Why haven't pickups reverted?

[Agent Buckshot Moose]

The slow grenade was overpowered when it first came out. It completely prevented concing scouts/medics from getting a flag, or from zooming through any given "chokepoint" (which could be a large hallway since the radius was so big). The nerf made it less powerful. Honestly, it's more of a problem of duration at this point than usefulness. Slowing down for 1 or 2 seconds easily means the difference between life and death.

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by Gwarsbane

I think the real reason why pickups have not reverted is because the patch gave them everything they wanted.

Well I have to say that from perspective, it gave me basically everything I wanted as well, I think it's a great patch.

The slow grenade, while an interesting idea, wasn't really doing much. Sure if people hit it, they would slow down for a second or 2, but then be right back up to full speed. Hitting people with it could be very difficult and even if you did chances of you killing them were still low. It was no where near as effective (for pub players) as a mirv or other grenade could be. (maybe if they didn't go back to normal speed after hitting the bubble)

While I think they're both clunky, in pubs I rarely remember the hwguy's mirvs making or breaking a defense, I think the slow fields have a lot more potential. Unless someone was running in just a straight line, I never really saw Mirvs kill anyone from the initial impact, almost everyone is smart enough to get out of the way. The only time I would see it doing anything would be after the first explosion when a NEW person flies in, unaware that the mirv is halfway detonated, then the secondary explosions kill them. It felt more like a dumb luck thing rather than something planned. Really I think the slow field could be incredible if it could be more concisely activated, like a detpack. The first grenade key could simply drop it. Hitting again would THEN activate it. Or have a toggleable mode between deploying automatically or manually. That might be too overpowered however since with the right people it could really nail players to the wall.

They kept the SG strength up, why because they found it effective and useful.

If that was true, it would have stayed reverted to 2.0 or 1.11 settings. That's probably just been a bigger pain in the ass to change.

They keep putting the spy grenade back in, why because they find it effective and useful.

Not really, the gas grenade has always been lame, even compared to TFC's. It's not "effective and useful", it's "better than absolutely nothing." Say I have a grenade that takes 2 points of health away from you. That's not effective and useful, but that's better than having absolutely nothing. Generally a good way to piss players off universally is to take away a feature, then replace it with absolutely nothing. Even if the net result isn't much at all, from a psychological standpoint, it feels more like you're getting robbed.

[WATER]

not playing a pickup with an old school slowfield i might as well just stop running before i get to it and wait for it to finish

[Hammock]

Plain and simple, the common pubber prefers skilless annoyances. They would prefer to spam the shit out of hallway with 6 nades, or annoy players by tossing gas infront of a respawn, than actually take the time to become good at the game.

The patches (especially the last one) have progressively been taking away skilless items/annoyances items.

Noobs.. I mean pubbers can't really handle things that take a bit of skill to use. As such anything that requires skill is ultimately in their mind less usefull. So they revert back to their skilless game, being completely oblivious to the far superior power of a few new changes.

[reaper18]

I dont know if i entirely agree with your post, especially all pubbers being asinine..Some of them can actually wrap their head around game mechanics. Sadly they dont post on the forums.
Though I do agree with this:

Originally Posted by Hammock

As such anything that requires skill is ultimately in their mind less usefull. So they revert back to their skilless game, being completely oblivious to the far superior power of a few new changes.

[Hammock]

Originally Posted by reaper18

I dont know if i entirely agree with your post, especially all pubbers being asinine..Some of them can actually wrap their head around game mechanics. Sadly they dont post on the forums.
Though I do agree with this:

Ya I know there are pubbers that do make the effort, I'm just sick of the whole pickup/pubber disparity argument. Since pickup players are all lumped together as the same breed, for all intents and purposes I'm doing the same for pubbers. It would be pretty ridiculous for me to give an actual percentage of pubbers who "can wrap their head around game mechanics".

Oh what the hell, I'll give some numbers.

50% asinine
30% competant
20% skilled

So come on now, lets see your guys' numbers.

[Gwarsbane]

Hey thanks for the insults guys....


And I wonder why I (and other apparently non-skilled pub players) don't post on these forums much.



Course its interesting to see how you guys think things that do less damage to smaller areas and are easy to dodge are game mechanics that pub players can't get their heads around.

[Raynian]

Because the new grenades require proper usage in combination with other weaponry skills - knowing how to aim rockets/det pipes properly, making use of positioning on the field, etc. Slowfields help the entire team immensely, though I think they got nerfed a little too hard.

