Does anyone else think that unique class roles are being slowly diminished? - Games

When Team Fortress 2 was released, each class had a specific, unique role. Scout was for running around and harassing Medics and Snipers, and for capturing Control Points and the Intelligence. Pyros could be trusted to spycheck everyone, and to ambush lots of enemies at once, causing mass panic. Snipers were for picking off key targets from a distance, and Spies were for picking off slower classes, destroying Sentry nests, and causing general paranoia. You know the rest of the original roles of the classes already, so I won't bore you by listed them all, but compare those older abilities to what we have now: The scout's only unique ability left is his double jump. Demoman can run real fast with the Targelander combo, Soldiers can run fast with the Equaliser (albeit with much less health), both the Soldier and the Demo can capture Control Points faster with the Pain Train. Engineers can also surprise-attack medics and the like by quickly plopping down minisentries. The Soldier shared his unique ability with the Demoman from the very beginning, namely, explosive jumping. Now the Engineer and Pyro can do this as well. The Pyro's unique ability was to kill people from beyond the grave with an attack that kept dealing damage over time, you know this to be afterburn. However, now the Sniper and the Engineer have a similar ability, in the form of bleeding. To add insult to injury, the bleed effect is much more pronounced than afterburn (compare the entire screen turning red and liquid-y with gentle flames at the edge of the screen, not to mention there are more ways to extinguish afterburn than stop bleeding). The Pyro was also meant to be a strictly close-range class, but now that the Demoman can inflict far more damage than the Pyro by using the Targelander/Targe+Skullcutter the Pyro has been displaced from this role. As I've already mentioned, the Demo's semi-unique ability to explosive jump has also been claimed by the Engineer and Pyro. However, Jarate is essentially a grenade that deals minicrit damage. The Heavy is a high damage-output, slow movement, high-health class. Now that the Engineer can take remote control of his sentry, he can essentially fill the role of a stationary Heavy. Now of course this was also the case when TF2 was first released, but now that the Sentry can spycheck and shoot enemies from an almost infinite range, it is essentially an overhealed Heavy (shield). The Engineer's role has changed somewhat due to the new update, and allows him to be more flexible. However his special abilities remain relatively uninfringed, save for the Sandvich, and even then he shared his healing ability with the Medic. Also the Pyro's Homewrecker can remove sappers better than the Wrench, which doesn't make any sense at all. Sure, the Pyro is an anti-Spy class, but removing sappers is the Engineer's domain. By the same logic you could introduce a Medic weapon that can heal Sentries. What was the Medic's role pre- any update? To heal people, build up Ubercharges, and extinghuish fire. Well now the Heavy can eat and give Sandviches, the Scout can create his own personal Ubercharge AND Kritz-charge with Bonk! and Crit-a-Cola (though both are nerfed versions (no damage output/decreased damage output/resistance)), the Pyro can extinguish flames with Airblast, as can Sniper with Jarate, the Demo with the Targe and the Spy with the Dead Ringer. The Soldier can even create a more diluted version of the Kritz-charge with the Buff Banner. The Sniper used to be the only class who could headshot people from a distance. Now this is not the case - the Spy can headshot with the Ambassador, and the Engineer can lay down massive firepower at long range with the Wrangler. The Spy is the only class so far that has kept his identity - disguises, cloaking and one-hit-kill-behind attributes have remained untouched. My fear is that with the Polycount update, we well see further homogenisation of the classes, and by the end of Team Fortress 2's life, there will be no real defining characteristics of the classes, because they will all be Jack-of-all-trades'. What are your thoughts on this?

I totally agree... ...well, sort of!

It's not that all classes can do their specific role and no one else can for a sniper could be a stealth class or a pyro can be an area denial class if you were so inclined, they exist because they do their role far better then any other class.

Don't like it? Go play the XBox version. :colbert: Valve wouldn't put these in if they unbalanced the game, and without them the game would have a much shorter lifespan as their characteristics will quickly get boring/ annoying. Be thankful that the TF2 people hasn't just made the game and left us to our own devices with no new and exciting updates like the majority of Valve games.

[QUOTE=Braaaaains;23562169]Don't like it? Go play the XBox version. :colbert: Valve wouldn't put these in if they unbalanced the game, and without them the game would have a much shorter lifespan as their characteristics will quickly get boring/ annoying. Be thankful that the TF2 people hasn't just made the game and left us to our own devices with no new and exciting updates like the majority of Valve games.[/QUOTE] I didn't say they weren't balanced. In fact I think that Valve has done an excellent job in balancing all of the new weapons. But just because the weapon is balanced it doesn't mean it's right for the class. The Pain Train is a prime example of this; it doesn't fit the class role at all - there wasn't any massive vulnerability inherent in the class that the weapon was meant to remedy (see: Razorback (spies), Bonk! (getting killed easily), Flaregun (long range), Frontier Justice (being defenseless when your sentry is destroyed), Hunstman (confined to long range) and so on).

I get what you are trying to say, but all the little changes have their offsets, sniping as a spy just does not work, the jarate replaces the SMG which is very useful, its all trade offs for trade offs. Even if another class can do the job of another class, it will usually not be as good as the other class.

