Damage on soldier and heavy.

[Dylstew]

With the Super Shotgun I came to this conclusion for the amount of hits needed to kill someone:

The Super Shotgun does 54 damage, I have 8 shots.

scout=2 (75 health 30% armor= 16.2 absorbed = 37,8 damage)
Sniper= 3 (90. 30% armor=16.2% absorbed, 37,8 damage)
Soldier= 10 ( 100 health, 80% armor = 43.2 absorbed, 10,8 damage. Technically 9,2 hits.)
demoman= 5 (90 health, 60% armor = 32.4 absorbed, 21,6 damage. Technically 4,1)
medic= 5 ( 90 health, 60% armor = 32.4 absorbed, 21,6 damage. Technically 4,1)
hwguy= 10 (100 health, 80% armor = 43.2 absorbed, 10,8 damage. Technically 9,2 hits.)
pyro= 5 ( 100 health, 60% armor = 32.4 absorbed, 21,6 damage)
spy= 5 ( 90 health, 60% armor = 32.4 abosbred, 21,6 damage)
engineer= 3 ( 80 health, 50% = 27 absorbed. 27 damage)

With most the number are fine, especially considering you have a super nailgun as well, but damn, almost 10 for heavy and soldier? Which I could get for heavy, but also soldier? I get that the soldier has 4 shots with high reload time and is slow but his rockets are pretty easy to use. I have grenades, but so does the soldier. I guess that wouldn't be too much of a problem if there were like, 2 soldiers, but there's usually a lot of them. The grenade made me wonder, if I throw a frag grenade at a soldier or heavy, how many mid range Super Shotgun hits would I need to do to kill them?

So 80% damage reduction, and a 145 damage grenade would be 29 damage.
100 - 29 = 71 health. 71 : 10,8 = 6,5. So that's 7 hits with the shotgun. That's still pretty high. I know I'm a newbie, but It just doesn't seem right to me.

So what damage does a soldier do to me?
He has 4 rockets, each 102 damage. as a medic my armor is 60%. I absorb 61.2 damage. 102- 61.2 = 40,8 damage. I have 90 health. 90: 40,8 = about 2,2 so let's say 3 hits, 2 if I'm already damaged. If he misses there's still splash damage.

so for the classes we have:
Scout : Offense, but can't really DM
Sniper: Defense/Support
Soldier: Defense/Hybrid
Demoman: Defense/hybrid
Medic: Offense/Support
Heavy: Defense
Pyro: Hybrid
Spy: Offense
Engineer: Defense

So the DM classes are:
Soldier, Demoman, Medic, Heavy, Pyro and Spy.
I think Heavy's weapon is really boring.
Pyro is less interesting than the rest imo, but the canon makes
him pretty fun.
The Medic has the thing with the damage I just explained.
I get he's Offense/support instead of Defense/hybrid, but like I said it just doesn't seem right.
Spy has the cloak/disguise/backstab stuff, making it a different type of DM.
Because of this, the most fun I had in the game was either with Demoman or Soldier. Spy is also really fun, but like I said in a different way.
It just kind of makes me wish Medic was at least a little bit stronger against Soldiers and Heavies. Do they really need an 80% damage reduction on 100 health?

I realize this game's been out for a long time and that it's based on TFC and QWTF so major changes would be difficult, but as an outsiders perspective, it's rather strange, and I think the majority of newbies will find it strange. I get people don't want it to be TF2 where classes can feel too similar in terms of power, but this is a bit much imo. Maybe this stuff is not an issue in comp, but it is in pubs, at least to me.

[Agent Buckshot Moose]

Soldiers were worse in TFC. Every clan match seemed to be about Medics and Soldiers, with the occasional Scout, or Demo/Engineer. The HW Guy is fine, though maybe the slow grenades need a tiny bit more oomph.

Pyro needs tweaking (less damage, more stopping power in my opinion).

Soldiers have been balanced quite a lot throughout FF's lifespan. Their splash damage is already quite small. I don't think there is really anything that can be done to them that isn't drastic. Numbers can be tweaked very slightly I guess.

