Skill Maps scare new players away from the game

Originally Posted by fireb0rn

you weren't around when people discovered bunnyhopping i guess.

im around since mid 97

have you played the original TF lately?

i tryed but couldnt find any servers

or better yet, have you played TF2?

yes, for about 3minutes ... the lack of grenades and the enforced respawn-delay were the showstoppers for me.

you can see from playing that how silly it is to completely enforce offensive teamwork in pugs.

i dont know what exactly you mean (pugs?), but calling silly what thousands of other people enjoy ... i wouldnt do that.

that being said, teamwork on offense does of course exist, but the entire dynamic is different. some players might be more dedicated to killing sg's and enemy defense to allow scouts through, some might rush in as you said, etc. so to answer your question, that's where I would find the offensive team play to be.

i was tyring to find it, trying to spec clanmatches but wasnt allowed to ... *shrugs* not slots left, could caught a glimpse of secret clantactics ... i dont know. sic!

it's kind of similar as to how in defense a player would be dedicated to the button, another to the flag, and so on.

ok, one goes for the button, and how does he reach that goal? rushing? i think so ... the offense is so fast that you just dont have any time to react anymore, ... suddenly there flys something around the corner and hits the button ... no way to react, ... pipetrap at the button on openfire? try it ... then try again with 100ms ping ...

compare defensive weapons to offensive weapons. scout/med nails require much more precision to destroy SGs, rockets/pipes etc require far less precision.

in very close range, yes. Well the new soly rockets have a radius that equals homing-function

it's only fair for conc effect to be proportionate to the precision required by the weapons.

i dont know, the effect lasts too long, it should just be long enough for the attacker to get by the deffer. And often you are conced when you shouldnt, it just happens that on the other side of the wall someone concs and you fly through half the map. On Sd2 it happens often when you are defending on the sniperentrance near the ramp.

besides that, how often do defensive players get conced in comparison to offensive players?

well, better ask when the deffer is not conced ... for my expirience he is dizzy all the time.

[Dr.Satan]

Originally Posted by v3rtigo

Having an official 'helper' team would be a great idea, especially for a complicated and relatively hard mod like this. I'd volunteer even though I don't have that much time. A special (official) server dedicated to this would also be great, especially if the mod mentions it during installing or something.

yeah...idk that it would be an official helper team, probably more of an un-official team / clan / guild...

[v3rtigo]

Oh, well not that it matters that much, as long as people are willing to do it.

[zE]

Originally Posted by kano

they obviously failed on the balance ... offence got ridicolousely overpowed ... its a soldier/medic party now with the other classes just beeing no more than supporting actors.

I agree that offence is now a lot more powered, but i disagree that its a sold/medic party now.... in my opinion its more a Scout party now... they are a lot more usefull in the majority of maps than medic is... u dont need do dm nobody u dont need to destroy sentrys.. u only have to pass trought the sold..exception to this is dev_2fort/bliss_2fort.. all the rest scout owns.. a lot more than medic..now inst like tfc that the off was 3 med and 1 scout.,, now its the reverse 3 scouts and 1 medic its perfect!

[cownaetion]

I dug around and found the old 'School of Team Fortress' site tucked away at Archives. Here's the link:

http://web.archive.org/web/199910090...ress.com/sotf/

Just in case anyone be interested in a general idea on how such a thing was setup then and how to go about it. Obviously things can be changed to suit needs. Getting volunteers wouldn't be the problem, it's getting the organization announced to the public that's hard. Could start by talking to server admins and see if they could post information about it in the MOTD or server info, something like that, just to start. Obviously forums but probably more, word of mouth. Have the student get whatever fellow members to sign up on the sheet as well to get more pupils, and hopefully they do the same, rolling down hill. Also, in SoTF, members wore a tag, just like a clan or guild tag, to help spread/recognize the mission.

Technically this organization wouldn't have to be limited to just game play. It could be expanded so everyone can contribute if they'd like. From LUA coding, mapping, server config, gameplay, whatever. Community effort. The teachers could also be pupils in areas they need help in, or combine learning groups to help the more advanced students with O/D strategy. However, in my opinion, grouping them may not be a good idea, depending on the lesson their learning cause it could turn into another pub fest, depending on the behavior of the students.

This is just my thoughts, that's all.