[QUOTE=ThePunisher1;23562427]I get what you are trying to say, but all the little changes have their offsets, sniping as a spy just does not work, the jarate replaces the SMG which is very useful, its all trade offs for trade offs. Even if another class can do the job of another class, it will usually not be as good as the other class.[/QUOTE] Agreed. I'm just fearful that that Valve will run out of ideas for weapons with the Polycount pack and start borrowing abilities from other classes.

I sort of agree but I disagree about the rocket jumping bit, the engineer sentryjump is so impractical it's not even funny, you lose a lot of health and it's not like the engineer could gain much by doing it because the sentry is on the other side of the map, also pyro reflect jump is really quite situational since you can't demand rockets to jump with. Also the sentry has always been similar to a stationary heavy, they both fire continously from a set point, however in my opinion it's easier to take out sentries then heavies, since you can just shoot the engineer with a sniper/hunstman then maim the sentry while its inactive. One thing I do think though is that sniper has gotten far too good at CQC, with Hunstman, Jarate and Kukri you can effectively be a ninja at close range and molest anything at medium range with arrows. There best be something that brings back his original role because as fun as it may be, it isn't sniping.

[QUOTE=Someoneuduno;23562704]it's not like the engineer could gain much by doing it because the sentry is on the other side of the map[/QUOTE] If you time it right you can pick up the Sentry in the fraction of a second it takes for the rocket to hit you. It's extremely useful on RED at the first stage of Goldrush because you can fling yourself up into the left building before the round starts and completely lock down a key area for BLU when they try to assault stage 2. [editline]02:01PM[/editline] There's actually a script somewhere that does it automatically.

I agree, mainly I'm annoyed at a lot of the speed advantages people are getting and capture advantages (Pain Train and Eyelander) These should be traits of the Scout, now that people can capture at the same speed something feels at loss, Scout should also be the only class to get any speed buff weapons. Also portable sentries still pissed about that change, you don't just change some major part of the gameplay that has been the same for 2 years worth of TF2.

[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;23562059]The Spy is the only class so far that has kept his identity - disguises, cloaking and one-hit-kill-behind attributes have remained untouched.[/QUOTE] Does anyone else find this incredibly ironic and unnerving?

i agree. i think the classes have strayed too far away from their original designs.

[QUOTE=Drax-Quin;23562825]I agree, mainly I'm annoyed at a lot of the speed advantages people are getting and capture advantages (Pain Train and Eyelander) These should be traits of the Scout, now that people can capture at the same speed something feels at loss, Scout should also be the only class to get any speed buff weapons. Also portable sentries still pissed about that change, you don't just change some major part of the gameplay that has been the same for 2 years worth of TF2.[/QUOTE] Not to mention the fact that with the Targe/Eyelander/Skullcutter, the Demo is now a better closerange class than the fucking Pyro, when he is designed for explosive splash damage and area denial. [editline]02:07PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Sie-Sveinhund;23562838]Does anyone else find this incredibly ironic and unnerving?[/QUOTE] Yeah I thought that while typing it. I couldn't think of a decent pun for it though.

Oh no, all these free updates change things, How horrible!

[QUOTE=Drax-Quin;23562825]Scout should also be the only class to get any speed buff weapons.[/QUOTE] Bonk! really, REALLY should have a speed buff. [editline]02:10PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Man in the Moon;23562910]Oh no, all these free updates change things, How horrible![/QUOTE] If you're not going to give an actual argument you may as well leave. You could justify giving the scout a minigun that crits at long range by saying it was free. That doesn't mean it's good.

Even when the roles are slowly being demolished, all classes are still extremely situational though.

I do not see it as a bad thing since they are still diffrent and play diffrent.

[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;23562918]Bonk! really, REALLY should have a speed buff. [editline]02:10PM[/editline] If you're not going to give an actual argument you may as well leave. You could justify giving the scout a minigun that crits at long range by saying it was free. That doesn't mean it's good.[/QUOTE] every class still does what they were designed to to, Scoot still gets places faster than any other class, can still hassle medics and snipers, ect. Soldiers and demos still gib classes, The point of each class update is to change things up for each class, Which is what each update has done thus far.

I admit the lines got a bit blurred, but still no class plays the same as one of the others. The fact that each class now has different playstyles allows for more strategy, plus you'll have a bigger chance of finding a playstyle you really like.