I love the premise of laser grens, and feel they're incredibly powerful if used on offense. Again, maybe just a teeeeny bit more damage - like 5% - is all that's needed. Good soldiers know to throw the gren so it'll "explode" before it hits the ground, so the enemy can't just jump over it. Either they duck, move around the beams, or feel the pain. Increasing the height it jumps as it triggers would help newbies place them, but remove some of the skill involved in using the grenade (and avoiding it) - tough call.

Much better than just throw and forget on MIRVs and nails. PS has anyone tried allowing laser grens on mulch? Exo and I were trying it a while back and it was great fun - though we both sucked with them I feel they should be considered legal in mulch matches. Or at least by discrection.

[Hammock]

Originally Posted by Gwarsbane

Course its interesting to see how you guys think things that do less damage to smaller areas and are easy to dodge are game mechanics that pub players can't get their heads around.

Because those things that do less dmg are far more powerfull when used properly. You know a little forethought and stuff (ie: skill). Those other things that do more dmg are for the most part lucky skilless spam

[reaper18]

Originally Posted by Gwarsbane

Course its interesting to see how you guys think things that do less damage to smaller areas and are easy to dodge are game mechanics that pub players can't get their heads around.

Gwar, its statements like these that make us think that. What you just said shows that you completely missed what we tried to explain. There is more to the game than damage and area-of-effect. If the nail grenade had huge damage and a larger AoE it would be the nail grenade with lasers. The point of the new nade is INTERACTIVITY. Raynian is correct, the laser gren could do with a slight damage increase, but as it is now, it does more to make players think on their feet instead of just dying.
Placement is key. If you want to go around tossing grenades without cooking them in doorways, essentially spray n pray, you get the results you mention. A worthless, piece of shit grenade. Try using them in conjunction with other weapons.

[XPelargos]

Gwar, the posts above me have responded to you quite well.

You reveal yourself to be inflexible and uncreative when you think that the laser grenade should be treated as its own entity as opposed to

A PART OF THE SOLDIER'S ARSENAL.

Among his arsenal are rockets and choke point positioning.

Good positioning of the soldier combined with good positioning of the laser grenade makes aiming his rockets a little bit easier.

Compare that to the standard tactic of throwing a nail grenade near a door, and hoping that it will catch a scout as he rounds the corner.

Furthermore, the fact that o-t reverted within days of the patch shows an inflexibleness and unwillingness to adapt to new and interesting strategies.

I am very sad face about that.

Also, caltrops are worthless, awful tools that I am so pleased are gone. Anything that is so easy to place and hinders movement like that is unfun and unskilled.

Compare that to a jump pad which opens up movement possibilities as opposed to precluding them.

[Raynian]

I kinda disagree with you about caltrops and (pre-change) JPs. What was great about caltrops was that they were semi-clearly visible and easy to avoid while maintaining speed, in TFC. Yes, accidentally touching one fucked you over hard, but in FF that could easily be remedied by making the effect degrade over time, rather than only dissipate on getting healed/finding a bag.

The JP as it is now is okay, since it can be used to speed up offense in non-combative zones (say, the beginning of a point on dustbowl when the action is at the capture point) - but defense can send someone to destroy them. They're no longer "hurr I spend 5 seconds to have an invincible 1024 speed boost for my entire team". Especially when that shit could be put on flagspawns or combined with a conc for 2k+ airspeed.

One thing the jump pad is great for is doing a 3x jump pad + rampslide conc to go from the start of ksour_classic to cp4 without ever touching the ground.

[moosh]

Originally Posted by Raynian

One thing the jump pad is great for is doing a 3x jump pad + rampslide conc to go from the start of ksour_classic to cp4 without ever touching the ground.

I don't see how you can maneuver through the CP3/CP4 transition.

pics or it isn't possible kthx

[Chickenprotector]

Well I haven't posted here in a while. But what the fuck, thought I might as well come out of my hole.

There's a few reasons why I find some of the new features useless.

Originally Posted by Hammock

Ya I know there are pubbers that do make the effort, I'm just sick of the whole pickup/pubber disparity argument. Since pickup players are all lumped together as the same breed, for all intents and purposes I'm doing the same for pubbers. It would be pretty ridiculous for me to give an actual percentage of pubbers who "can wrap their head around game mechanics".

Oh what the hell, I'll give some numbers.

50% asinine
30% competant
20% skilled

So come on now, lets see your guys' numbers.

