are you still playing FF?

[reaper18]

Originally Posted by 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.

zE, before more implementation is done, there should be balance changes such as credge, chilledsanity, and many other have posted.
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

[Iggy]

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.

[Catmandu13]

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

[Iggy]

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.

[Crazycarl]

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.

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by Catmandu13

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

No, it's not that bad. It is only "bad" if you look at it through a very narrow lense. The problem is, though, that FF and TFC have an infinite number of those lenses, and some people will and do look through those exclusively (as chilledsanity does with AvD/ID; while at the same time skill map players might look at FF through the lense of how skill maps work exclusively). It's hard to make all those lenses clear at the same time, especially because they are so intertwined. It's very likely that some lenses will be foggy some of the time.

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.

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by squeek.

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.

Anticitizen isn't too bad, basicbowl has always been in favor of D. If people really have their shit together, palermo can still last a little while. Every other AvD or I/D map I can think off of the top of my head simply breezes by for O.

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.

[squeek.]

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.

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by squeek.

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.

I've seen both the scenarios you're describing happen many times.

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.

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by CrazyCarl

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.

I'd say it's not an ENORMOUS problem in AvD, but it can make a BIG difference depending on where you place it. If you have multiple scouts, it compounds the situation. There are basically two ways it erodes defense:

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.

[Bridget]

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.

[squeek.]

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.

[Bridget]

Originally Posted by squeek.

In a weird way, public AvD might need a sort of imbalance to truly be (or seem) balanced.

Originally Posted by squeek.

public AvD might need a sort of imbalance to truly be (or seem) balanced.

Originally Posted by squeek.

need a sort of imbalance to truly be (or seem) balanced.

Originally Posted by squeek.

need a sort of imbalance

[Bridget]

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.

[squeek.]

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.

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by Bridget

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.

I sometimes simplify my points, but overall, this is what I mean. Yes, defense can win, but almost never (that I've seen) when skill levels are equal.

Originally Posted by Bridget

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.

I agree that it's not 100% indicative. You have stacked teams, fluctuating skill levels, etc. For instance, if things were consistently a 60-40 win/loss ratio, that would be meaningless. Over 90% however, says to me something is wrong. That never happened in TFC. I don't even know what the ratio was in TFC because I had close games ALL THE TIME. Games where O or D dominated were the EXCEPTION, not the rule. I only started noting the wins/losses AFTER I noticed in-game that balance felt really off. It's not like I was ready keeping stats as soon as the patches came out. It was more like I noticed "fast win, fast win, fast win... shit..." My main purpose in proposing to show a ridiculously large win/loss ratio is to provide evidence that balance is skewed badly. It seems like that gets occasionally recognized, the it gets dismissed later as being mostly okay, which I disagree with.

Originally Posted by squeek.

But, I think that currently in FF, with evenly balanced teams (1:1 skill level and ability as you say), AvD is fairly balanced.

Originally Posted by squeek.

To create balance in pubs, we have to stack the defense innately.

I wanted to point these two statements out. I think we have miscommunication here. Saying something is balanced, then later saying you have to stack sides in order to achieve that balance, to me, means the game is unbalanced (unless there was some mechanism for it in place). I agree with this, it's been very rare when it's happened, but I've seen very balanced games in dustbowl when D was up 4 players. It started feeling like TFC then. Normally those circumstances don't last very long, but for a near 20-man game, from what I've observed that's about what it takes to get a close game there. But again, understand that I pretty much only play AvD, I/D and fun maps, all in pubs (if there was a pickup dedicated exclusively to these types, I would probably get involved). So from my perspective, it's almost ALWAYS a problem, because that's all I play. In the grand view of the FF gameplay spectrum, it's less significant.

Originally Posted by squeek.

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.

