What happened to the engineer!?

[splurbp]

Hey I haven't played in a long time but i tried out 2.1 this weekend. It's pretty cool, like all the eyecandy, but

WTF HAPPENED TO THE ENGINEER???

Seriously, his sg is so weak now. I thought it was kinda weak in 2.0, but now its a nightmare. I can't keep my sg up no matter what now, it needs Viagra or something. Engy is my favorite class, but now there's no point. Look at what happened in the games I played:

HWGUY just walks right up to my gun and overpowers it. wtf?

DEMOMAN can fly right in and drop pipes and mirvs, it doesn't push them back or anything

MEDICS would fly in and throw a grenade and take it out with sng. Seriously, a MEDIC

SPIES can go invisible now AND not get shot, like they needed more help taking out sg's

SOLDIERS dance ALL OVER my ass. In every way possible. There's just nothing I can do.

Am I missing something? Does the sg have a forcefield I need to activate now? I can bang on it with my wrench, but it doesn't do me any good. I can't keep the enemy away, and anyone (and I mean any ONE) can overpower me and my gun. Why is 2.1 dicking over engineers?


To the devs:
I don't mean any disrespect, but what happened? The engineer already needed a boost and instead you're kicking him while he's down. You're focusing on the WRONG THINGS. Having more cells and a faster build time doesn't mean anything if anyone can stomp his sg! Sorry I'm complaining so much, but you've ruined him! Come on, you guys are better than this! Devs, please please PLEASE fix the engy!!

[Ihmhi]

Don't apologize for voicing your concerns. You possess the ability to bring up an issue with the game without acting like a complete jackass, so you've already earned yourself some points in that respect.

As for the issue at hand, the general design decision was to make the SG a bit weaker but allow it to be rebuilt much faster to compensate. Dispensers, for instance, start pre-loaded with some ammo and generate ammo twice as fast. Overcharging your railgun also generates cells - so this makes the Engineer more versatile in that he can build in places even where there are few or no bags (or places where bags are unreasonably far away - maps like Dustbowl and whatnot).

The best common tactic for building a SG is currently:

1) Build Level 1 SG.
2) Overcharge your railgun to get 40 cells, and build a dispenser.
3) Grab a bag to get more cells OR overcharge your railgun a few times to get more cells - whichever is more convenient.
4) Use newly acquired cells to upgrade SG to Level 2.
5) By this time, the Dispenser should have enough cells in it to upgrade to Level 3.

Compared to previous versions of FF, you can get a SG up ridiculously fast. The fact that the build time has been reduced from 5 seconds to 3 seconds also helps this fact. Please give these tactics a try and see if they work to your satisfaction.

As for whether the Engineer can be judged to be weaker or stronger, well... that's really a game balance issue. In some ways he's weaker, and some ways he's now stronger. One thing is for sure, though - he's a Hell of a lot more versatile than he was in previous patches.

Even so, I can understand your complaints. However, it's very, very difficult to balance a game even with a team of dedicated beta testers. Some of our guys are tweaking values, testing new maps, etc. every night. The beta and dev forums are ripe with conversations and ideas as to how to improve the game. Sometimes we really won't know how a new feature or change will play out until it's out in the wild and has been tested by hundreds/thousands of players in pub and league play.

Honestly, our two main goals at the moment are:

1) Conversion to the OB engine.
2) Shoring up the weak points in the game.

As bad as the Engy may seem now, there are areas that require more immediate attention.

Suffice to say, I understand where you're coming from and we always listen to input from our playerbase. Thanks for your comments and feel free to ask any questions - the community will be glad to discuss the issues with you.

[v3rtigo]

I think I like the more slow, but more powerful SG more. Feels more of an accomplish when built and destroyed.

[GeoKill----->]

This is how I do it

1) Build Disperser first
2) get cells from dispenser to build an sg
3)Overcharged or get bag for lv2
4)Dispenser should have enough for lv 3 by the time you get to it

Most of the time I hide my dispenser, cause you really need it for cells in maps with not enough bags around. The thing is, the SG is now a last line of defense which is a problem in pub play since Offense players sometimes does not find a first line of defense such as a soldier or a hw. In clanstyle it works perfectly with a good first line defense. You really need your team to help you out from the enemy trying to take it down. If it does go down, by the time the enemy goes back to the flagroom, you already have a lv2 sg or even a lv 3, depends on the map. Sure now in avd maps you don't really see sg's in the front like in tfc, you seem em in the back now, which isn't a bad thing anyways. So far I think the sg fine the way it is, and with the few changes in 2.2 its going to be even better.

