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GeekNights 071009 - Team Fortress 2: Final Thoughts
Tonight on GeekNights, we say our piece about Team Fortress 2 and be done with it. In the news, Rym has a GeekBite, and Crysis.
Scott’s Thing - The Renaissance is nice, but Rome still stands
Rym’s Thing - Black Scottish Cyclops OR Father Frags Best
Scott’s Thing - The Renaissance is nice, but Rome still stands
Rym’s Thing - Black Scottish Cyclops OR Father Frags Best
Comments
First off, Scott. You say "That's one things that's really hurting pc gaming in the US"... But PC gaming is pretty much equal all over the world, 99% of main stream games get released all over the world (apart from Australia who seem to get everything 3 months after everyone else) So doesn't it effect all pc gaming?
Regarding Team Fortress 2, you both came off rather cock sure of yourselves, to the point where you pretty much said, when ever you join a server, your team will win. Now I am 100% sure you are above the average skill level of most gamers on TF2, but you must either play on the n00bies of n00b servers, practically empty servers, or you are both clones of Fatal1ty.
I agree with sudden death being rather badly done in capture the point maps. Most times when it comes to sudden death its either because of 1 of 2 things. Either both teams are perfectly evenly matched, neither can make head way and its a constant battle for a single point. In that case Sudden death solves nothing as it turns into a camping match between engineers, as neither will leave their SG's.
The alternative is that for Capture Points matches, one team will push the other all the way back to the last point but will be unable to take that last point because of overwhelming defence but the defenders cant push forward. After this, sudden death wont tell you who is the better team, its just a frag fest. In most peoples opinions the team that pushed back the other team are better, its just the game mechanics + the skill level of everyone on the server has produced an un-ending game.
I haven't listened to the episode yet, but I have found that it really comes down to whether people are using voice chat at all. If they are, they usually win, if they don't they lose because there is no organized effort.
Oh, and no, I didn't expect anything else :P Maybe just not as straight out statement saying when you join a map your team wins because of you.
Regarding Team Fortress 2, you both came off rather cock sure of yourselves, to the point where you pretty much said, when ever you join a server, your team will win. Now I am 100% sure you are above the average skill level of most gamers on TF2, but you must either play on the n00bies of n00b servers, practically empty servers, or you are both clones of Fatal1ty.
Fatal1ty wouldn't be much better than most any random player in TF2: his skills are useless there.
The problem is simple: the game is so distilled that there is not room for a gradient of skill. A poor player is worse than a good player, and a good player is worse than a great player, but there is no such thing as a player greater than a great player. The skill caps out. There are no subtle differences in play at the high level. Once you get to the point where everyone on a team attains that largely maximal level of skill, then the only determining factors in victory are the broad tactical decisions of the team and the same of the oponent's team. It becomes an offense/defense rock/paper/scissors situation.
Compared to MegaTF or Weapons Factory, this game is trivial to be good at. That's probably its greatest strength, but it also causes problems.
As for n00bs, most of the players in the game are almost totally ineffectual. Basic things like shooting at possible spies or not building a turret in the open elude them. Enemy snipers take more than a second to lock on to a headshot. Pyros rush the midfield. Medics, if they even know they can ubercharge in the first place, blow their wad prematurely at the first sign of trouble. Entire teams leave their flags undefended. Good players are rare.
I'm probably lucky, I found a nice 32 man server that is full of pretty good players, and has become well known for it. Wait times to log on are up to 10 to 15 minuets at times, so I simply go play on random servers, hit ` click to play on a server I know is good and select "auto join me when a space is available" and then just play on until I switch. (in fact most servers I randomly pick have a nice mix of decent and not so decent players)
I think you may need to do the same, find a nice server that you like which has a nice map rotation, decent ping, and most importantly, a good set of semi-regular players that have "skill"
The US market is so much larger than most other markets that most companies care about it and only it. The US and certain parts of Southeast Asia account for the vast majority of the money in gaming, so all of the effort is there. A game that sells well there sold well. A game that doesn't sell well there, even if it was a smash hit in Australia, Germany, Finland, and Mexico, won't make a dime.
I found a nice 32 man server that is full of pretty good players,The 32 man game is so broken I could cry. With that many players, skill matters even less than it does with 24.
And as for "having bad experiences". We've both been playing the game since the beta started. We've played it a lot. On a lot of different servers. It's not a case of bad experiences. Our opinion of the game has nothing to do with the people playing. They are things we have observed in the game itself.
Oh, how I want this. I want the massive maps of old. I want my little dude to feel insignificant before the architecture.
Give it time, The HL2 community will bring out some nice maps yet
Is map building anything like building wad files for Doom where you draw lines and such via a GUI or is it something where you make a contour map and then drop pre-designed buildings all over the place? Or something in between?
I can think of some amazing tactical comabt simulations I took part in while in the military with concrete buildings, sewers and the like that I could convert to a TF2 map.
Is there any way to create a tunnel or other structure so that only certain classes can fit? Is the heavy considered a large character and not allowed to go into small places? Or are all character considered to take up the same amount of space in game?
I have no doubt I lack the skill to create polished maps but I'm sure I could cobble together some very playable (yet ugly) maps.
Sewers would be great but I can see an Engineer just putting some sort of sentry cannon there to guard it. Such a bottleneck would go mostly unused because of that. If you had a tunnel system that was exit only into some rooms (exit set high on wall so no one can enter it) that might make for interesting game play.
Can scenery be destroyed in game? Can you blow up a wall or remove a grill that blocks access to an area? How interactive is the map?
I think the best way to incorporate meaningful changes to the map during gameplay is the way Natural Selection handles the weld points. There are weld points that require someone to actually do work to them in order to activate them. Once activated they change the map in some permanent way. They might lock a vent shut, open a new tunnel, etc. It takes time and work to get the weld points set, so people will always be able to fight if they don't want a certain map change to happen, e.g: if you were going to burst open the back door to their flag.
Counter-Strike is a better game to have breakable glass, vents, etc. because there is no respawning. Games are quick, and the map resets every round. In a respawning game with no map resets, destructible environments are just flash.
As for the grate, could you make it work like a semi-transparent door? At first glance you might think it was a permanent structure but from the other side it could be pushed open. Such a map would be awesome for the first few plays as you discovered where all of the secrets are but would become old hat after a time.
The environments don't get destroyed like they do in Red Faction, but there are movable portions of the map, namely doors. As far as grills or access panels, it probably depends on the precise reaction you expect from it. I imagine that you could do anything that the source engine can handle (see Half-Life 2 for details).
For example, there would be a switch in the floor of one part of your base. As long as someone was standing on that spot, a door opened from a different part of the base that led to a ventilation shaft DIRECTLY ABOVE THE FLAG. This led to all sorts of fun.
All of those features would not need to be used to fight effectively on that map but they would allow for faster/safer movement across the map if the proper amount of teamwork was achieved.
http://fetalgrindings.com/leyendecker