I absolutely agree on those points, though I'm not sure what 1:1 means the way you're describing it. AvD currently is NOT balanced 1:1, otherwise I wouldn't see landslide games all the time. Traditionally D has always had stronger classes at the expense of mobility, and vice-versa. In TFC and FF, good hwguys and engineers could do a LOT more harm to the offensive players. By weakening them, that weakened half the classes normally used for defense. Demoman has been nerfed slightly, and soldier feels about the same. It's basically created bigger holes. I wouldn't even care about the nerfs if the impacts hadn't been so apparent.

Originally Posted by squeek.

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).

Yes and no. It sort of depends on how you measure skill. If you look simply at conc jumping and maneuverability, then yes, lower skilled defensive players used to be able to beat godlike ones. In TFC what would happen (and one of the reasons I loved it) was strategy came MUCH more into play. You could have the best moves in the world, but unless your team took out a sentry or two, or the demoman, it wouldn't matter. You had to think more of HOW to break defense. Do you take out sentries from long range? Do you go spy and try and come in a side route via grenade jumping? Do you wait until a cluster of your buddies form to have a bigger assault? If you're a runner, do you wait until there's ample distraction from the rest of your team before moving in? I think a lot of that's been lost in FF now. I have to think far less than I used to in TFC. Running in unassisted solves my problems a significant portion of the time. I probably won't cap in one go, or even 3, but I'll keep moving the flag forward and eventually win that way within a short-ish time period. While it's just one piece in the puzzle, this is something a strong push prevented.

Originally Posted by squeek.

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.

Well however you want to spin it, you said it yourself. A truly skilled player on offense can topple defense. A truly skilled player on defense can NOT stop offense. Again, I don't understand why you keep saying 1:1 here, because the game in its current state (at least in pubs) means that a 1:1 skill level will normally end in O's favor.

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.

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by squeek.

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.

Ah I see. If you have O and D and it's theoretically 1:1 skill, then each skilled player will win 50% of the time. The problem in AvD is that one win for O means the whole cap point / game. To me this has always been clear as day that AvD doesn't work that way. I mean the thing I learned playing in TFC is that for O the road to victory was paved with bodies. D NEEDS a tactical advantage otherwise they get overrun.

Originally Posted by squeek.

A very easy way to make that happen would be to make the SG better.

Hey, there's an idea! Wish I thought of that one! Who could have guessed all these years that sg strength was important for AvD?

[squeek.]

We have recognized the one-man offense problem for a while. Have you not seen impact, genesis, or fusion?

I wanted to point these two statements out. I think we have miscommunication here. Saying something is balanced, then later saying you have to stack sides in order to achieve that balance, to me, means the game is unbalanced

I didn't make myself clear. Something being balanced and something being balanced in a public server are entirely different. I'm saying AvD is possibly roughly balanced if the teams are exactly even. If each side is made up of players of entirely equal skill levels. I'm also saying that this 1:1 dynamic will never happen in a public server. Never. A true 1:1 skill balance means that each and every player is exactly the same skill level; no one is worse than another, even within a team. This 1:1 situation may be literally impossible to achieve anywhere.

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.

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by chilledsanity

Hey, there's an idea! Wish I thought of that one! Who could have guessed all these years that sg strength was important for AvD?

Me. I was just demonstrating that my point leads to a conclusion already agreed upon.

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by squeek.

I didn't make myself clear. Something being balanced and something being balanced in a public server is entirely different. I'm saying AvD is possibly roughly balanced if the teams are exactly even. If each side is made up of players of entirely equal skill levels. I'm also saying that this 1:1 dynamic will never happen in a public server. Never. A true 1:1 skill balance means that each and every player is exactly the same skill level; no one is worse than another, even within a team. This 1:1 situation may be literally impossible to achieve anywhere.

Ah, so we're talking theoretical balance versus actual balance. Well personally since 2.1, the only games I've seen where D won were games I came in late on (not enough time to make an impact), or ones where O was COMPLETELY clueless (running backwards, no one taking the flag out of the spawn, AFK, etc.).

Originally Posted by squeek.

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.

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.