But keep in mind Medic is actually extremely powerful. The super nailgun eats through SGs in a few seconds. Concs + Shotgun + Frag Grenades = DM powerhouse. You have to remember you're not the only one on offense, and FF isn't necessarily about completely destroying every person in front of you. Engaging a soldier in DM allows other offense to bypass him. Even if you die, he'll be low on health and easy for others to kill.

[PHISH]

Originally Posted by Dylstew

With the Super Shotgun I came to this conclusion for the amount of hits needed to kill someone:

The Super Shotgun does 54 damage, I have 8 shots.

scout=2 (75 health 30% armor= 16.2 absorbed = 37,8 damage)
Sniper= 3 (90. 30% armor=16.2% absorbed, 37,8 damage)
Soldier= 10 ( 100 health, 80% armor = 43.2 absorbed, 10,8 damage. Technically 9,2 hits.)
demoman= 5 (90 health, 60% armor = 32.4 absorbed, 21,6 damage. Technically 4,1)
medic= 5 ( 90 health, 60% armor = 32.4 absorbed, 21,6 damage. Technically 4,1)
hwguy= 10 (100 health, 80% armor = 43.2 absorbed, 10,8 damage. Technically 9,2 hits.)
pyro= 5 ( 100 health, 60% armor = 32.4 absorbed, 21,6 damage)
spy= 5 ( 90 health, 60% armor = 32.4 abosbred, 21,6 damage)
engineer= 3 ( 80 health, 50% = 27 absorbed. 27 damage)

Hi dylstew- Does damage actually stay linear as the target loses armor?

[AfterShock]

Firstly to clarify - your calculations are slightly off - you aren't compensating for when a player runs out of armor before running out of health. This means a soldier actually dies in 6 hits rather than 10.

To explain it simpler, the armor strength ratio simply alters how much armor / health to take off for any given damage.

For example, taking 10 damage as soldier = -2 hp and -8 armor. if you have 0 armor available, you take -10 hp.

A much simpler way to calculate shotgun shots is to add health and armor values together and divide by the damage per shot.

So real figures, assuming a super shotgun does 54 damage

Scout: 125 = 3 shots
Sniper: 140 = 3 shots
Soldier: 300 = 6 shots
Demoman: 210 = 4 shots
Medic: 190 = 4 shots
HWGuy: 400 = 8 shots
Pyro: 250 = 5 shots
Spy: 190 = 4 shots
Engineer: 130 = 3 shots

So 80% damage reduction, and a 145 damage grenade would be 29 damage.
100 - 29 = 71 health. 71 : 10,8 = 6,5. So that's 7 hits with the shotgun. That's still pretty high. I know I'm a newbie, but It just doesn't seem right to me.

Indeed, thats not right.

300 total hp/armor - 145 = 155 which is 3 shotgun shots to kill after a full grenade.

Balancing

However, I am guessing your post is more about "feel" than hard numbers.

What you're experiencing is likely a pub vs competitive play problem. In particular, several pub maps remove secondary grenades, and a large portion of the medics power comes from his secondary grenade (concussion grenades). On maps like Dustbowl and Napoli, which remove secondary grenades, medics will feel underpowered, because they don't have access to their primary power source.

Maybe there is something we can do to give medics more of a role in those maps, without giving them concussion grenades.

[Dylstew]

Originally Posted by AfterShock

Firstly to clarify - your calculations are slightly off - you aren't compensating for when a player runs out of armor before running out of health. This means a soldier actually dies in 6 hits rather than 10.

To explain it simpler, the armor strength ratio simply alters how much armor / health to take off for any given damage.

For example, taking 10 damage as soldier = -2 hp and -8 armor. if you have 0 armor available, you take -10 hp.

A much simpler way to calculate shotgun shots is to add health and armor values together and divide by the damage per shot.

So real figures, assuming a super shotgun does 54 damage

Scout: 125 = 3 shots
Sniper: 140 = 3 shots
Soldier: 300 = 6 shots
Demoman: 210 = 4 shots
Medic: 190 = 4 shots
HWGuy: 400 = 8 shots
Pyro: 250 = 5 shots
Spy: 190 = 4 shots
Engineer: 130 = 3 shots

Indeed, thats not right.