[squeek.]

We need to start recording pickups and release some videos of effective engis.

[Rawh]

Engineer is a great class to use in O though.
You can easilly kill the enemy SG with your emp or harass the D players of the other teams in the same way. In a way even your supershotgun seems to do a lot more of dmg, it's no longer the pumpgun it was before

As to that, you might use your dispenser in a different light as well.
If you build one on key chokepoints (or near the flag at SD2) you can use it's detonating force to kill anyone who gets to close near the flag (after someone destroyed your SG for example).
Next to that I often build it myself after putting a lvl1 sg down. Building a disp costs 100 cells, after building you can get around 30 cells back, resulting in 130 cells, enough to upgrade the lvl1 sg to lvl2.
Pickup some bags afterwards and hit your sg for some ammo upgrade, afterwards the disp should have some cells 'n stuff again to further the supply / upgrades.

The dispenser does quite a lot of explosion force if you can build it while having 200 cells and then hitting it for 3 times with your spanner.
If I remember correctly you can kill a full hp/armr medic with it that way

And ofc there's always my favorite of whacking a mole with a spanner! (daily reward for hlstatx regarding kills with the spanner, especially simple when a spy tries to sabotage your SG )

[splurbp]

Guys, thanks for listening, but you sound like you're missing the point. A bunch of you are talking about different ways to get the sg up as fast as possible. To me it doesn't matter if it takes 3 seconds or 10. If any attacker can come into the base and take out a lvl 3 sg and it doesn't kill him, what's the point of having it? I'm not asking how to get a sentry up fast. I'm asking HOW DO I KEEP IT ALIVE??? All this versatility doesn't matter if it dies anywhere I put it AND it doesn't kill the attacker.

You say fixing this isn't a priority because you have better stuff to work on. That really sucks cuz this is my favorite class. If it's so hard to test it, could you at least turn it back to the 2.0 values? They weren't perfect, but at least the engineers had a CHANCE.

[Ihmhi]

I'm sorry if this was phrased improperly, but I never stated that it wasn't a priority. Having the game properly balanced is certainly one of our highest priorities. Even so, there are more pressing matters - fundamental flaws with the game, as it were - that need to be handled.

A discussion about the Engineer has been underway for the last couple of weeks between the devs. It's very difficult to strike the right balance.

The HW had been severely crippled in previous patches, and we certainly heard about it from many people. While yours isn't the first complaint we've heard about the Engineer, we certainly haven't had anything on the level of the complaints about the clearly broken HW. That leads me and many other devs to believe that while the Engineer may not be perfect he is sufficiently balanced at the current time.

If you have suggestions to offer, then please go ahead and make them. But I should tell you that we've had a lot of very, very good suggestions from the Ideas & Suggestions Forums and our Beta Testers that sounded good on paper and worked out poorly in gameplay.

It's a complex problem and we won't be able to deal with it quickly. In the meantime, please just try to stick it out and get a handle on the nuances of the 2.1 Engineer. Thanks.

[KubeDawg]

I understand where you're coming from splurbp. I've heard numerous complaints about the new SG in 2.1. And even though I think the SG push change was necessary, I also think trying to compensate shorter build time for a weaker SG is a bad idea. The damage a SG inflicts now hinders it's ability to be effective in a lot of situations. I'm pretty sure most know how to use a SG, and I don't think it becomes more of a 'skill' to keep one up with it's new features.

Build a dispenser, charge your railgun, these things take time to do, and by the time your dispenser charges or railgun charges, you could get to your spawn, grab full cells, and be back to your SG and level it up before you could with a dispenser or railgun charge in most cases. Yes, these things can be useful, but it's not useful enough for me to change my habits when upgrading/building an SG.

