K.I.S.S.

[Porky Pig]

With a morbid sense of curiosity, I'd like an explanation or perhaps opinions as to why so many things were catered to the competitive scene throughout the history of this mod. Having played off and on since its release, I am unsure why there just seems to be so many features that are just broken in a pub, but "work" in a pickup/league match/circle jerk. Not to keep kicking a dead horse, because lets face it, dead horse is dead, but if anyone decides to keep working on this mod, they should realize and understand when you cater to a fringe group, that group will eventually integrate and become the norm. Just take a look around.

Future advice: K.I.S.S.

[squeek.]

Care to expand on that?

Which changes, specifically, are you talking about?

Here are the changelogs for all FF patches: http://www.fortress-forever.com/changelogs/

[Private_Joker]

Don't make me say it..

-Joker

[Bridget]

Fuck Alan Keyes, that pseudo-intellectual motherfucker makes me so mad.

[Porky Pig]

Well for starters we could go on for ages like that poor bastard chilledsanity did about the sentry gun...you know...how it's like shooting a super soaker with hot water at someone. It might sting, but in a few seconds it won't anymore. Could look at the jump pad and how it promotes overwhelming speed which the first issue I spoke about really has no chance of stopping. I mean what's offense if you can't add a little more speed...right? What was the reasoning behind that anyway?

"We could give the fastest class in the game an additional conc without actually giving him one and not balance the defense to match"
"YEAAA GREAT IDEA!!!!!!!"

I'll start with the 2 of those and see where this goes.

[squeek.]

Well, the jump pad was created with the opposite of competitive play in mind (and was introduced while I was still a beta member, not a dev). It was to promote the viability of heavier offense (something that is popular in non-competitive play), increase teamwork somewhat, and to make movement more accessible to the casual player. It was originally intended for the engineer, but it made more sense on the scout so it was moved there. Competitive players are split on the jump pad. Some have gotten used to it, some dislike it, and some hate it. No competitive player that I know of is outspokenly positive about it. Personally, I'm ambivalent about the jump pad. In 2.42, jump pads will be team-oriented and destroyable, so we'll see what happens with that change in effect.

You probably know my position on the SG. It's not perfect, but it's not horrendously broken. I think chilledsanity's and (presumably) your arguments rely a bit on hyperbole in that sense. If we drop the hyperbole, I don't think that there's much discussion to be had. The push will be raised a bit next patch, and I think that's all that is really necessary at this point (beyond making the SG a better explosion-blocker, but that's something we've wanted to do for a while and haven't been able to get working).

But, my point is still this: You can point out the SG as one example. It's a somewhat reasonable example. The SG was certainly balanced with competitive play in mind, but it was NOT only competitive play that was taken into account. But, one out of hundreds of changes is not very convincing. If you'd "like an explanation or perhaps opinions as to why so many things were catered to the competitive scene throughout the history of this mod", you're first going to have to show me those "so many things" that were catered to the competitive scene. Because I would have been one of the people doing the catering. And I don't remember doing that.

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by squeek.

You probably know my position on the SG. It's not perfect, but it's not horrendously broken. I think chilledsanity's and (presumably) your arguments rely a bit on hyperbole in that sense. If we drop the hyperbole, I don't think that there's much discussion to be had.

Jesus Christ squeek, you brought me out of lurking. You're accusing me of hyperbole AGAIN. Here's the discussion you seem to be forgetting:

http://forums.fortress-forever.com/s...age=6&p=478460

For everyone who doesn't want to read through all the posts (it goes on for many pages), here's the shorter version:

1. I say that I think the FF patch changes have gradually ruined AvD.

2. Squeek accuses me of hyperbole, based on a misunderstanding of what I've been arguing.

3. I explain in great length, exactly WHY I came to that conclusion and address every single point he accuses me on. It's the result of hundreds of AvD games played over all the patches and observing the changes.

4. There's some further discourse between me and squeek. The conclusion we come to is that balancing for competitive mode leaves AvD pub play suffering. Here are some quotes:

Originally Posted by squeek.

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.

note: this "imbalance" ALREADY EXISTED before the current devs took over. The game mode was working, then changes were made that screwed it up.

Originally Posted by squeek.

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.

So in other words, you yourself are saying pub AvD is unbalanced. Which is of course what I was saying the whole time. The "hyperbole" ends up not being hyperbole.

5. I more or less give up on the FF devs and stop posting, but still look at the forums from time to time. Months pass with me saying nothing.

