First Impressions of FF

I miss being the only asshole that would use a pyro. Theyre actually good now, go figure.


The napalm grenades should last longer, like they did in tfc. They were great for delaying offense/keeping a route closed.


Also: soldier seems pretty similar to what he always was, which I never saw as unbalanced.

Originally Posted by Deadly Furby

So, What are YOUR first impressions of the mod?

What did you find fun?
What surprises did you experience?
Was there anything frustrating or annoying for you?

Tell us what you think!!

I love it to bits

So far, it's terrific.

The graphics are very good. The levels so far are well laid out and work very well. Dustbowl is excellent!

I'm glad to see that concussion grenade jumping has been neutered somewhat, and bunny hopping appears to have been annihilated. Those are two things which really ruined it for me with TFC. Id personally like to see concussion jumping get a little more of a nerf, and the medic's poison get a little more of a buff.

My only major complaint is the large number of crashes I've experienced (once every 20-30 minutes). If there were some way of reporting a crash log, I'd like to hear about it.

Assuming the crash problem is fixed in the not-too-distant future, I'd give this mod a 9/10!

[IvaQuaL]

Originally Posted by yourmama

bunny hopping appears to have been annihilated.

oh hum.. how to say this..

[s0undch4s3r]

Originally Posted by silentassassin12

your wrong, sniper was my main class in tfc and ive killed a hwg in several occasions in 1 shot to the head. you just need the rifle fully charged

wrong...HWG with full health and full armor cannot be killed in one shot in tfc unless you are a h4x0rz.

[Circuitous]

Soundchaser, for one, stop being a dick about it. For two, you're wrong, and I'd be happy to prove it if you want to hit me up in IRC.

[Icarus]

My thoughts on FF so far ?

Classes
Scout - The radar is fantastic and the caltrop gren is much more useful that the TFC version. Great for playing with.
Medic - No complaints here either. Concing with both is superb though strangely havent managed Well floor to upper level much but going from front door to enemy roof is cool
Spy - Knife is alot more difficult to instakill which is probably just aswell. Sabotaging is absolutely great idea and very well implemented. The new gas grenade is much better concept than it was in TFC . Not into the cloak much , really do miss feign but thats not gonna get changed . Overall very good.
Demoman - Pipe ejection speed seems a tad slow and "floppy" , other than that I can't say I noticed too many problems with the demo.
Pyro - Flame thrower looks nice and it HURTS alot . I do play pyro quite a bit in TFC and I do prefer the straight firing Cannon (although only just). Ill get used to the mortar like rockets soon enough I think . Good to see the pyro getting some serious buffing , certainly can be used in both Off/Def now.
Engineer - Tried it , got pwned by Spies stealing my sgs (3 sgs in a triangle all sabotaged and then activated is so funny to watch though ) . Rail gun is nicely done.SG/Disp placement and aiming is very good.
Sniper - Now harder to kill with I think , I certainly missed a shitload of shots I would have considered easy on TFC. All things considered , a less powerful sniper is a good thing
Solly - I like the new rocket speed , I seem to hit things better. Shotty aim seems easier aswell and Rocket Jumping is pretty simple.
HW - Didn't play much since i suck at HW but apart from the heating up/cone effect problems that everyone has mentioned I dont have too much problem with the fattie.

Overall I think the classes and their new implemetation are fantastic . A few slight rebalancing changes and class performance will be fine i think . Theres enough changes and new ideas to make FF a different beast from TFC while still retaining the feel and atmosphere of the fortress game everyone wants.

Other
Grenades and Demo pipes - Both seem to both flop a bit too much for me. Granted you could throw them for miles in TFC and that needed toned down but I think they are a little on the "heavy" side and could do with a minor tweak.
SG's - The extra health makes them much more difficult to take down which isnt a problem although they do seem to track onto you further away. I'd keep the extra health and cut back the target range a tad.
Animations - The classes and weapons look good but the movement is a bit lacking i think . Very "slip/slidey" and the one footed hoping is very ungainly but I can live with it.

Maps
While the maps may look good I think there is a number of flaws in some I've tried out. I know some of these may have been mentioned before but :-
Monkey - Red/Green is bad! Yard is a bit cluttered aswell and kills my fps. Apart from that the new conc friendly flagroom is great.
Dustbowl - Too many textures for me . Messy and seem smaller although I do like some of the design changes . Can't see me ever playing Dbowl again tbh - At least not until custom textures make an appearence
Well - The biggest FF disappointment for me. I can understand why it was changed to be a 4 def map for clan games but locking off the Window for flags really does make this a pain in the arse to Offy on publics with. Its bad enough having 2 or 3 Offy per 7/8 Def but having to go via the fd spamfest with every flag is not going to be fun.

Haven't encountered anything problematic that comes to mind in SD2,Aardvark and Crossover.

Suggestion
Fix the scoreboard to show who's carrying the flag - either the main scoreboard or beside the little HUD flag's. Flag Holding/Hiding will be a problem on public servers and not being able to see who has it is very silly.

I've enjoyed FF so far, I think the team have done a very very good job which will hopefully continue to be improved/tweaked/balanced in the near future.

