Skill Maps scare new players away from the game

[Bakez]

I was just on a conc map and there were 5 new players the first jump shooting eachother and asking what the fuck was going on. It was even worse on the next map when there were separate teams so they literally were trying to kill eachother.

As you can see, FF is not ready for skill servers when there is nothing to tell players what to do.

[Sh4x]

Yeah but the dev team said they wanted to focus on fixing the bugs, balancing the game and making things running smooth for patch 2.0

Next patch is gonna be focused around getting new players to the game so it should be alot better for newbs next time.

Unfortunately it should have been newb friendly on the first release but what can you do.

[groovyf]

I'd say it's up to the map-makers to inform players what to do in a "Skillz" map.

[Ihmhi]

This is why I wanted someone to make a "newbie" skill map where it shows them the basics of stuff like concing. Simple texture signs like stuff in Portal, easy jumps that progressively move their way up to medium difficulty at the end. Then do the same for RJ and pipejump maps.

Originally Posted by Sh4x

Yeah but the dev team said they wanted to focus on fixing the bugs, balancing the game and making things running smooth for patch 2.0

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.

[squeek.]

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.

Not sure at which level you're talking about, but I'd say 2.0 struck a great balance between offense/defense. Get an organized defense and an organized offense on each team and try again.

Originally Posted by squeek.

Not sure at which level you're talking about, but I'd say 2.0 struck a great balance between offense/defense. Get an organized defense and an organized offense on each team and try again.

im playing on pubs and on most maps you need a hole organized def to keep only one skilled medic from getting the flag. I watched some pickups, off vs def on openfire, they had a good def and despite that the off capped >10 flags in less than 15mins ... maybe thats the sort of tf you like, but for sure not mine anymore.... sentries and pipetraps are far to weak.
On those pickups i used a clock to measure how long it takes a scout to get from respawn into enemy flagroom. It was less than 13s on openfire an another map, forgot which one, ... how long does it an engi take to build at least a lvl2 gun? demo keeps reloading all the time and cannot blow his trap when beeing busy laying it ... and he is busy all the time. Concs aro too strong, giving the boost AND concing the nearby enemy, the enemy more so than the concer himself. They should do either or, but no both at once...theres so much more that went into the wrong direction with 2.0 ...
I can understand the beta-team having fun with that jumppad, like you sometime have fun jerking on a server with zero-gravity ... but that should never have made it into a release for gods sake. Or that overpowered soldier ... just shoot nearby the enemy, the blowradius will care about the rest, and thanks to the jumppad in offense as well...
I love TF, i'd play it until that take me away in a wooden box ... but this FF2.0 one is definitely more frust than fun for me.

[פֿяαιп βαмαgεפ]

Originally Posted by kano

Half a rant

Are you playing the same game I am? Because from what I see 2.0 is pretty much very well balanced, dev_2fort had a red vs blue at about 120/130 points aardvark was about 100/90 etc.

So that looks pretty balanced to me? no?

[caesium]

Originally Posted by kano

im playing on pubs and on most maps you need a hole organized def to keep only one skilled medic from getting the flag.

i agree that on some maps if you've got relatively inexperienced players then you'd probably need a whole organised def to keep one skilled/experienced offy from getting the flag, but likewise one skilled/experienced defender could probably stop a whole organised offy from getting the flag. i think the point is that because "true TF (tm)" has been around for so long, and some ppl have wasted away their lives playing it lol (YAY ME), that some ppl are pretty good at it and so there's a huge difference between them and the majority of relatively inexperienced players.

as for the pickup you watched, you say it was "off vs def", so i'm assuming it was 4/4? remember that in more recent TFC clans would usually use 5def/3offy on openfire if they didn't want a cap race. given that FF is intentionally a little faster than TFC, this is obviously going to be even more so.

as for class balance, i think there are obviously a few tweaks needed still, especially with the jump pad which i agree isn't right yet. some say offy pwns, some say sol pwns, some say demo pwns, some sg pwns, some say the exact opposite of all that lol. i guess what i am saying is that imo for players of similar skill it's already finding a great balance, and so maybe you just need to give it a bit more time and pick one class and really get to know how to get the best out of that class on a few maps. i don't mean this to be a "stfu nub ur wrong" post, so sorry if it comes across a bit like that lol - just trying to answer your concerns cos i think they do have genuine answers. gl and hope you start loving it soon

btw are you suggesting that a handheld conc shouldn't conc any surrounding players (i.e. not make them dizzy and not push them at all)? that's actually a v interesting idea that might work btr for newer players with FF's awesome fast pace, and also give offy a reason for doing drop concs sometimes. i'll think about it and might suggest that.