6. Squeek accuses me of hyperbole again.

I give up dude, you win. That post I made (link again in case you missed it) really explained everything I had to say when you accused me the first time. To do it again, months later, means I may as well be arguing with you about whether the Emperor is wearing any clothes or not. The only reason I posted again was to I felt compelled to point out how unfounded your statement was, since it involved me. Especially since it all got explained to you once before.

[reaper18]

Originally Posted by chilledsanity

Jesus Christ squeek, you brought me out of lurking. You're accusing me of hyperbole AGAIN. Here's the discussion you seem to be forgetting:

http://forums.fortress-forever.com/s...age=6&p=478460

For everyone who doesn't want to read through all the posts (it goes on for many pages), here's the shorter version:

1. I say that I think the FF patch changes have gradually ruined AvD.

2. Squeek accuses me of hyperbole, based on a misunderstanding of what I've been arguing.

3. I explain in great length, exactly WHY I came to that conclusion and address every single point he accuses me on. It's the result of hundreds of AvD games played over all the patches and observing the changes.

4. There's some further discourse between me and squeek. The conclusion we come to is that balancing for competitive mode leaves AvD pub play suffering. Here are some quotes:

note: this "imbalance" ALREADY EXISTED before the current devs took over. The game mode was working, then changes were made that screwed it up.

So in other words, you yourself are saying pub AvD is unbalanced. Which is of course what I was saying the whole time. The "hyperbole" ends up not being hyperbole.

5. I more or less give up on the FF devs and stop posting, but still look at the forums from time to time. Months pass with me saying nothing.

6. Squeek accuses me of hyperbole again.

I give up dude, you win. That post I made (link again in case you missed it) really explained everything I had to say when you accused me the first time. To do it again, months later, means I may as well be arguing with you about whether the Emperor is wearing any clothes or not. The only reason I posted again was to I felt compelled to point out how unfounded your statement was, since it involved me. Especially since it all got explained to you once before.

Quoted the entire thing just to make sure everyone got this and didnt miss it.

[Raynian]

While we're on the topic of old posts - I think my proposed SG changelog got glossed over a few months ago. It's a lot of changes, but nothing too drastic and would turn the SG into more of a team-supporter rather than a team-requirement-and-really-strong-but-really-weak-at-the-same-time thing.

• Increased push value by 50%. [This will help on AvD and encourage thoughtful positioning to defend key points, by pushing away enemies.]
• Increased health values by roughly 10%, on all levels. [As it is, the SG can be taken down between wrench hits by a grenade+shotty or similar damage source. This should help remedy this problem.]
• Reduced bullet damage by 5% across all levels, reduced rocket damage by 10%. [The SG should complement a good defense by forcing the enemies to work around it, but it should not be able to hold down a defense on its own.]
• Slightly increased SG hitbox and fixed hit detection issues. [The engineer is too vulnerable while defending his gun. Increasing the hitbox requires offense to get behind the gun or wait for the engi to restock in order to kill him as easily. Also, sometimes sentries will not take damage even though they are clearly being hit.]
• Increased build time of sentry guns by 1 second. [This is to slow down the recovery rate of defense when the offense can successfully destroy the sentry gun.]
• Reduced ability of sentry to detect 'cornering' enemies by a slight amount. [Currently, the best ways to take out an SG are either outrange it, or run up to it rambo-style. This change gives offense another option to destroy guns, provided the other defenders cannot help the engineer in time.]
• Sentry guns will now continue to attack targets after they leave the 'lock on range'. This attack range is roughly 25% larger than the lock on range. [This compounds well with the increased push in AvD, as well as making SGs viable when otherwise they would lose the target in a large room.]

Some will say buff, some will say nerf. It's a tweak, plain and simple. And yet look at how SIMPLE it is. Most of the changes are very small adjustments to the values we already have. Only the push and 'longer attack range than lock on range' suggestions are significant. But implementing that changelog would help immensely with the role of the SG in AvD without hurting other kinds of gameplay much.

Works Cited:

Raynian (http://forums.fortress-forever.com/s...9&postcount=45)

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by chilledsanity

Jesus Christ squeek, you brought me out of lurking. You're accusing me of hyperbole AGAIN. Here's the discussion you seem to be forgetting:

http://forums.fortress-forever.com/s...age=6&p=478460

For everyone who doesn't want to read through all the posts (it goes on for many pages), here's the shorter version:

1. I say that I think the FF patch changes have gradually ruined AvD.

2. Squeek accuses me of hyperbole, based on a misunderstanding of what I've been arguing.

3. I explain in great length, exactly WHY I came to that conclusion and address every single point he accuses me on. It's the result of hundreds of AvD games played over all the patches and observing the changes.