[s0undch4s3r]

Originally Posted by Circuitous

Soundchaser, for one, stop being a dick about it. For two, you're wrong, and I'd be happy to prove it if you want to hit me up in IRC.

i would love to join a server and have you snipe me as HWG...i'm not being a dick. There is no way a sniper can kill an HWG with one shot at full health and armor in TFC. period



you see!!!! Even others say you can't take out an HWGuy in one shot....FULLY ARMORED and FULL HEALTH!

you are ALL wrong. you=Fail


Meet me in Jiggly's All 2fort as a SNIPER and we'll see just how "RIGHT" you are.

I am Lord Uther Pendragon.

[Everything]

What? You're saying a 7 second charged shot to the head of a fully hp and ap hwguy doesn't kill him? Of course it does.

Go play more , tsk tsk tsk.
"not a fully armoed one?" wtf? everything in the picture is full of FAIL.
Commenting via edit ftw

[Everything]

Ok, you're right, 1 fully charged shot to the BODY of a fully hp/ap heavy doesn't kill him in tfc, but to the head it does! HA I WIN.

[s0undch4s3r]

Originally Posted by Kenny

Ok, you're right, 1 fully charged shot to the BODY of a fully hp/ap heavy doesn't kill him in tfc, but to the head it does! HA I WIN.

meet me in Jiggly Puff's 2fort. play as sniper and i'll let you headshot me. I'll be
the HWGuy waiting for you on the sniper DECK with my hands in the air.

[Paft]

Oddly I can't remember if you can or cannot. (No free spaces on Jiggly/too crowded) I'll briefly have a test in here 213.48.150.9:27020

[s0undch4s3r]

OK...Paft was very cool about it. He toasted me at full Health and Armor. 100/300.

So...I am wrong. I swear I never thought a sniper could do that in TFC.

end of issue.


BTW..I was just on Jiggly's server and said FF is out. most of the peeps were like "WHaaaa...whta's that?"

I said "TFC on steroids. it's free."
many peeps dropped out of the server. lol

[Paft]

It is rare you get chance to be 100% charged and head shot a fully stocked up HW. So I couldn't remember.

End end.

Gonna have a 4:00am 200+ ping mess around on Jiggly's. I never play servers outside Europe.

[Phantom Spiker]

did you tell them it was a HL2 mod?

[KubeDawg]

My thoughts:

I've been playing TFC for almost 9 years now, so I can certainly appreciate the time and effort that was put into this game. I love the graphics, I love the new maps, and even a few new features which I'll go into a bit later.

First off, I'm an engineer by nature, so when I saw a video showing that cool image of where you can/can't build, it was jaw dropping, plus the EMP's look really great now too. But, I don't like the fact that you have to switch weapons to get to my sentry gun, I'd much rather have a menu that I can right click that says "build sentry" or "build dispenser", but maybe it'll just take some time to get used to.

Anywho, on to concing. I love it, but the physics for either myself or the nades is a bit different, so it's something new I have to master.

Spy. Gotta love the cloak feature, but where's the feign death?

Pyro. The flamethrower is now actually very useful in this game comapred to TC. I like it, and I'll definitely be playing this class more often.

Those were the classes I felt made a new and better impression on me.

Like I said before, I'd like to see old style menus where I can simply right click and do whatever, especially since I've got to drag my mouse in different directions depending on what I want to do, instead of just up/down.

Other than that, I think the game is fantastic. I will be looking forward to having many many people play in my clan's server once it's up.
Thanks for making such a great game, if it weren't for you all, I'm sure noone outside of the TFC veteran would see how good of a game could be. Multiplayer games are hit and miss, especially for FPS games. I didn't like Halo, or their counter parts, but aside from a few things, you've hit the nail right on the head. Good job.

[Ihmhi]

Originally Posted by KubeDawg

But, I don't like the fact that you have to switch weapons to get to my sentry gun, I'd much rather have a menu that I can right click that says "build sentry" or "build dispenser", but maybe it'll just take some time to get used to.

bind KEY sentrygun
bind KEY dispenser

Those are the build commands to start building a SG or dispenser immediately, much like the build commands in TFC.

[Desyphur]

Can you keep your wrench out?

[s0undch4s3r]

Originally Posted by Phantom Spiker

did you tell them it was a HL2 mod?

yea..they asked...now they know.

Originally Posted by Paft

It is rare you get chance to be 100% charged and head shot a fully stocked up HW. So I couldn't remember.

End end.

Gonna have a 4:00am 200+ ping mess around on Jiggly's. I never play servers outside Europe.

yea...i noticed your conc was a little off becuz of your ping. do you use conc scripts? you look like a pro out there.

Alright guys, I am 6 year TFC player and this is gonna get every tiny detail put into it I can think of, so its going to be a long one, read if you want... I'll try and throw a conclusion in the end for yah.