300 total hp/armor - 145 = 155 which is 3 shotgun shots to kill after a full grenade.

Balancing

However, I am guessing your post is more about "feel" than hard numbers.

What you're experiencing is likely a pub vs competitive play problem. In particular, several pub maps remove secondary grenades, and a large portion of the medics power comes from his secondary grenade (concussion grenades). On maps like Dustbowl and Napoli, which remove secondary grenades, medics will feel underpowered, because they don't have access to their primary power source.

Maybe there is something we can do to give medics more of a role in those maps, without giving them concussion grenades.

Yeah, it was more about feel than numbers. I just tried to look up the damage numbers to see where that feel was coming from. You're right that they're not all that accurate, I didn't really know how exactly the damage system worked. Thanks for the better calculations. But yeah, maybe it's a pub vs comp problem. When I'm playing it just feels like Soldiers are the only thing that just take too much.

[caesium]

Interesting to read. I agree it's essentially a "pub vs comp" problem, but have a few rambling thoughts...

Different classes need support from other players/classes to different degrees in order for their abilities to shine.

By its design as the main front-line defensive class the soldier needs to be able to cope to an appropriate degree without direct support surrounding him. Taken in isolation the soldier may therefore appear too powerful relative to the other defensive classes, but when used together to support each other as a team the other defensive classes can be significantly more powerful and more important to the defense's success.

Given the above plus that the game is most fun when players work together I think that anything we can do to encourage players to support each other more in public play would be great, especially on defense. For example, how about every time a player scores a kill every team mate within a fixed distance of them also scores a kill (or assist)?

[WiFiDi]

if were gonna do assist kills it shouldn't be based on distance to player it should be based on contributed damage. which i think is somthing that defintely be added to the game.

maybe award a small amount of fortress points to players that are in the area of a flag kill or something. ive always thought fortress points should be fleshed out more like each little thing you do promotes so pick up a flag kill somone defend the flag etc... i don't think the current number system we have is very interesting either tbh to man 0000 id like to see it so you get more interesting numbers instead of just round numbers with lots of zeros at the end. (so i could get a total of some 8357 instead of 10,100. (im pretty sure fortress points haven't been changed much but i could be wrong.

assuming fortress points haven't been changed from what they have been. if i could see get a list on what you earn fortress points for already i could expand on that and tweak the points in a way that i feel would be more interesting. that would also allow others to tweak it and maybe between a few of us could put together a better system. (im not talking about adding rewards for them or such nonsense. :P)

[caesium]

Yeah, I started with the idea of damage based assists and think that would definitely help, but what really is the behaviour we're looking to encourage?

Imo recently damaging the enemy player doesn't necessarily mean you were supporting your team mate that killed him (e.g. you could be spamming the base entrance whilst the engy/demo do all the work in the flagroom), and conversely not recently damaging the enemy player doesn't necessarily mean you weren't (e.g. simply your presence can have a massive effect on enemy player behaviour, especially around the sentry/demo).

I therefore figure that defining "supporting a team mate" as just being in his vicinity, and rewarding this with some kind of credit for his kills, motivates behaviour that benefits the game overall. I also think that the side effect of an "inexperienced" player being able to retreat to the flagroom and amass kills/assists simply by being near his "experienced" team mate (i.e. without actually hitting much himself) may also help new players realise they are contributing to the team and not get frustrated.

As for FP, do FP motivate most players? For years there's been the desire to make FP desirable (and useful even?) but afaik no convincing consensus emerged.

Most players do seem to be motivated by their personal kill score, hence why kills/assists would probably do the trick.

[WiFiDi]

Originally Posted by caesium

Yeah, I started with the idea of damage based assists and think that would definitely help, but what really is the behaviour we're looking to encourage?

Imo recently damaging the enemy player doesn't necessarily mean you were supporting your team mate that killed him (e.g. you could be spamming the base entrance whilst the engy/demo do all the work in the flagroom), and conversely not recently damaging the enemy player doesn't necessarily mean you weren't (e.g. simply your presence can have a massive effect on enemy player behaviour, especially around the sentry/demo).