4. There's some further discourse between me and squeek. The conclusion we come to is that balancing for competitive mode leaves AvD pub play suffering. Here are some quotes:

note: this "imbalance" ALREADY EXISTED before the current devs took over. The game mode was working, then changes were made that screwed it up.

So in other words, you yourself are saying pub AvD is unbalanced. Which is of course what I was saying the whole time. The "hyperbole" ends up not being hyperbole.

5. I more or less give up on the FF devs and stop posting, but still look at the forums from time to time. Months pass with me saying nothing.

6. Squeek accuses me of hyperbole again.

I give up dude, you win. That post I made (link again in case you missed it) really explained everything I had to say when you accused me the first time. To do it again, months later, means I may as well be arguing with you about whether the Emperor is wearing any clothes or not. The only reason I posted again was to I felt compelled to point out how unfounded your statement was, since it involved me. Especially since it all got explained to you once before.

The SG and public AvD balance are not one and the same (or if they are, that's a bigger problem than anything mentioned [I believe we've discussed this point as well]). I can think your ideas about current SG balance rely on hyperbole while also thinking that public AvD is not currently balanced.

I appreciate your input, though, and you might be right about my statements being unfounded. Take them as you will. They are only my own thoughts, and they can certainly be incorrect.

Raynian, I think a lot of your suggestions are good, but things like bullet damage and rocket damage affect way more than just the SG.

[Raynian]

...the bullet damage for the SG gets called from the bullet damage for other weapons?

Unless there's some huge misunderstanding here.

I mean SG bullet damage and rocket damage, not shotty/sshotty/rpg damage.

[squeek.]

Oh, I read it wrong. I thought you were talking about all bullet/rockets in the game.

Never mind then.

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by squeek.

I can think your ideas about current SG balance rely on hyperbole while also thinking that public AvD is not currently balanced.

Well I could understand that if I hadn't addressed every point you brought up already in the past, yet you STILL call it hyperbole, it feels like borderline trolling, I don't know. I mean here's the original statement where you accused me of that:

Originally Posted by squeek.

I hate all this hyperbole and/or catastrophizing. Maybe you don't think it's hyperbole, but it really seems that way to me. You can claim "AvD has been destroyed, all balance is lost, the dev team is the worst at balancing ever, they don't care about AvD." That's fine. But when your only solid evidence for this is one buildable's values and the HWGuy seeming weak, I can't help but see it as hyperbole.

So let's dissect this one by one.

1. AvD has been destroyed.

This was covered more throughly in the other post, but the short and long of it is that I no longer have close games anymore like I did in TFC and old FF. Also every friend I managed to get interested in FF AvD left around 2.1 because they thought the balance was awful. For me, AvD was all about close games. From pub play, I NEVER see those now, plus the balance changes have caused my friends to abandon the mod. When I do play, I can win practically every time as offense, and I lose almost every time as defense. To me, that means AvD has been "destroyed." Maybe we have different definitions of destroyed or you've simply had different AvD experiences from me and can't fathom that mine are also real.

2. The dev team is the worst at balancing ever.

Those are your words, not mine by the way. I generally agree with that statement, but only for AvD, I can't accurately judge the other game modes, you guys may have done fine there for all I know. We both agree pub AvD is unbalanced right now. I think it was reasonably balanced under 1.x. Under 2.x I think balanced has suffered as a direct result of changes from the dev team, and it's gone by for years without getting fixed. I think whoever was in charge under 2.0 and 2.1 did most of the damage. Everyone for 2.2 onward I consider negligent rather than responsible for the current AvD balance changes. Really, this part is quite simple. It was already WORKING, someone BROKE IT, then it never got fixed. I can't exactly praise the dev team (whichever one did it) for that.

3. They don't care about AvD.

Not entirely true. I'd say it's a matter of degree. The changes in 2.0 and 2.1 would NEVER have passed if someone on the dev team cared about pub AvD as much as I do. AvD is the sole reason I ever played TFC and FF. The damage they've caused was so immediately obvious to me. For that to escape the dev's eyes, I think they either see AvD as something that takes backseat to competitive play or have been too obtuse to understand the damage they were doing. I'd say a better statement would be "They don't care about AvD ENOUGH."