Building a SG is definitely the first thing to build(70 cells left), and what I usually do is throw down the 4 extra packs I have, grab full cells from my spawn, upgrade my SG(70 cells left), grab my 4 packs I threw down(70 + 70 = 140), upgrade to level 3, and then I can grab a nearby pack or head back to my spawn and start building a dispenser from there.

Or build a level 2 and then build a dispenser, that way you have at least some firepower while building your dispenser.

The only time the railgun is useful is for when you are nowhere near your spawn. And often times, a dispenser takes care of that for you, coupled with nearby packs.

By me explaining all this, I'm sure some are like, well we already know this. The same thing applies to the rest of y'alls replies to the original poster. Most people KNOW how to build and keep a SG up. It's just more weak now and that's something difficult for most people to deal with. It's still possible to keep one's SG up, but it's become increasingly more difficult to do so.

I'd much rather have a slower build time, and no overcharge for the railgun for a more powerful SG any day.

[Ronzui]

Here we have a perfect example of our player base being expanded only to be totally turned of by the game cuz devs decided to turn the engy into the engy that works in clan matches with three players supporting him. Its fun when you have a lot of support, but thats not the way in pubs. Why didnt someone have the foresight to see this? Peeps that exclusively play in clans should have to adapt to the game that the pubbers play cuz thats where your player base develops, not the other way around...Nobody starts playing FF then in two weeks joins a clan...For the new person engy blows cuz you get owned and made a fool of 80% of the time. Hey heres an idea just put it back to 2.0 standards and let it be till OB time comes around. I know Ill be happy. Spies and peeps wont be capping as much but they will have to deal with it like they were before 2.1....Yes the HW is crap but not as crappy as it was...and I figured devs have such a distaste for any class that isnt O, that complaints about the HW would fall on deaf ears...my suggestions for HW? Faster spin up time for AC, and no slowdown when firing, cuz the Demo just owns a HW because hes basically standing still. Im cutting this short cuz maybe Im rambling, but you have to cater to the pubbers first to expand our player base...Thnx Ron

[Nuk3m]

Originally Posted by splurbp

Hey I haven't played in a long time but i tried out 2.1 this weekend. It's pretty cool, like all the eyecandy, but

WTF HAPPENED TO THE ENGINEER???

Seriously, his sg is so weak now. I thought it was kinda weak in 2.0, but now its a nightmare. I can't keep my sg up no matter what now, it needs Viagra or something. Engy is my favorite class, but now there's no point. Look at what happened in the games I played:

HWGUY just walks right up to my gun and overpowers it. wtf?

DEMOMAN can fly right in and drop pipes and mirvs, it doesn't push them back or anything

MEDICS would fly in and throw a grenade and take it out with sng. Seriously, a MEDIC

SPIES can go invisible now AND not get shot, like they needed more help taking out sg's

SOLDIERS dance ALL OVER my ass. In every way possible. There's just nothing I can do.

Am I missing something? Does the sg have a forcefield I need to activate now? I can bang on it with my wrench, but it doesn't do me any good. I can't keep the enemy away, and anyone (and I mean any ONE) can overpower me and my gun. Why is 2.1 dicking over engineers?


To the devs:
I don't mean any disrespect, but what happened? The engineer already needed a boost and instead you're kicking him while he's down. You're focusing on the WRONG THINGS. Having more cells and a faster build time doesn't mean anything if anyone can stomp his sg! Sorry I'm complaining so much, but you've ruined him! Come on, you guys are better than this! Devs, please please PLEASE fix the engy!!

I said the same thing in beta, pre-release, don't expect people to listen tho, too much ignorance on the topic of the sg. let it be known we all conformed, or just went along cause they liked the person who came up with the idea.

just because it works in theory doesnt mean it works in real time, which is why i think this whole 2.1 mechanic is highly flawed. it looks good on paper, but really sucks in game. people like to defend their ideas no matter how bad, "We need to start recording pickups and release some videos of effective engis. "
which is why u got all these inredibly linear and similar responses, "this is how I do it" remarks.

[Desyphur]

Originally Posted by Nuk3m

I said the same thing in beta, pre-release, don't expect people to listen tho, too much ignorance on the topic of the sg. let it be known we all conformed, or just went along cause they liked the person who came up with the idea.

