Some critique

[MonoXideAtWork]

Originally Posted by Junkhead

At first glance it does appear to be a contradiction, however, it's really not. In a fight between a newbie and a pro, the pro is going to win. What I'm arguing, is that you have to let the newbie win sometimes. I'm not saying introduce crits like TF2 or something ridiculous, I'm just saying in order to keep the morale high, sometimes the lesser player needs to get a small victory. It's not a fair fight between a pro and a newbie, because the pro has many advantages that the newbie does not, namely, knowledge. I'm definitely NOT saying "dumb this game down for the newbies", since FF is awesome the way it is.

Thank you FF staff and everyone, though, for reading my thoughts and opinions on the game, I'm glad you guys decided to listen to what I've had to say. Keep up the great work!

I disagree. When faced with a player that outclasses oneself, in a 1 on 1 confrontation, the new player should lose every time.

The problem lies in the fact that there are too many "gotchas" or "ifs and ands", where a new player will get owned, and have no idea where it came from or what he did wrong, so that he cannot improve.

Here's an ideas to combat this:

More loading screen tips - A new player should learn something new every map rotation, so adding more detailed loading screens for the player to read during the loading time, perhaps a blueprint- like theme, or field manual that explains more about the game or a specific class or weapon.

When you have an entire screen dedicated to a certain weapon, the EMP grenade for example, you can afford to list all the little advanced tactics, or at least hint towards them, such as detonating discarded ammunition, ordinance in flight, or the ability for the effect to travel through walls.

[wakka]

Monoxide hit the nail on the head IMO.

On the conc effect, it is a complete necessity to the game and reducing the time it lasted would be very damaging to competitive play. A good front door HW can annihilate anyone but with them conced (of course alot of people have great conc aim) they are just not quite as good.

I think the idea posted by elmo of flames blowing out as a scout or medic concs is a good idea.

I think the nail grenade "bug" should be BROUGHT BACK !

[Elmo]

Originally Posted by wakka

I think the idea posted by elmo of flames blowing out as a scout or medic concs is a good idea.

I think the nail grenade "bug" should be BROUGHT BACK !

I can't take all the credit for that idea - it was my 'newb' house mate that suggested it

and LOL at the nail bug, I had actually forgotten about that.

[zE]

good idea idd.

[chaunbot]

i think their more good people than noobs thats the problem.... maybe 32 player servers would help? lol.. maybe some more marketing.. maybe all the tf2 server runners should advertise ingame just a thought. as soon as the n00b to pro ratio thins out might be better....

[battery]

May be I am oversimplifying things a bit, but I see three types of players in FF:

1) Average new players who need to be constantly motivated by small victories.
2) Skilled TFC veterans
3) New players who appreciate depth in game mechanics, and apply their learning skill to become decent at FF (before they become discouraged). That is, smart players who derive fun from LEARNING, rather than just winning, a complex game.

Right now, FF lacks players, period. For this reason, I am pleased to see players type 1, 2, and 3 joining FF servers. However, I am opposed to changing the game to attract more type 1 players, at the expense of driving away types 2 and 3. I want quality players in the FF community. When FF eventually becomes as popular as TFC once was, I would like to see type 1 players disappear then. In other words, type 1 players are, imo, stepping stones rather than the end goal. I don't think the game should cater entirely to them.
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[MonoXideAtWork]

Type 3 players don't exist. They are type 1 players, their "learning" is really a series of small victories, ie: figuring out mechanics, honing skills.

Also, why should the game cater to type two players? If anything it would make sense that these are the players that should have to "learn new tricks," as this is not TFC.

[Elmo]

maybe so monoxide but they have a lot of the skillsets. Where else do you rampslide, conc, RJ, pipejump, concaim (all in almost exactly the same way)?

[chaunbot]

i bet scuzzy can dream up some mod to not allow people that have a certain ratio to play on a given server.... css used to have a server full redirect option does FF have it? maybe when someones ratio is to high it redirects person to another server... i would donate my server for this if its possible.... css had a plugin similar to what im talking about.. oh well

the problem is, noob joins gets rap3d'd over and over and over and gives up. cant blame the noobs this is the very reason why i dont play CS:S..

i'll touch on the conk effect.. In QWTF if you were conked screen would move around but the location of the crosshair would be where the weapon was pointed at. so if you were fast enough you could get off a aimed shot The conk is annoying but it's supposed to be. More players would solve all of the problems... "pro's" dont usually play with noobs its boring, if there was a noob only place i think we would be working in the right direction....

The worst part about all this is TF2. TF2 has ruined "new players" perception of what "Fortress" is , so when they join OMG grenades , OMG the medic cant heal OMG the sniper is pwning me OMG scouts fly OMG hwguy rapes
I have a huge map collection from QuakeWorld Team Fortress, Medic has converted 2 over to FF.. QWTF has tons of good maps someone needs to go through them and port over

anyways ill look into the join ratio thing.

[Gwarsbane]

Except for a few changes, I like 2.3 better then 2.4. To me 2.4 was made too noob friendly. I'm tired of games bending over backward to make noobs happy. Thats what happened with TF2, they made it very noob friendly and super easy to play.

But thats why I like FF, but it actually has a learning curve. You actually have to try to learn how to do things.


Someone who has been playing TFC or FF right from the start should cream a noob unless they pick things up quickly.

I see new people all the time, some stay some go. Most common thing I hear with noobs, "wow this is much different then TF2, I like it!"


But if FF keeps going on the route its going, Its going to be a TF2 clone.

Because of some of the changes that were made, there are a couple of maps that I loved that I just don't enjoy playing anymore. I doubt they will be changed back, and if what I have heard for 2.5 is true, then I'm pretty sure you're going to be loosing a bunch of regulars in the next patch (unless someone puts up a 2.3 server).