Well let's see here, define "game mechanics" because its a large number of things you're talking about, narrow down your argument.

As for pub/pickups, I could care less. People run their servers how they see fit. What the developer staff has been doing to the game is simply crappy at best and making a half-assed effort to fix the broken mechanics, from grenade spam to overpowered classes. Given some of the newer mechanics are useful, I.E. Overpressure on the heavy or the slow field, I found some uses for those.

The nail gren getting replaced with the laser grenade, I found utterly useless and in fact I found the nail gren more useful. It cleared a room and not a small area more effectively. At the very least, nail grens would soften them up for the solly so he could punt a rocket in their face after it detonated. Laser gren, doesn't do that in fact it's easier to dodge. So in reality, it was an utter waste of resources. That's the reason many servers reverted in most cases.

None of the real issues of class balance were really addressed, Pyros are still a bitch to deal with, snipers are irritating and incredibly frustrating to those of us who like playing something that doesn't have concussion grenades. Some grens do too much damage in some cases, or are utterly useless as I pointed out above. Those are the real issues that need to be addressed not the annoyances of the everyday gameplay. Everyone will still bitch about something, so get over it and maybe fix the real damn issues.

I'm not playing on the whole concept of the pickup players being different from other players. In reality, we're all apart of the same boat. Get over the differences and look at the bigger picture instead of sticking to your little corner and saying "I'm not playing with him/her because of this." It's childish, and to be honest, pretty dumb. The game we play is getting affected all around not just on one front. 1/2 the community is divided to the pub side. another 45-49% is on the pickup side, the other 1-5% is in the middle. That's how it's been for the past few years now.

I perfectly well understand the game mechanics, what the hell is the laser gren useful for in general terms. Yeah, it's an area denial tool, but the nail gren up close (which is practically the same) would rip you to shreds too, players would try to avoid that area while the nail gren was going. It's the same thing, it's just that its stuck in a smaller area which is easier to avoid and less effective in my opinion. If you time your jumps right and you're not getting knocked around, you can avoid the laser gren with ease.

2 skilled scouts on offense could easily get through the laser gren and grab the flag after its dissipated. Nail gren, at least you had a higher chance of hitting them with the explosion afterward if they were close enough. You need to think about these things before implementing the damn patch and see how it will affect gameplay in a global setting. Otherwise it will end up as being a useless waste of resources.

I gave simple example, there are a multitude of things that can happen with the scouts and the solly. Hell replace one player with another, you'll change the dynamic of the entire scenario. You give me a proper scenario where the laser gren would be more effective than the nail gren. Then I'll retract my statement, not before.

This is what the pub players have been tryin to say for years... I'm just putting it bluntly. As for me, I'm all for some changes, but not radical ones that make the mechanics go out of whack.

TL;DR there's a multitude of scenarios I found some of the new mechanics useful. The new grenades, not so much. If you don't listen to the community as a whole, the game suffers, that's what I'm pointing out.

Ftw. I'm middle, I'm all for improving and balancing, but not radically changing the game. And not to knock the devs, they're just makin' the best of a situation, but that's what I feel on the matter.

[squeek.]

Looking at the laser grenade only from the soldier's point of view is just as flawed as viewing its effectiveness in a void, or as an entity that is apart from the soldier itself and can only act on its own. The laser grenade is meant to make the game more interesting, deep, and fun for all players involved in the interaction by making second-by-second decisions meaningful (how, when, and where to dodge; how, when, and where to shoot; both of these will be influenced by the grenade and by the actions of each player, which then feeds back into itself). I think it'd be hard to argue that the nail grenade influenced any of these decisions, except maybe by providing a singular, one-time choice: to go through the nail gren or to wait it out; this lack of depth/interactivity is only magnified by the fact that nail grens were just as effective if the soldier was close to them or not, usually leading to a lack of any interactivity at all (toss them at a high traffic area and hope they get you a kill).

Also, just because something is more effective, it doesn't mean it's better for the game. Arguing from that point of view, you'd need to show why the grenade needs the ability to clear a "room" and not just an "area" and why the grenade would be better if the damage couldn't be dodged, both from a balance point of view (effectiveness) and a design point of view (fun, interactivity, frustration, etc).

EDIT: By the way, laser gren damage will almost certainly be increasing a bit in the next patch.