[caesium]

i'd be up for helping teach anyone whatever i can (spam, hop-concing, autogun-clang-bang, bunny-ramping, dispenser-sliding, etc etc), but i recon keep it to just gameplay teaching, as technical help already has a v healthy base on the forums and there's no point diluting that.

so imo all we really need is a place where:
- students can say what they want to learn and when they are available.
- teachers can either reply to a student's request, or offer their help for anyone to take up (say what they can teach and when they are available).

seems to me that a "teacher offers/requests" forum section would do this perfectly (maybe a subsection of "tips and tutorials"?).

[פֿяαιп βαмαgεפ]

An "FF school" server?

[Dr.Satan]

I like this idea a lot...but there is a ton that would need to be invested.

I would suggest and external web-site as opposed to trying to get FF to support it...and why not include lua and out of game stuff? I would love to learn .lua better and so far all I have to go off of is the code left behind by the dev's and the LAD's...but if I had someone who was willing to sit down with me and say:

This is how you start...read this and try this then come back to me...

Ok now that you know that let's try this...

etc. I would be able to pick this shit up pretty quickly and it would something I would really appreciate!

I would also suggest a few private like 2 / 4 slot servers for this as opposed to one giant 20 slot server or whatnot...just nice group of small servers where you and your teacher / pupil can jump in and talk freely...test things and run stuff etc...also a reason to get a forum and site outside of the FF forums that way donations can be freely given w/out FF getting into trouble for things like the servers...

[=AS= Pt]

Originally Posted by Dr.Satan

I was thinking about making a concmap sometime that explains things...maybe I will do it!

there is a great map for beginers...a ursf map... 20 diferent ypes of jumps. very cool. good to teachconc skillz

[richard nixon]

I want to go in those servers but I don't have the maps, and they seem to take ages and ages to download in-game. And when I want to play I want to play so I don't sign off and go to the forums looking for a link. That's my only problem so far.

I'm sure in those servers you get a lot of people who say "fuck this" and just leave. If that was me I'd just switch servers. I don't think fun/skill maps hurt this game any.

[cownaetion]

Originally Posted by Dr.Satan

I like this idea a lot...but there is a ton that would need to be invested.

I would suggest and external web-site as opposed to trying to get FF to support it...and why not include lua and out of game stuff? I would love to learn .lua better and so far all I have to go off of is the code left behind by the dev's and the LAD's...but if I had someone who was willing to sit down with me and say:

This is how you start...read this and try this then come back to me...

Ok now that you know that let's try this...

etc. I would be able to pick this shit up pretty quickly and it would something I would really appreciate!

I would also suggest a few private like 2 / 4 slot servers for this as opposed to one giant 20 slot server or whatnot...just nice group of small servers where you and your teacher / pupil can jump in and talk freely...test things and run stuff etc...also a reason to get a forum and site outside of the FF forums that way donations can be freely given w/out FF getting into trouble for things like the servers...

You are right, a lot needs to be invested in order for something like this to work. Setting it up away from FF is a good idea and dedicated servers would definitely help and may not need that many, probably just a few cause everything would be scheduled and could always enter one of the many (unfortunate) empty pubs. Mapping is a big one I think also Satan because there are more and more players who would like to pick up mapping but are scared to even look at Hammer and LUA. And the ones that do pick up enough to build their first map, any criticism just may drive them off to never try again.

To really make this take off, we could open it up to other games as well. That would not only increase our user base, but promote things such as games, teachers, media, and anything else that the organization happens to represent. So for an example, since it's needless to say everyone here is a long time fortress player, the organization could open with help in FF and TF2. This would also help introduce players to the one their not playing and maybe help them decide which game they truly rather play, or would like to play both. Yes, I understand we're trying to help FF, and this would, but when you think about it in terms of longevity, this organization would still be around, evolving with each new game and the next generation of Fortress games to come, instead of dying within how many years we have left before the next gen does come.

[TheWetMule]

Originally Posted by richard nixon

I want to go in those servers but I don't have the maps, and they seem to take ages and ages to download in-game. And when I want to play I want to play so I don't sign off and go to the forums looking for a link. That's my only problem so far.

I'm sure in those servers you get a lot of people who say "fuck this" and just leave. If that was me I'd just switch servers. I don't think fun/skill maps hurt this game any.