I therefore figure that defining "supporting a team mate" as just being in his vicinity, and rewarding this with some kind of credit for his kills, motivates behavior that benefits the game overall. I also think that the side effect of an "inexperienced" player being able to retreat to the flagroom and amass kills/assists simply by being near his "experienced" team mate (i.e. without actually hitting much himself) may also help new players realise they are contributing to the team and not get frustrated.

As for FP, do FP motivate most players? For years there's been the desire to make FP desirable (and useful even?) but afaik no convincing consensus emerged.

Most players do seem to be motivated by their personal kill score, hence why kills/assists would probably do the trick.

i think "vicinity points" should be given as Fortress points not kill assists as being next to someone afk could give you kills and that also seems ass backwards to me also counter intuitive to what the already defined kill assist mean. i think if you make assist kills only rewarded if you do a high enough percent of damage not just i hit him once with a shotgun.

my vision for fortress points is if you can figure out how useful you were to the team so it would have to record more than just kills and capping as that is only a small fraction of what is actually helpful. the idea ultimately is that you could look at your score figure out how useful you were that match as k/d doesnt' imply usefulness at all in game. now would it be useful for pro players probably not as much but thats not not as much teh point.

also where can i find the list? even if you guys can't agree on what to do i have an idea i want to flesh it out make it an actual fleshed out proposal instead of just brainstorming which hasn't resulted in an idea.

[Agent Buckshot Moose]

The problem with having Fortress Points in addition to kills and death is that FPs are basically useless when you have a K/D ratio to look at. Everyone wants a high K/D ratio. This is one of the things TF2 does right. No kills, no deaths. Only points. I think FF should adopt something similar.

[traxamillion]

Originally Posted by Agent Buckshot Moose

The problem with having Fortress Points in addition to kills and death is that FPs are basically useless when you have a K/D ratio to look at. Everyone wants a high K/D ratio. This is one of the things TF2 does right. No kills, no deaths. Only points. I think FF should adopt something similar.

Good point I never look at FPs.

[Iggy]

I do. Caps are counted there, and not in frags. I like to see how many kills/deaths.... but I go by FPs.

[WiFiDi]

Originally Posted by Agent Buckshot Moose

The problem with having Fortress Points in addition to kills and death is that FPs are basically useless when you have a K/D ratio to look at. Everyone wants a high K/D ratio. This is one of the things TF2 does right. No kills, no deaths. Only points. I think FF should adopt something similar.

to do that we should maek fortress points better first.

im gonna start working on it even without the list. the list would really help as to give me a base to expand on see what needs to added etc... and start fleshing it out then ill put it on a Google doc that way more people can view it as im making it offer advice and even collaborate once it get the base stuff down.

ps ill stop hijacking the thread now :P

[FDA_Approved]

Originally Posted by Agent Buckshot Moose

The problem with having Fortress Points in addition to kills and death is that FPs are basically useless when you have a K/D ratio to look at. Everyone wants a high K/D ratio. This is one of the things TF2 does right. No kills, no deaths. Only points. I think FF should adopt something similar.

Well TF2 still shows you your own KDA on the score board, it just doesn't show it to every one else. Which I'd argue is still enough for people to play for a good k/d.

The problem with FP is they seem entirely arbitrary. At the end of the match you see this number, but outside of KD you have no idea what went into that, and sometimes it's nothing more than your KD anyways. That's where the TF2 score board really excels, it tracks almost everything. It tracks kills, assists, headshots, amount of health healed, caps, and some other stuff. If the score board conveyed that information to individual players they might have an easier time understanding how their score stacks up to other players.

I also feel like the scores seem arbitrary because of how high they are. 100 points per kill, 1000 points per cap. This is probly to make room for score objectives that are deemed much less important, so they can be given lower numbers. But it might be worth scaling the entire thing down. Something like 1 point per kill, 10 points per cap, half point per assist, 1 point per every 50 health healed for medic.

[WiFiDi]

Originally Posted by FDA_Approved

Well TF2 still shows you your own KDA on the score board, it just doesn't show it to every one else. Which I'd argue is still enough for people to play for a good k/d.