[chilledsanity]

Originally Posted by Chickenprotector

None of the real issues of class balance were really addressed, Pyros are still a bitch to deal with, snipers are irritating and incredibly frustrating to those of us who like playing something that doesn't have concussion grenades. Some grens do too much damage in some cases, or are utterly useless as I pointed out above. Those are the real issues that need to be addressed not the annoyances of the everyday gameplay. Everyone will still bitch about something, so get over it and maybe fix the real damn issues.

Well coming from the pub side, I really have to disagree with this. I'm not saying pyro and sniper can't use some attention, but MAJOR balance issues were addressed in this patch. While he's not doing the same kind of damage as old school FF or TFC, hwguy now has abilities to really defend the flag, this is huge. Engineer's sg is no longer a joke, after having been one for years, this is also very big. Those two changes alone really restored the effectiveness of D in pubs more than any of the grenade changes have. Furthermore, making jump pads destroyable also give a needed handicap to O so that one scout can't just ferry his entire team right through hotzones anymore.

The game feels more balanced to me now than it has in years. I see all the other changes as more or less not having a huge impact for pubs either way. You make a case for how it's affected pickups, but saying no real issues were addressed in this patch sounds like you're wearing blinders as to the "overall" picture.

[CHURCHMOUTH]

Just a quick tid-bit.. Churchmouth's Dungeon server will remain stock FF. This is my pub server. It has some stock maps as well as some custom maps but all maps are good maps and like i said its stock fortress forever gameplay all day everyday.. just need some people to start using it thanks bye

[Chickenprotector]

Originally Posted by chilledsanity

You make a case for how it's affected pickups, but saying no real issues were addressed in this patch sounds like you're wearing blinders as to the "overall" picture.

Yeh, in some cases. I'm talking about class balance, not over all balance. OvD is not my thing, I've always preferred working together with my team to achieve a goal. It makes it all the more satisfying if the enemy defense is organized enough to deny me that flag.

But back on the situation at hand: Yes, a lot of the issues from last patch were addressed in this one. And in fact I like it now due to the offense not having such an easy time getting through the defense. There's still the fact of the annoyances of dealing with snipers, and pyros in some cases. That is where my logic was flawed. But obviously a lot of the popular pub servers reverted to the previous version with some mixes of the newer elements of the patch I.E. O-T.

That being said, obviously something happened there.

As I said, I was blunt about it. I said some issues had been addressed, but not all. I was focusing on one singular issue, not the broad spectrum, and for that, I'm sorry.

You made your point, yes a lot of the issues have been addressed. There's still some class balance tweeks that need to be done. That is what I meant by "major issues" offense/defense are fine now imo... if you don't want people to revert, and keep the gren changes, be inventive.

I.E. the slow field effects could last for a second or two after leaving it for instance. There's a multitude of things that can be done to improve performance of them.

Originally Posted by squeek.

Looking at the laser grenade only from the soldier's point of view is just as flawed as viewing its effectiveness in a void, or as an entity that is apart from the soldier itself and can only act on its own.

Look at it this way. The laser grenade is much more fun but what use is it in combat in a limited area it does massive damage, and it makes people think harder on how to get the flag, but it doesn't have enough softening power to even consider it being useful in any extent of the imagination in my opinion. It's too easy to avoid unless you've got someone throwing things at the medic to keep them pinned in that radius.

Yeah, it'll pop a medic a few times then you throw two rockets at the medic they die. The medic wants the flag, and usually that's it, unless they're a newbie, they won't shoot at you unless you're in the way... usually.

A good place to throw a nail grenade would be in a room about the size of the upper respawn in dropdown for instance. It effectively covers the room and does some pretty nasty damage upon exploding. Throw that on the flag some scouts will likely die trying to get the flag, or the solly can pop a rocket at them. This is the kind of tactical thinking people should be doing, not mindlessly running around and grabbing the flag, and rinse and repeat.

The laser grenade would be useful for popping it ontop of something like a hallway if you want the same situation. It's an area denial tool, not a stopping grenade. The nail gren is a stopping grenade to some extent.

The laser grenade is meant to make the game more interesting, deep, and fun for all players involved in the interaction by making second-by-second decisions meaningful (how, when, and where to dodge; how, when, and where to shoot; both of these will be influenced by the grenade and by the actions of each player, which then feeds back into itself).

Again the nail gren functions like this as it was before it got swapped. If you wanted people to think more, give it some push back when hit by a nail. It achieves the same goal with out wasting the resources. This brings me back to coming up with inventive solutions to keep the game the way it is with out bringing in a totally new concept.