There's already been enough talk of fixing it :P

[chilledsanity]

splurbp: Yeah it's a mess right now. I agree with most of what you've said, I just don't know what to tell you. The FF community seems pretty divided on it and it seems to be spiraling in a worse direction for pubbers like myself.

Ihmi: You haven't had as many complaints as you received for hwguy, just how many does it take? There's a dozen or two in other threads like this citing similar complaints. The only reason you haven't gotten as many is because the hwguy affected EVERYONE. Engineers still work in clan matches because people watch their back. However the consensus seems to be that he's a joke in pubs. If you honestly think it's "sufficiently balanced", I think you might be a little out of touch with just how easy it is to dominate sg's now in a pub environment. I've stopped playing engineer altogether now in 2.1 and defense isn't fun anymore for me in AvD, because it's stacked heavily against it.

Also I think it's hardly a question of loss/gain. I mean lets look at the list:

+faster rate of fire
-less bullet damage
-less health
-WAY less push

The rate of fire and bullet damage cancel each other out since they're meant to balance each other. So you have 2 drawbacks against the 2.0 one. Plus pyros, snipers, hwguy, and spies, and demos (longer range) all got a boost. The build times and cell regeneration are kind of irrelevant, because they don't affect damage or area control, just recovery time. So those are nice perks, but they should in no way be intended as something to "balance" such a loss, something I said before 2.1 was released.

Kubedawg: See I think the problem is that if you get rid of the push, the gun needs a LOT to compensate, but instead it was weakened even more.

Nuk3m: So are we basically screwed then?

Desyphur: If it's been discussed too much already, what's the solution? I don't think "leaving it alone" counts.

To everybody: Splurbp has a good question. Can we simply rollback the sg values back to 2.0? I mean they leave something to be desired, but it's better than slowly alienating the pubber base.

[CaLeB-]

Balanced or not guys, there's always going to be players bitching to the developers, taking the advantage that they actually listen to their community. This is what annoys me. We all have a different skill in gameplay, so we all have our own unique opinion on an issue.

Me for example: I do believe the sg is slightly underpowered this patch, but in most situations it'll kick your ass anyway. Reminder that during pubbing, it's not exactly a 1v1. Usually the SG is in their own base. So if I'm going offense, I'm not exactly going to have an even match. I'm probably going to be damaged by other enemies on top of my effort of destroying a sentry gun, being a soldier in this situation.

But then again, when you think about it the other way around, there are times when there is a heavy offense coming after your small defense. This gives you a hard time keeping your sentry up.

What does this bring the problem to? Team-cooperation, teamwork. When I'm going around as a defensive soldier and see a friendly engineer dealing with the enemy whose trying to destroy his sentry, I help out. I hop my ass to that wall or room the enemy is in, and I kill him before he could finish off my engineer's sentry gun.

Gameplay is never the same; every match is unique. There will be times your defense is strong, other times weak. Having this a 50/50 chance, wanting to strengthen the sentry gun will increase odds of your sg living no matter what gameplay situation it is, and that's not right.

The solution? Deal with it. Gameplay values won't always go your way. Because if it was a true 1v1 out in the open, your sentry gun has a good chance of annihilating the enemy. If it's in base and they're taking single shots and hiding behind a wall, it's called strategy. They have one, so where's yours, other than the strategy of complaining on the forums trying to have it your way?

[splurbp]

Originally Posted by CaLeB-

Balanced or not guys, there's always going to be players bitching to the developers, taking the advantage that they actually listen to their community. This is what annoys me. We all have a different skill in gameplay, so we all have our own unique opinion on an issue.

Me for example: I do believe the sg is slightly underpowered this patch, but in most situations it'll kick your ass anyway. Reminder that during pubbing, it's not exactly a 1v1. Usually the SG is in their own base. So if I'm going offense, I'm not exactly going to have an even match. I'm probably going to be damaged by other enemies on top of my effort of destroying a sentry gun, being a soldier in this situation.

But then again, when you think about it the other way around, there are times when there is a heavy offense coming after your small defense. This gives you a hard time keeping your sentry up.