If you're talking about concmaps and such, and you're european, the Euroskills server has fast download I find it faster than downloading off of most websites, actually. It does get quite a few people for a conc server too and If I'm there I'd be more than willing to help anybody.

[פֿяαιп βαмαgεפ]

Maybe something on the main page hen you start that game:

Have you heard about Concmaps?
....................................^link to wiki

[Dr.Satan]

Originally Posted by richard nixon

I want to go in those servers but I don't have the maps, and they seem to take ages and ages to download in-game. And when I want to play I want to play so I don't sign off and go to the forums looking for a link. That's my only problem so far.

I'm sure in those servers you get a lot of people who say "fuck this" and just leave. If that was me I'd just switch servers. I don't think fun/skill maps hurt this game any.

When you have a minute grab the FF Community Map Pack 1 it has a lot of good maps and some skills maps. The FF Community Map Pack 2 is shaping out to be almost exclusively skills maps and will be released March 31st.

They are both installers so just grab then before you go to work or something and let them go...takes about 15min (if that) for them to install into your FF folder.

Originally Posted by cownaetion

...

I think expanding into TF2 and other games is a great idea...get the other people to play both (all?) games will help promote FF IMO especially if we can all get along. Sounds like this might actually happen!

[פֿяαιп βαмαgεפ]

FF Community Map Pack 2: Return of teh SK1LLZZ

[cownaetion]

Originally Posted by פֿяαιп βαмαgεפ

FF Community Map Pack 2: Return of teh SK1LLZZ

Ha ha, nicely put

Originally Posted by Dr.Satan

...

Well we could start right now by creating a new thread and just start accepting volunteers, as someone has said earlier in this thread. Since, no offense, the player base is low we wouldn't need as many volunteers at first to start up. That almost helps in a way since this is a new event happening there are bound to be obstacles we'll come across that we wouldn't expect and would give us some head room in dealing with them. I'd recommend just starting with FF before adding any more games. Let's figure out how to do it right with one game and when we do, add the other games with the same guidelines, knowing we'll be okay cause we've already tested/setup something solid with FF. Since this is new and fairly small at the moment, if no one wants to offer first, I'll put up the few dollars for the registration of whatever domain name we come up with and will host it on my web host. I use Media Temple, which is a fairly good company and I'm sure would handle something small at first. If this thing really did take off I'm not sure if it could or couldn't handle the traffic, I'd have to go digging for some statistics. If someone else would rather do this be my guest, it's just a starting point.

Even if we do get this all set up and going there can only be two outcomes:
1. It takes off and we start something that benefits the community.
2. It fails and we end up back where we started, with another thread with the same title as this except the posts that stated 'start a group' would be replaced with 'we tried and it didn't work out well."

Just my two cents.

[Dr.Satan]

agreed...are we able to use the same name?

[cownaetion]

Good question. It has been disbanded for 8, 9 years now? I don't see why not. But another question to ask is where do we see this leading to in the future? Will it stick with just Fortress mods or go further into other realms, say just for an example, the next CoD? If it's just Fortress than that'd be a good name and any old timers would recognize it and probably join in. If we plan on expanding to other areas though, the name wouldn't fit as well. Not that it would really matter much since it's what the group does, not by what it's called. If everyone's interested in using SoTF, I'll try and see if I can get in contact with the people who last ran it and see if they would relinquish it freely without anyone lashing out at us later down the road.

[Dr.Satan]

Originally Posted by =AS= Pt

there is a great map for beginers...a ursf map... 20 diferent ypes of jumps. very cool. good to teachconc skillz

can you tell me where I can find this map? I'm going to be making a map (half-way for the SoTF or whatever we call it and halfway just for newbs!) and I would like to get that as a good reference.

cow: Idk I think that it should probably be just TF at least for some time. We can always change things up later on down the road no?

[public_slots_free]

It was running on there server and was called like test_conc or something, I have not seen anything about it in a long time. I lost it in a format.

As for this thread, its pointless. I run a skills server and if someone comes in and has no idea whats going on, i always tell them to join a server with a map that starts with ff_. Sometimes, i will even post the IP of a server for them to join. I dont want new players to join their first server and think that the game is not a CTF game. I am also not about to stop running my server nor am I about to lock it.