4. But when your only solid evidence for this is one buildable's values and the HWGuy seeming weak, I can't help but see it as hyperbole.

This is the complete and utter bullshit part of your statement that I thought I addressed the first time. Seriously, re-read what I wrote on that old post if you still believe this. It's not just one single value, I even stated that. I was doing this purely through observation in patch changes and drawing conclusions from that. It's also from a culmination of hundreds of games, take a look:




5. I can think your ideas about current SG balance rely on hyperbole while also thinking that public AvD is not currently balanced.

Fine, WHAT PART exactly is the hyperbole? Once again, from the old post, my opinion on the sg was the direct result of what I OBSERVED from hundreds of games for each patch. In 1.x, AvD balance was decent enough. In 2.0 it felt really strained and there were lots of reasons for that. In 2.1 it turned into a capfest and it's never really recovered since. In 2.1, the most dramatic change was sg push reduction, therefore I concluded that sg push was integral to AvD balance based on my observations. What exactly about that is hyperbole? Do you not believe I started winning 95% or more of my games on O in 2.1? Do you not believe I had multiple friends leave FF because they said the balance sucked? Do you not believe I stopped seeing close games for AvD in general? I guess if you don't believe me, then there's not much point in me saying much more. I've tried to provide evidence and logical arguments, but it's like nothing sinks in here. I feel like you're just throwing that around that term without backing up what you're saying.

[eomoyaff]

Originally Posted by Porky Pig

Well for starters we could go on for ages like that poor bastard chilledsanity did about the sentry gun...you know...how it's like shooting a super soaker with hot water at someone. It might sting, but in a few seconds it won't anymore. Could look at the jump pad and how it promotes overwhelming speed which the first issue I spoke about really has no chance of stopping. I mean what's offense if you can't add a little more speed...right? What was the reasoning behind that anyway?

"We could give the fastest class in the game an additional conc without actually giving him one and not balance the defense to match"
"YEAAA GREAT IDEA!!!!!!!"

I'll start with the 2 of those and see where this goes.

lol what?

A) The Jumppad doesn't give you near as much velocity and speed as a conc could.

B) They're going to be destroyable in the next patch.

C) The Jumppad is used for everyone. It gives a boost to all of the offense.

D) It's easy to negate the direction of anyone using the jumppad simply by where it's placed, thus hitting your target is a lot easier with that tool then to attempt to hit anything with a conc'd player (unless you're Church -- then nothing gets by you.).

Jump pads are fine.

The Sentry gun is fine. It needs a little more push which would then disrupt the angle of players going around it at a wider scale. In the end it's all about the SG's placement and how well that player can maintain his weapon. It all factors into what map as well.

Also, Chilled: Blah blah blah -- AvD AvD AvD.

[Raynian]

A) Most AvD maps have concs removed except from bags (dustbowl, anticitizen, palermo, e.g.). Jump pads give these concs back and can be used unlimited times over the course of a minute plus.

B) Which is nice.

C) That's exactly the problem. Take the JP at, well, the jump point near the last cap in dustbowl. Spy disguises, uses the jumppad to zoom towards the bridge, picks up a dropped flag and slides a few meters towards the cap. Repeat every few seconds for every offensive spy or tanky class until the flag is on the cap, then one last spy run will get it.

D) If you're constantly spamming one spot, smart players will just walk around it and run past you when you're reloading.

[eomoyaff]

Originally Posted by Raynian

A) Most AvD maps have concs removed except from bags (dustbowl, anticitizen, palermo, e.g.). Jump pads give these concs back and can be used unlimited times over the course of a minute plus.

B) Which is nice.

C) That's exactly the problem. Take the JP at, well, the jump point near the last cap in dustbowl. Spy disguises, uses the jumppad to zoom towards the bridge, picks up a dropped flag and slides a few meters towards the cap. Repeat every few seconds for every offensive spy or tanky class until the flag is on the cap, then one last spy run will get it.

D) If you're constantly spamming one spot, smart players will just walk around it and run past you when you're reloading.

Jumppads are barely worth anything in AvD. And the reason is simple. Pipes. I'd take a set of pipes every time of a jumppad. And with or without the jumppad a spy can still just walk up and get it a few meters regardless.. And on another note, the jumppad has to get down in a good spot anyway. doing that is an accomplishment against a well structured D anyway (which is pretty much automatic in any AvD map.)