Put in more info about the classes doing load up. Put up info about weaknesses and stuff about other classes. Put up info about grabbing the flag and the fact that they have a HUGE icon on their screen and are told they have it (yes people still miss the info that they have the flag, how I don't know but they do).

I keep hearing some people on these forums say one class or another is over powered, well guess what I heard that about every freakin class.

Waaaa medic is too over powered...
Waaaa spy is too over powered...
Waaaa soldier is too over powered...
Waaaa sniper is too over powered...
Waaaa heavy is too over powered...
Waaaa scout is too over powered...
Waaaa demo is too over powered...
Waaaa pyro is too over powered...
Waaaa engi is too over powered...

Guess what every class can be strong, it just depends on who you go up against. Its the person behind the class. When I play pyro, many people have a hard time with me just because I can use it very effectively. Many times I only get stopped because I'm too stubborn to wait, or there are a few people that all take chunks out of me.

Ya thats tooting my own horn but there are many out there who are very good at a certain class or 2 and it pisses off other people just because they keep getting killed by them. Big freakin deal, thats what happens in games. You don't become good in a game by waiting for the creators to dumb it down, you get better at the game by playing it and figuring out why you're being killed so much and then figure out how to counter it.


Again you guys keep lowering things and make it super easy for the noobs it will drive off the regulars.

[reaper18]

Originally Posted by Gwarsbane

Again you guys keep lowering things and make it super easy for the noobs it will drive off the regulars.

Game is slowed down so much it can be boring.

[squeek.]

What are you talking about?

The game is only slower if you aren't able to adjust to the changes. There has to be some sort of irony in that fact.

Do better strafe/circle jumps. Use better air control to dodge damage in the air. Perform better/smarter jumps. Be less predictable. Otherwise, and rightly so, you're not going to be able to get free/easy caps.

[rezz0r]

1. Videos, Tutorials, HowTos, Class Guides and such

You know what would be really helpful to new players? Training and Tutorial Videos like EvilDaedalus made them. These videos are excellent, some are totally outdated, though. FF devs YOU OWE EvilDaedalus A LOT.

If he had not made these Videos, I probably wouldn't be playing this game anymore. I mean how are you supposed to figure out BHop or Trimping if you never ever even heard about it? The best chance to recruit new players is to get "younger" people to play the game, I mean 14 to 25 year old people. Students and such. But most of them haven't been around when TFC had it best days, so they probably never heard of concing or bhopping before (luckily I played TFC when it came out for 4 years, but I exclusively played defense on dustbowl back then, that is something TF2 hasn't managed yet: playing 4 years on the dustbowl extreme server as defense was more fun than playing TF2 for two years.).

2. Training maps, easy conc maps ala Conc School/Trimp maps

The next thing that could be useful would be training map(s) which show you the basics of the game (please audio voice it with subtitles). You know I learned so much about concing AFTER I played Satan's Conc School map because it actually had instructions for every jump and it was "easy". I'm still not even half good but at least I know more than before. Maps where tricks are explained in short and in detail would be nice (Blue hopping?).

Almost every day some WhenFFWillOut guy comes into the game and asks how to perform conc jumps ("How do you go so fast?" being the typical question, and often that poor dude gets nasty/sarcastic answers.).

[Also, on a side note, could you make it so that you have to change your nickname before playing the first time? Like a pop up after you join a FF server for the first time, it's getting annoying to tell people how to change their in game nick. Like "Hey there and welcome to FortressForever. Please enter your in-game nickname: ..... . Be sure to check out the Tutorials which can be found under Tutorials in the Main Menu. .... etc etc...."].

3. Skill Day (see "Patch Day" from Mirco$oft)

I know it doesn't sound very cool, but it would be great if there was some kind of "meeting" every month. Call it "Skill Day" or whatever where new players can come to a server and ask for help with specific game features, meet the devs or just hang out. Announce it on the front news page and people will come, I'm sure. Make sure date and time are in US time and GMT so Euros can join too. Or make it like a seminar where people need to join a game group and announce practices there. So whenever there is a practice there will be a pop up in steam. I dunno but something like that.

I know the best way to actually learn more and become better at the game is to play the game but I think a mixture of watching other people play and asking questions and learning maps could improve new players' skills faster.

[GenghisTron]

Originally Posted by wakka

On the conc effect, it is a complete necessity to the game and reducing the time it lasted would be very damaging to competitive play. A good front door HW can annihilate anyone but with them conced (of course alot of people have great conc aim) they are just not quite as good.

Any good HW worth his salt knows how to concaim, the only real way to face a good HW guy is to overwhelm him, throwing all your concs at him is a waste. If you've ever played a pickup or in a league, you would think differently.

[caesium]

i can't conc aim

[Elmo]

you serious? lol

[caesium]

no

[spaceleper]

he means yes

[eomoyaff]

I still get wrecked by Pyro's lol! But yeah, good point amigo. The only thing that annoys me now, is the slow down effect while in air if you're shot. I've been on maps to where my opposing teams defense has 3 sg's up, and I get completely stopped in mid air. 3 sg's are lame anyway, but even 2 can really slow you down.

[MonoXideAtWork]

Originally Posted by Elmo

maybe so monoxide but they have a lot of the skillsets. Where else do you rampslide, conc, RJ, pipejump, concaim (all in almost exactly the same way)?

I understand your point. But this brings us back to the standard arguement, do you aim for a game that uses fresh outlooks on tried and true mechanics, or a reproduction of tried and true mechanics?

The major problem with duplicated mechanics, imo, is that players from TFC have little incentive to stay once they try the game. The learning curve that the development team has worked to perfect means nothing to these players as they have already learned these skillsets. At that point, the product you present is essentially the same as one they already have paid for except for better graphics, and more noobs.