at a specific segment and proceed to make judgments about the whole.
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11-28-2010, 02:58 AM | #147 | |
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Gametype: AvD, I/D, waterpolo, hunted Posts Rated Helpful 6 Times
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I've said before I've based my opinion on this out of hundreds of recorded games I have played throughout all of the patches. It's not like I played a few games, then just spammed opinions. I could start providing hard statistics on it, though I get the feeling no matter what evidence I provided, it wouldn't matter. The point is it's more than just my opinion. If I can beat dustbowl 90-100% of the time on O, finish a round of avanti, ksour, cornfield, napoli, etc. in around 3 minutes OVER AND OVER AND OVER over a period of weeks to months, that's statistical evidence. Unless we have very different definitions of what "balanced" means. Out of curiosity, since you don't think AvD is absurdly imbalanced, what would it take before you DID think that? I've already been told if O won every single AvD game in beta, that wouldn't do it. So what would? It's easy to proclaim something as balanced if you don't define the standard for what balanced is. Last edited by chilledsanity; 11-28-2010 at 03:06 AM. |
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11-28-2010, 03:10 AM | #148 |
Stuff Do-er
Lua Team
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Absurdly imbalanced would be if the D played almost perfectly and still lost. Or if the teams were obviously stacked in the D's favor and the D still lost handily. Both of which I've never seen happen.
Related screenshots: My latest pub dustbowl game: http://www.ffpickup.com/temp/ff_dustbowl0002.jpg A dustbowl game in the beta from a few months ago: http://www.ffpickup.com/temp/ff_dustbowl0003_beta.jpg EDIT: The beta screenshot isn't meant to prove anything, I just thought it was funny.
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11-28-2010, 03:29 AM | #149 | |
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As for scoreboard screenshots, I consider 2 of them purely anecdotal evidence. Again, I'm talking about games in the hundreds. However, if you consider scoreboards as evidence, that's something I can provide a lot of. Unfortunately I don't know if they're recorded on client-side demos (pressing the scoreboard key during demo playback won't work). If there's a way to activate that, let me know. Otherwise, I could submit new ones from 2.41 and see what the ratio is like of wins to losses and how far down to the clock things get. Would data like this be useful at all or would it be discounted? How do you evaluate I/D matches? The scores WILL come out about the same, just super-fast games before swapping aren't very fun. |
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11-28-2010, 03:38 AM | #150 | |
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1. If it is placed correctly shortly after spawn, you start ferrying the ENTIRE offense team forward. What's 5 seconds for a scout, might be 10 seconds for a heavy. Moreover, this helps EVERYONE, especially players who don't know how to bunny hop. If you have another scout laying another pad at the landing zone, it cuts the time even further. This wouldn't matter for one or two players, but if positioned right, this really does push the entire team closer to the cap. It's about as if you moved the spawn points for O forward. So this means in the timespan you may have had 4 waves of players attacking, now you can have 5 in the same time. It erodes defense, pure and simple, which had issues to begin with. It's not the end of the world in itself, but it's a pure boost to O this way. 2. Placing jump pads in such a key spot that the flag carrier can bypass what would have been heavy defense in older versions. A good example of this is the last wooden overhang on the 3rd cap in dustbowl. If you hop around the corner there with a jump pad, you can pass the bridge entirely in midair, landing right next to the cap. Another spot is after the 2nd wall is blown for the 4th cap in palermo. If you duck, you can fly in from the roof with a height advantage and bypass the main corridor entirely. Same for placing it on one of the balcony areas right before the 3rd cap in avanti. Then you skip the main courtyard area and duck in between the window. Alternately, this allows much heavier classes to run in and create hell. To be fair this doesn't happen a whole lot in games (unless I'm playing scout), but it does happen enough that the effect can be noticeable. It's hard to put numbers on it, but I'd say regular use of jump pads makes things anywhere from 5-15% more difficult for defense in AvD and especially I/D maps. It simply pushes O to the frontline faster so D has to deal with more players more frequently than the map was designed for. |
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11-28-2010, 04:05 AM | #151 |
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AVD is potentially imbalanced because offense has to do relatively less to win than defense. All it takes is one guy to capture the flag, but it takes everyone on defense to prevent that one dude from capping. If AVD was worked so it required more of a group effort on the part of offense to capture as it does for defense to defend, then it would be balanced. That's why TF2 avd is balanced. It takes an entire team to defend, and while a cap can be captured by one person, the rate at which the cap is turned over is relevant to the number of people on the point, and the revert-rate pretty much negates single-person attempts at capping within seconds of their removal off the point. Against a solid defense, you have to scale up your efforts to match the defense if you want to capture. As a team. Not as an individual.