They still do what they're designed to do obviously, but a lot of the classes are intermingling with traits of other classes, Engineer's for instance with the recent update have become more of an offensive class, and the Scout who was supposed to be the fastest to capture points has seen this lost to other classes (Pain Train), the Scout is supposed to be the fastest, yes, and he still is but Demomen etc shouldn't get speed buffs in fact no one should get speed buffs, you don't need new weapons that have to be speed buffs, there are other possible stats you can use that wouldn't cause this sort of class confliction. For instance a Targe demoman with a Pain Train can charge a last capture point at a speed which only the Scout should be able to do and capture it at that same speed, in a way it destroys the importance of needing certain class traits, now that X class can do this why do you need Y class to do it for you? Bleeding is also an unnedded inclusion ,the idea was to prevent spy mainly for engineer and sniper, but was that neccesary, really? I mean the high critical chance on both the Wrench and Kukri almost insure you get the kill half the time, even if they don't was it not possible to create a weapon for both Sniper and Engineer that would make it more effective against the spy or other such situations without applying a DOT effect that would conflict with the Pyro, who should be the ONLY class with a DOT effect, thats what gave him high importance. The fact is I don't mind updates, I don't mind weapons that change things up, in fact I love the idea, but like the OP mentions things like the Pain Train are uneccesary they don't fit the class at all and don't cover up any sort of vulnerability that class had that weapons like the pyro's Flaregun (long range) helped cover. The spy is the perfect example of someone who remains the same but has weapons that change up his play style and make him more fun to play. Why can't this be done for the other classes? I've said a lot about the demoman but look at the Demoman's Scottish Resistance it is a good example of a weapon that changes things up but doesn't cause this confliction

[QUOTE=Drax-Quin;23563106]They still do what they're designed to do obviously, but a lot of the classes are intermingling with traits of other classes, Engineer's for instance with the recent update have become more of an offensive class, and the Scout who was supposed to be the fastest to capture points has seen this lost to other classes (Pain Train), the Scout is supposed to be the fastest, yes, and he still is but Demomen etc shouldn't get speed buffs in fact no one should get speed buffs, you don't need new weapons that have to be speed buffs, there are other possible stats you can use that wouldn't cause this sort of class confliction. The fact is I don't mind updates, I don't mind weapons that change things up, in fact I love the idea, but like the OP mentions things like the Pain Train are uneccesary they don't fit the class at all and don't cover up any sort of vulnerability that class had that weapons like the pyro's Flaregun (long range) helped cover. The spy is the perfect example of someone who remains the same but has weapons that change up his play style and make him more fun to play.[/QUOTE] This is exactly what I'm saying, yes.

I think they're "merging" the classes too much. Like how the pyro can knock off sappers and how soldier and demoman can cap points as fast as a scout which pretty much ruins one of the scout's main advantages gameplay wise. I'm sure there are other things like that but I can't be bugged to think of them all.

Exactly this is the Scout's territory, he is the ONLY class that should capture at 2x the speed. If other classes can do this you reduce the importance of requiring a Scout on your team and in general limit the Scout's unique traits that seperate him from other classes.

I agree with you that Valve killed the Scout the only advantage he has now is Moving fast, and even that is shared with other classes.

It would be like if the Soldier got a new weapon that had a curved trajectory and bounced across the ground, with the downside that it doesn't explode on impact. Now that may be balanced, but it's basically the Demo's grenade launcher.

I don't think the Soldier causes much confliction with other classes, other than the God damn Pain Train which is for both Demo and Soldier (I seriously fail to understand the inclusion of that weapon, it's uneeded entirely). Though I fear some added effect with the new Polycount Weapons. Like I said I love the idea of new weapons as much as the next person but when they reduce the importance of other classes it's just not that exciting, It's actually much more exciting in fact when new weapons are more unique and original and dilute the uniqueness of their class, Look at the Spy's weapons ,the Dead Ringer for instance changes up gameplay but still remains true to the class, this sort of weapon is more original then weapons like the Pain Train could ever be, because the traits help the class fulfill it's specific goal, weapons that don't help the class fulfill there goal, just aren't as fun to use, mainly because there traits are uneeded, it's simple not fun using the Pain Train because all it does is give you more capture points which the Scout can already do, sure it'll help your team but it's very boring to use. [B]tl;dr[/B] So it's simple weapons like these are [B]A) [/B]Unnedded (Pain Train, why?) [B]B)[/B] Not as fun (Tribalman's Shiv isn't exciting because there's no unique or original attribute to it, it plays on another class trait) [B]C) [/B]Cross class boundries

Unlocks shouldn't have been taken into the game in the first place. Well medics were fine, but that was the first update. Then they became shittier with every update.

Like I said I don't mind unlocks, without them the game would have gotten repititive very fast, the update helped change things up for the better, but for the worst in numerous other ways. There's no denying that you can still have class unlocks without crossing class boundries such as the Spy's unlockables.

[QUOTE=Kentz;23563378]Unlocks shouldn't have been taken into the game in the first place. Well medics were fine, but that was the first update. Then they became shittier with every update.[/QUOTE] Medic, Pyro and Spy updates were the best in terms of them still remaining true to the spirit of the class. Sniper, Demo and Scout were the worst. [editline]02:52PM[/editline] Although what they've done to the Pyro lately is awful.

Now, would you say that the scout's speed would help him in a 32 player or even 24 player, say Dustbowl or gravel pit server with sentry guns and shit? I don't think so. I believe the pain train was included so that it would give the greater capturing speed to more robust classes like the soldier and demo who are more capable of dealing with sentries and a more populated server, where the scout's weaknesses would make him very difficult to play.