Ok here it goes. Starting with me first starting up the game, I was kind of suprised to hear some music playing I remember saying to myself "don't remember that in TFC" lol. After changing my settings and such including that new cross hair/sound thing, thats nice, I joined a game. Looking at the map I was about to play, dustbowl, I was very happy to see some sort of objective type intro for the new guys out there. Although it took a while to connect I just knew it was going to be worth the wait.. I mean come on, its TFC with source how can it get any better? BUT after joining the game, offense to be exact, I was horribly introduced.

I must honestly say I was absolutely choked by the massive amount of balance/nade/sound etc. issues. So what did I do? shut the game off after playing for about 5 minutes and went to bed. The next day I woke up, went to school, got home. Not that you needed to know any of that, I went over to my bro (he is a hardcore TFC player, he has been playing it since day 1 and is unbelievably good imho (names Rzarector if anyone knows him)) and said these exact words "wow FF sucks, SO BAD!" he responded with "really?" in any case I told him to go try it himself... I watched him play the game for about 5 minutes on ff_well and after watching this I was like wow, he is really having fun and that looks really fun.

Moving on I got right on the comp after him to try it out on a map other than shittybowl. So, I booted up the game and about 10 seconds later was greeted with my first crash . none-the-less I re-booted the game and joined a server on crossover, and WOW what a change. I choose good 'ol demo as it has always been my favorite class, and went on to try and do some killing. Demo used to be my favorite class but mannn was I having a tuff time with it in FF, so I decided to try spy(my new fav. class) and it seemed to come naturally to me. I continued to play through all the classes and here is a small breakdown of them...

Scout: Speedy mofo, always loved the class, works good with the game.
Sniper: Still as useless as ever (sorry snipers) but this class does nothing for a team, you get the odd kill... so what? though, the changes made were good for the all round class
Soldier: Solly Solly, not a lot changed, rocket jumps don't seem as effective but thats fine, still a good class.
Demoman: Changed, a little too much for my taste, but others seem to like it, I'm not entirely sure what it is about the class I don't like but I just ain't feelin it.
Medic: Concs!!! yay!!! nothing much changed, still a fun ass class
HWGuy: EUGH!!!! totally unbalanced, what the hell is with the ub3r accurate machine gun? take out overheat and make it the way it was before (wastes less, way less accurate) and wow why the hell is he so bloody fast?
Pyro: Got the power boost it needed, not sure I like the burn time but good nonetheless
Spy: Wonderful change, though I don't feel cloak should slow you down, I do feel it should limit your jumping (the way it does) great changes made to the class, my new fav. (TRANQ!!! knife) :P
Engineer: Hmmm, love the change to the rail gun, haven't played engy much though, just don't like 'em... not for me.

Now after all that I was really starting to get into it, and started fooling around with the guns, OMG gun review coming.

The super shotty was changed considerably (ya it really was) it wastes less but is MUCH more accurate, I'm not sure that was the right thing to do, but it balances out.

The nail guns (super & normal) were also changed considerably, they do much better than before in combat and are great for SG's, thanks FF the nail gun was a big issue for me in TFC

The Rail Gun, Wonderful change, I love the charge up and the deflection, defiantly a great gun to use.

The Tranq Gun, shoots faster, thanks

The normal shotty, seems a bit weird, seems small almost.. not a lot changed though.

Pyro rocket lobs way to much for my taste.

Flamethrower woohooO!!! rocks now, thanks guys.

Machine gun(HWGUY) eugh, overheat idea wasn't to hot for my taste but I dunno some people prefer it, using the gun is more of a personal opinion, still way to accurate wasting to much.

The GL, oddly changed, a lot bigger for sure... wastes 5 less? (not sure about that it might be 10) the grenades seem a bit smaller too making them harder to see.

thats about it for things with big changes in the gun department... nades didn't change much, no reason going over them.

Moving on with my trusty review, I started to take a look at the small things, no swimming anims!!! (heard you guys had a glitch with those and were forced to take them out right before release) the small changes with certain maps sort of threw me off, some things just seems to big or small to me, I'm not sure what it is but well is my example. When you get into the flag room the side ledge at the flag level (not the bottom) is a lot wider, this makes it way harder to shoot defenders up there, making it even harder to get the flag. Another small change I saw were the spies poison grens. thanks for not making them go through walls anymore! but I must say I liked confusion over the odd screen squiggles.

there are plenty other things to say with the small changes but I don't have all day here.

All in all (this is my conclusion btw) a ton of changes were made, both good and bad, to change the fortress name. I really don't like the ideas valve has thrown in TF2 (no nades, cartoons, etc.) and FF has defiantly got most things right. Things I don't like include, naturally, some balancing issues, Bhopping... (gonna hate when that code comes) and the odd few glitches. However in my opinion this mod will blow out TF2 in game play wise, I'm just not sure it got the hype it needed. Well I probably missed a lot of shit but I tried anyways hopefully at least 1 person read the things. Thanks for a great mod FF players.

and let me ask you this...
Whats better? a game made by TFC regulars and for anyone that has ever liked TF, or is it better to have a company experimenting with new styles of art in a game, showing TF as a complete joke in the gaming industry."

PS: Before I forget, get dustshit the hell off the map rotation defaults, next update take it off, I'm 300% sure it will drive new players away.

Thanks again for a great mod guys,
-|?| FrEaK