The only problem is figuring out how to rework AVD so it requires more of a group effort without breaking AVD further. We can't implement a TF2-style capture point system, because instant respawns and movement speeds and distance from spawn to cap make it insanely difficult. The caps work in TF2 because the game is slow. There are respawn times that let the O sit on the cap and take it if they manage to clear everyone out. Not going to happen in FF. No matter how good your offense clears out the defense, they will just instantly respawn and knock you off any capture points. Try to scale the capture rate as a result, and you're back to the same damn problem of one guy being able to do the entire job for offense. Given a 1:1 balance of teams, the offense always seems to have the upperhand. That isn't to say offense is always going to win. In my experience, the defense has only held off the offense when they are exceptionally more skilled than the offense or the offense was lacking. You can't judge objective balance off these subjective exceptions. Consider it AVD with teams 1:1 in skill-level and ability, and in my opinion, offense has the advantage due to how much less of a demand it is for them to achieve their objective over the defense. I'm trying to come up with an analogy for what you do when you use these occasional experiences when defense wins as a case for the ultimate balance of AVD. Here's the best I could do: Person A says "In a fire fight, someone armed with a Kalasnikov will have a huge upperhand against someone armed with a water-pistol." Person B remembers an experience: "One time, I managed to shoot some guy in the eye with my water pistol out of surprise long enough to remove his Kalashnikov. You are wrong!" Person A responds "That's an extreme exception, and doesn't change the objective fact that a Kalashnikov is more deadly than a water-pistol, and as such, gives the user more of an advantage those who use the water-pistol, considering absolutes and averages." Person A reminds us "Again, in a fire fight, someone armed with a Kalasnikov will have a huge upperhand against someone armed with a water-pistol." To which Person B responds, again, fallaciously: "Nope! One time, I went up against a guy with an Kalasnikov. He was obviously new, so he didn't know how to put the magazine in. In his stumbling, I managed to water-pistol him in the eye. This distracted him long enough for me to club him in the head. See? Kalasnikovs are less effective than water-pistols." Exceptional circumstances do not override the average. In an ideal 1:1, assuming total knowledge of weapons management of both parties, the person using the Kalashnikov wins. Same goes with AVD. 1:1, the offense has the upperhand on average, and you can't whitewash that fact with exceptional times when the defense outskilled the offense (managed to sneak up on AK-user and water-pistol him in the eye) or the offense was clearly lacking (the AK-user not knowing how to load in a new magazine to even begin firing). Dumb analogy, but I think it works. EDIT: Even against Chilled's point! Winning countless AVD games in a row might draw suspicion, but it isn't the end-all be-all of concluding AVD balance. Those same exceptional situations can happen to you too, where you fight against a terrible defense or the offense greatly outskills the defense. In my opinion, the objective fact that shows AVD is imbalanced is not in how many games you can win as offense; It's in how much each team must do to achieve their objective. Defense has to work together as a team, but the offense can be run by a single player. That's what breaks it for me. Last edited by Bridget; 11-28-2010 at 04:26 AM. |
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11-28-2010, 04:34 AM | #152 |
Stuff Do-er
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I have a slightly different take on your idea, Bridget.
It's definitely true that the O has "less to do" than the D. But, I think that currently in FF, with evenly balanced teams (1:1 skill level and ability as you say), AvD is fairly balanced. Which is precisely the problem. It's a weird problem, to be sure. One really, really good player on defense can only do so much. He may stop 95% of players, but that 5% makes all the difference. There is no room for error if a defender wants to truly have an impact. On the other hand, one really, really good player on offense can beat the defense alone. So, balancing for 1:1 skill to create a balanced AvD might be an incorrect goal. To create balance in pubs, we have to stack the defense innately. The defense has to be able to beat a really, really good player (even if the defender(s) is/are not at the same skill level, and truly get(s) outplayed). That type of balancing might be something I personally have a natural aversion to, and might be why pub AvD balance is askew. In a weird way, public AvD might need a sort of imbalance to truly be (or seem) balanced. Or something.
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11-28-2010, 04:59 AM | #153 | ||
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11-28-2010, 05:02 AM | #154 |
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Lols aside, how practical is it for a single defender to constitute his entire team, though? It's practical as hell on offense given how AVD works. It would seem odd to balance AVD on the uncommon potential for someone to hold his entire team up on defense while not willing to balance AVD on the practical and common act of a single person on offense constituting his entire team.
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11-28-2010, 05:32 AM | #155 |
Stuff Do-er
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That's not what I mean. I don't mean that we'd need to make it so single defenders can hold back 100% of attackers that are worse than them. I mean that we might need to make it so defenders can beat attackers that are better than them.
A very easy way to make that happen would be to make the SG better.
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11-28-2010, 05:33 AM | #156 | |||||||
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Finally, whatever you take from this, I'm not saying there's anything sacred about the one-man offense. I'm really just looking for ANY solution and even RECOGNITION of the problem. It sounds like you're aware of it now, but I can only imagine how this conversation would have gone a year or two ago. |
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11-28-2010, 05:39 AM | #157 | ||
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Last edited by chilledsanity; 11-28-2010 at 06:05 AM. |
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11-28-2010, 05:44 AM | #158 | |
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We have recognized the one-man offense problem for a while. Have you not seen impact, genesis, or fusion?
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But, in those terms, we might need to stack defense so that in a 1:1 situation, it will be more difficult for the offense to win than the defense. I think it's fair to say that was the case in TFC AvD.
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11-28-2010, 05:47 AM | #159 |
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Me. I was just demonstrating that my point leads to a conclusion already agreed upon.
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11-28-2010, 06:05 AM | #160 | |
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I consider TFC my zero-point. I had close games in there all the frigging time. You say it was skewed towards defense, I say it was balanced, because I had close games. Except maybe for shot slowing (which I think hasn't impacted much in AvD), I think we can maybe agree that D has gotten weaker overall and O stronger in modern FF compared to TFC. You've said before I've had a very odd perspective of the FF patches, this is why. Pub AvD has suffered along with the changes. |
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