The problem with FP is they seem entirely arbitrary. At the end of the match you see this number, but outside of KD you have no idea what went into that, and sometimes it's nothing more than your KD anyways. That's where the TF2 score board really excels, it tracks almost everything. It tracks kills, assists, headshots, amount of health healed, caps, and some other stuff. If the score board conveyed that information to individual players they might have an easier time understanding how their score stacks up to other players.

I also feel like the scores seem arbitrary because of how high they are. 100 points per kill, 1000 points per cap. This is probly to make room for score objectives that are deemed much less important, so they can be given lower numbers. But it might be worth scaling the entire thing down. Something like 1 point per kill, 10 points per cap, half point per assist, 1 point per every 50 health healed for medic.

something like 1-10 or so would be ideal imo maybe 1-25. reality i think bigger isn't always better especially in this case its the current system biggest issue imo.

[caesium]

I think it would help give meaning (and therefore perhaps also desirability?) to FP if they were "on the same scale" as kills (i.e. 1 FP per kill as FDA suggested).

FP rewards for other actions would clearly then all need to be relative to that, but rather than just scale the existing values I think they could do with a rethink (e.g. flag touch/throw/cap ratios, sentry take down maybe a function of kills the sentry got since being built or something, maybe something similar for demoman take down, possibly kill assists as discussed above).

Dylstew, sorry we stole your thread!

[WiFiDi]

Originally Posted by caesium

I think it would help give meaning (and therefore perhaps also desirability?) to FP if they were "on the same scale" as kills (i.e. 1 FP per kill as FDA suggested).

FP rewards for other actions would clearly then all need to be relative to that, but rather than just scale the existing values I think they could do with a rethink (e.g. flag touch/throw/cap ratios, sentry take down maybe a function of kills the sentry got since being built or something, maybe something similar for demoman take down, possibly kill assists as discussed above).

Dylstew, sorry we stole your thread!

making kills that low i don't like i think they need to 5 imo reason is that you can add in dieing to be recorded by fortress points. what i was gonna do is have
kills 5
sucides -5/4
deaths below both of those.

to emphasize that it is okay to die otherwise i feel you bring the same problem as kd brings people are woried to losing points over attacking the flag. is better than suicide because your suppose to die at some point. the idea is not to discourage from moving the flag up or distracting the enemy team or whatever it may be. but that would be my model its entirely based on how its scored.

also lots of little things i think deserve a 1 or 2 spot as apposed to kills those i feel are more important but again its all how its scored.

though its defiantly interesting the way tf2 does it pretty much all kills give you 1 point and anything related to teamwork are all pretty much above 100.

[JackBauer]

Personally I have always liked HLstatsX for TFC and I think FortressPoints are a good opportunity to implement another way to keep players if done correctly.

For some reason people seem to like that shit.

I'm not suggesting any new weapons or models, but a ranking system where people could level up (kinda like BF4 and CoD) and gain ranks might be addictive - and indicates how much someone has played.


What about something like this:
Frag 10 points
Cap 20
Assist 5
Flagtouch 2
Airshot 5
Round Victory 50
HEadshot 5
Bonuses like double, triple, mega, monster kills etc.

Big awards -> 1000 rocket frags, 500 caps, 100 round victories etc. give you 1000+ points.


would that even be possible from a technical point of view?

[WiFiDi]

Originally Posted by JackBauer

Personally I have always liked HLstatsX for TFC and I think FortressPoints are a good opportunity to implement another way to keep players if done correctly.

For some reason people seem to like that shit.

I'm not suggesting any new weapons or models, but a ranking system where people could level up (kinda like BF4 and CoD) and gain ranks might be addictive - and indicates how much someone has played.


What about something like this:
Frag 10 points
Cap 20
Assist 5
Flagtouch 2
Airshot 5
Round Victory 50
HEadshot 5
Bonuses like double, triple, mega, monster kills etc.

Big awards -> 1000 rocket frags, 500 caps, 100 round victories etc. give you 1000+ points.


would that even be possible from a technical point of view?

i think youd have to have a seperate sever if you wanted to make real leaderboards otherwise people would just alter them. alteast i think.

[Iggy]

Dying with the flag should still be a net gain in FPs, because you were definitely helping the team by moving it.