What does this bring the problem to? Team-cooperation, teamwork. When I'm going around as a defensive soldier and see a friendly engineer dealing with the enemy whose trying to destroy his sentry, I help out. I hop my ass to that wall or room the enemy is in, and I kill him before he could finish off my engineer's sentry gun.

Gameplay is never the same; every match is unique. There will be times your defense is strong, other times weak. Having this a 50/50 chance, wanting to strengthen the sentry gun will increase odds of your sg living no matter what gameplay situation it is, and that's not right.

The solution? Deal with it. Gameplay values won't always go your way. Because if it was a true 1v1 out in the open, your sentry gun has a good chance of annihilating the enemy. If it's in base and they're taking single shots and hiding behind a wall, it's called strategy. They have one, so where's yours, other than the strategy of complaining on the forums trying to have it your way?

I don't think you know what you're talking about. I played at least 20 games of it this weekend and it was the same story every time: Anything stronger than a scout gets inside the base, and my sg goes down. Soldiers especially, they took out mine and everyone else's sg every time. The only time they didn't was when a hwguy was shooting them, but that only happened a few times. So yeah, I'd love some of those 50/50 odds you're talking about. Right now it's more like 10/90 from what I saw.

[CaLeB-]

Originally Posted by splurbp

I don't think you know what you're talking about. I played at least 20 games of it this weekend and it was the same story every time: Anything stronger than a scout gets inside the base, and my sg goes down. Soldiers especially, they took out mine and everyone else's sg every time. The only time they didn't was when a hwguy was shooting them, but that only happened a few times. So yeah, I'd love some of those 50/50 odds you're talking about. Right now it's more like 10/90 from what I saw.

Because if it was a true 1v1 out in the open, your sentry gun has a good chance of annihilating the enemy. If it's in base and they're taking single shots and hiding behind a wall, it's called strategy. They have one, so where's yours, other than the strategy of complaining on the forums trying to have it your way?

[splurbp]

Originally Posted by CaLeB-

Because if it was a true 1v1 out in the open, your sentry gun has a good chance of annihilating the enemy. If it's in base and they're taking single shots and hiding behind a wall, it's called strategy. They have one, so where's yours, other than the strategy of complaining on the forums trying to have it your way?

Yeah that's what I mean. You're saying 1v1 the sg wins, WRONG. Maybe against scouts and some medics but everybody else just stomps its ass. I'm not talking about people with strategy, I'm talking about people just fucking running up to it and killing. You want my strategy? I hit it with a wrench and try to build where I have some cover, doesn't do me a damn bit of good now. I can't attack back because then it goes down. If I repair it, then it goes down anyway and takes me with it.

And if you're saying I'm complaining on the forums because I can't play, that's bullshit. I've played TFC and could keep my sg up, I've played TF2 and can keep it up. But FF it's a floppy noodle and it looks like I'm not the only who thinks so. If you're saying my strategy sucks, then what's your great strategy for keeping it up?

[Crazycarl]

We are working on the problem, but anything we do requires a lot of discussion and a lot of testing. Weakening the sg and balancing with building speed is a bad idea, I think, because it not all maps are equal in terms of the bags that are available. If you balance for one map (or game type) you can create problems in others.

The best way to keep a sg alive is to get someone to run interference--or do it yourself. Most players can't fend off an attack and kill the sg at the same time. In my opinion it is perfectly acceptable for one player to be able to kill a sg one-on-one in most situations, because the engie has other weapons at his disposal. And multiple engies working together multiply their strength.

[GeoKill----->]

To Keep the SG alive you need a First Line of Defense, that is it. Get your team to help you out, and that is pretty much it. SG is fine

[KubeDawg]

Originally Posted by GeoKill----->

To Keep the SG alive you need a First Line of Defense, that is it. Get your team to help you out, and that is pretty much it. SG is fine

That's easy for you to say. While I'm going to get packs, my teammate who's a soldier is over there pickin flowers or talking about hot asian women, and the demoman is trying to figure out if what the maximum number of pipes is, or staring out the window on aardvark, yelling at those damned snipers. I don't think my SG stands a chance without me on a pub.