BACK TO THE TOPIC!! skill maps should be clearly denoted as such in the name imo (e.g. ff_concmap_iamcow).

[פֿяαιп βαмαgεפ]

I NEVER play skillmaps, NEVER. I didn't in TFC and I'm not planning to do in FF.

/my 2 cents.

[mixer]

Originally Posted by פֿяαιп βαмαgεפ

Are you playing the same game I am? Because from what I see 2.0 is pretty much very well balanced, dev_2fort had a red vs blue at about 120/130 points aardvark was about 100/90 etc.

So that looks pretty balanced to me? no?

are you serious? 12/13 caps on 2fort_dev??? and that map is supposed to be defensive! ok, thank you, because thats the best proof that ff2.0 is a pure offense-party and nothing else.

[shadow]

is that really such a bad thing?
rather that than tf2s stalemates.

[פֿяαιп βαмαgεפ]

Originally Posted by mixer

are you serious? 12/13 caps on 2fort_dev??? and that map is supposed to be defensive! ok, thank you, because thats the best proof that ff2.0 is a pure offense-party and nothing else.

yeah, it was a hell of a lot of fun. I don't remember what server but there were quite a few people playing.

And it's not an offence party, believe me! If it was on offence party we could have had twice as much points! Besides, we played the map for 2 hours, forgot to mention that. (the admin kept pushing the maptime because we had so much fun, I LOVE OFFY HW on 2fort_dev)

[Dr.Uudge]

Originally Posted by פֿяαιп βαмαgεפ

Besides, we played the map for 2 hours, forgot to mention that.

LOL; details, details, who needs them?

really though, I hate the tf2 turtling; in order for there not to be turtling, you need medics to do the ubers, and often times, people would rather frag than go medic to uber people, which of course makes sense;

i mean who would want be like "yea i'll be your bitch so you can frag" when they can go solo as demo/soldier/sniper and do some fragging of their own...; it's why theres these threads over at steam forums popping up recurrently about how people need to play more medic, even though the OP would rather play another class, and only play medic when forced to;

keeping a strong O will keep a game flowing on pubs, whereas keeping a strong D only works during clan matches, where there aren't 11 vs 11 teams composed of all ranges of people of skill, objective orientation, etc; remember 1.1? where only 1 or 2 medics used to go O and the 9 other D players on each team would fight over whose kill that was? that's what O scarcity does;

[Dr.Satan]

I love skillz maps...but I agree that if there isn't someone to help them out then people who don't know what they are get very confused about things!

Best solution (asside from mapper explaining things) is for you to explain it. I will usually just kill myself and go back to the start to show them what to do. And if I'm on a harder map I'll usually change it to concmap_mc or something.

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

Originally Posted by Dr.Uudge

keeping a strong O will keep a game flowing on pubs, whereas keeping a strong D only works during clan matches,

thats one assumption and it may be wrong ... ff20 has an exceptionally strong O atm and the pubs arent really flowing imho ...

[Paft]

Is the first post really as dumb as it sounds? fs!


Mr.a: Heard of concing?
Mr.b: Umm yeah..
Mr.a: Well you conc through the map
Mr.b: whaaa?

Mr.b has been kicked and banned.

J/k.

Away with the elite attitude. It destroys the game. Many rules in clan gaming are ideological and not completely efficient.
For example: why 3 sols and 1 engi on most maps when other classes can be as efficient. Not quite rational if you aks me

[Paft]

I was being ironic.


Skill maps aren't official erm... and the style of play so ermmm.. you get me? No? Saying FF isn't ready for skill maps is the dumbest thing to say. The experienced talented ones are ready for skill maps in FF cause they've been doing it since TFC.


The clue is in the server title "skills server" and map names. Conc_****.

[TheWetMule]

You know, I find skills players a lot more helpful than the CTF clan rule style people, not only in skills do you get people basically walking through with you, they explain it, I've never seen a single person who was genuinely confused on a skills map get kicked and banned, where as someone who isn't sure of the rule/certain rules on clan gaming gets a kick pretty swiftly.

Skills map scare new, impatient players that would rather just shoot stuff than be told a server where shooting stuff is the aim of the map