Tactically, in a pub you're going to get mass carnage, I'd rather stopping power over making people think too much. You need split-second decisions, not second by second decisions. How many scouts make a plan before going in?

Just about none that I know of unless they know the base hasn't changed since their last run through. The smart engineer would move his sentry if it isn't too much hassle after someone spots it. The smart solly would throw his nail grenade on the flag when the forward defenders spot the offense coming.

This is what I'm referring to. It's too dynamic to plan, so you need to make split-second decisions, or at least make a general outline of what you're going to do in the first few seconds of the run. Because those things change a lot. The average gamer (which is the 15 year old if that's the base you're trying to get) won't remember these things, they don't have that thinking capacity. Hell the average adult fueled on adrenaline won't remember that unless they force themselves to.

You need to take those things into account if you're going to play the design card. The way you're arguing it sounds like it's a single-man offense, not a team with them. When dealing with a team I would rather stopping power over design perspective. This is what I'm trying to get at.

I think it'd be hard to argue that the nail grenade influenced any of these decisions, except maybe by providing a singular, one-time choice: to go through the nail gren or to wait it out; this lack of depth/interactivity is only magnified by the fact that nail grens were just as effective if the soldier was close to them or not, usually leading to a lack of any interactivity at all (toss them at a high traffic area and hope they get you a kill).

I just did. The main tool the nail gren was is to soften up the players so the rest of the team or the solly himself can make an easy kill or at least slow them down a little. That's the argument I'm making.

Give me one scenario where the laser grenade out-preforms the nail gren in terms of stopping power and making it more difficult for the offense.

Also, just because something is more effective, it doesn't mean it's better for the game. Arguing from that point of view, you'd need to show why the grenade needs the ability to clear a "room" and not just an "area" and why the grenade would be better if the damage couldn't be dodged, both from a balance point of view (effectiveness) and a design point of view (fun, interactivity, frustration, etc).

Balance is better than design. Design the mod where players need to work together to achieve a goal, not a singular player doing it on his own. The game this mod is based off of is Team Fortress is it not? That is what I'm pointing out. Scuzzy and the other retired developer staff may have seen it from a different prospective, but that's how I see it. You're not a one-man army, you're working with a team, design around that.

Edit: also the nail gren can be dodged. Jump over it with a conc, or increase the height so players can duck. Or decrease it to allow players to jump+duck over if you want players to think.

Edit#2: Presenting a situation to further clarify what I'm getting across:
You have a team of four players on offense: a medic, a pyro, a scout, and a solly.

You have 6 defenders:
a demo, 2 engineers, 2 sollys, and a heavy.

The solly and heavy on defense spots the scout, pyro, and medic running in as the solly climbs in through a window ahead of the other 3. the demo's guarding the button or flag, and the engineers have their sentries setup in strategic positions.

The solly on offense tries eliminate the sentries, he only manages to get one before dying. While the pyro tanks for the medic and scout, taking down the demo, heavy and solly, the pyro ultimately dies, but not with out his team going and deactivating the security as the defense softened up them slightly. The two heavier classes die not long after the other two and head for the flag immediately after respawning.



The engineer that lost his gun rebuilds it as quickly as possible, the remaining offense hits the flag, the other solly tosses a laser gren at it, killing the scout, and hurting the medic. The medic is eliminated by the heavy not long after. The process repeats till one of the offensive players gets the flag. The nail gren would've detonated not long after the scout died, so that being said, if the medic was right next to it, it would've killed him instead of softening him up.

The nail grenade is far superior in that aspect in my opinion. due to the stopping power.

[Agent Buckshot Moose]

Only two public servers have decided to change the game. That's not a lot when the total number of servers is concerned. It is a lot for the total number of servers that people actually play on. It's basically impossible to play FF 2.43 on the public servers because neither of the two main public servers actually have FF 2.43. They have their own weird bastard version somewhere between 2.41 and 2.43.

[AfterShock]

Yes, the laser nade is less powerful than the nail gren. The soldier was nerfed. So what? A replacement grenade doesn't need to match the power of what it replaces.

We also nerfed the explosion radius of the soldier's RPG. We also nerfed demo blue spam, and the jumppad. and buffed the engineer and the HW.... and lots of other stuff.

The nail gren sucked as a game mechanic, because everyone used them as pure spam. People didn't use them in combat, they just spammed them somewhere in the hope of getting a lucky kill when it explodes as the enemy rounds the corner. Squeek describes this in a more eloquent way

That said, the laser gren needs a buff. And will receive it next patch. /thread?