TF2 Chat and Speculation V5 - Merry Skinssmas - Games

[QUOTE=TheBorealis;52982967]Kind of weird how the new flames are yellow/white, but the DF fireball is orange more like the old flames.[/QUOTE] it's not weird. it just obviously shows the timeline of valve's work. DF was in development for probably very very long. the new flames must be relatively recent.

[QUOTE=Dr.Scrake;52982838]So basically the gore system that Loadout had?[/QUOTE] Loadout had a lot of innovative ideas like that. Gore system, a CTF where the flagrunner was more of a threat that needed to be dealt with than a pointrunner fearing for their life, a lot of really interesting possible weapons, flair music added to taunts to give them an extra "oomph" (my personal favorite was the guitar wail on the thumbs up taunt and the bonus strumming when they turn the thumbs up into a masturbatory motion)... Shame that, like usual, games that seem like they'd beat TF2 end up being abused by their devs until they're stillborn.

[QUOTE=Rajikaru;52983010]Loadout had a lot of innovative ideas like that. Gore system, a CTF where the flagrunner was more of a threat that needed to be dealt with than a pointrunner fearing for their life, a lot of really interesting possible weapons, flair music added to taunts to give them an extra "oomph" (my personal favorite was the guitar wail on the thumbs up taunt and the bonus strumming when they turn the thumbs up into a masturbatory motion)... Shame that, like usual, games that seem like they'd beat TF2 end up being abused by their devs until they're stillborn.[/QUOTE] Yea, it's really interesting. Loadout, Battleborn, BRINK, EA Heroes are all dead, Paladins just got fucked up. All now that is left is Overwatch, and it's also slowly declining because of the lack of new permanent content.

So the Huo-Long was originally modeled more like a firework cannon, and Valve asked the makers to make it more like a gun, and this flamethrower was to be added instead if they couldn't finish the changes in time. [t]https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/632989385487194620/6B124CC57602E869F62381C303850A1F45535CB8/[/t] I think this would be a nice DF reskin. The old Huo-Long: [t]https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/2/27/Huo-Long_Heater_oldversion.png?t=20120804031727[/t] Also the Huo-Long was made by people on the emporium, there's links to the emporium on the wiki page for the Huo-Long.

[QUOTE=JugadorXEI;52982965]Apparently there are [URL="https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Tournament_Medal_-_PASS_Time_Tournament"]PASS Time tournament medals[/URL]. I wonder if PASS Time is actually fun to play in a competitive level enough to warrant their own competition and medals, but to be fair any competition or tournament nowadays is going to have a medal so I'm not surprised. [/QUOTE] There were announced plans by the development team (Escalation studios) to host/organize a PASS Time tournament, but it never took place as the team joined Zenimax/Bethesda and are no longer associated with Valve. It's likely that these medals were put into the game's files as rewards for the announced competition, but it never took place for the above reason. And the gamemode died down pretty fast after MyM as well. If they were awarded to participants of an actual tournement that did take place, feel free to correct me.

[QUOTE=Stric_Matic;52983037]If they were awarded to participants of an actual tournement that did take place, feel free to correct me.[/QUOTE] The wiki gives a [URL="https://battlefy.com/escalation-studios-passtime-tournament-season-1/passtime-tournament-season-1/57d5d1f3fb33921c0ceaa926/info?infoTab=details"]link to the tournament[/URL] that did take place, including a bracket, but sadly no VODs, that's why I was wondering about how PASS Time looked in a competitive level.

the best way to make ctf a viable gamemode in 6's is to just make the flag return on touch and add a time limit to every match, and whichever team has more flags by the end of the time limit wins

return on touch seems a bit too much, but I would like to see the return timer not reset if an enemy picks it up. (ie if a scout picks up the intel when its at around 2 seconds left, if he drops it from death, the timer will still be at 2 seconds).

[QUOTE=rolfum;52983091]the best way to make ctf a viable gamemode in 6's is to just make the flag return on touch and add a time limit to every match, and whichever team has more flags by the end of the time limit wins[/QUOTE] I believe they did that in one UGC HL Summer season, Ctf_Turbine_Pro was on the rotation and instead of winning at 3 caps, a team could get up to 10 and there was a, iirc, 5 minute time limit.

Alright it's time to clear up some of the misconceptions around 6s mapping, viability, etc. I feel like I can give a pretty good opinion on this, since I'm a decent level comp player and also a mapper, which isn't a hugely common overlap actually. I was drafted in by a couple of prem players at one point to make gravelpit_pro, but it never happened. I won't talk about CTF, because ctf just blows in 6s, nothing to say about it. [QUOTE=Mockingbird;52982443]To me, if neither team can advance past a particular choke point or whatever, that's a stalemate. I mean it's boring to play and boring to watch. It's bad if it happens on 5cp, but it's ok on A/D because "red wins?"[/QUOTE] So first thing is that you're missing why stalemates are such a huge problem in 6s, and that's why you don't really understand why it's not on an AD map. I can explain it a bit.. [QUOTE=Drury;52982468]A/D in competitive rarely ends in RED winning. It's generally a race of which team can cap faster as BLU. Whoever gets to play RED is merely trying to hold off the other team for as long as possible, they are not really expected to win. If RED winning was actually a common occurrence in competitive... It wouldn't be played ever, since both teams winning as RED means an actual stalemate without any match points being awarded.[/QUOTE] This is often true in highlander but isn't true at all in 6s. Gravelpit is the only commonly played AD map in 6s and doesn't function this way. It's quite common that red wins. We play stopwatch, just like overwatch, and it does turn out to be way more ok than you'd expect. So the problem with stalemates in 5cp is not as severe as it is on AD. The difference is that a team that is ahead on 5cp can slow down the game, then the losing team also struggles to take initiative. It's simple, 5cp, against top level teams, takes far more skill to attack than it does to defend. If you're behind, you attack, and fail that push, then you become even further behind because the other team will push you afterwards. That's why teams, if they're stuck on last and behind, would rather wait the 10 minute limit than risk out on a 2nd push, because if the ahead team doesn't screw up, it's barely possible. 10 minutes of nothing is boring to play and watch, you're right. The difference with AD is that you don't lose anything when you attack. So that really opens up the strategy for what you can do - in 5cp if you lose 2 people you're at risk of getting counterpushed, in AD you can launch 6 people in and you're back in 20 seconds, so at the very least you're going to get an attempt at a push every minute or so, as the attackers get uber that often. Between that, players are going to be going for spy plays and bombing constantly, because they can't be punished for that. Yes it's the same 'lack of movement' but so much more goes on during an 'AD' stalemate compared to a 5cp stalemate, and that's why they're not so problematic. AD is actually really good for spectators on 6s because of this constant attacking, which you simply can not get in 5cp, or even koth to a certain extent. So why isn't gravelpit played more? The main problem is scheduling. Gravelpit is played in a set of follows, attack then defend, then defend again and attack. If it's a draw, you play one more of attacking then defending, so that the map score is 2-1. Consider this: every round on gpit can take over 20 minutes. I did the math once, and I'm pretty sure that a full fixture on gravelpit can take 1hr30, if you add in teams discussing and smoking etc. It's happened to me and it's NOT at all fun. Comparitively, 5cp maps tend to take 30 minutes. That means if it's a tournament gpit doesn't fit generally, and teams are just bored by the end. Gravelpit is also not a perfect map and has its fair share of problems, such as that A is given up for free apart from fringe scenarios, and some other flow issues, but these could be improved, which brings me to next subject. - The other thing I've seen discussed is why mapmakers haven't made more maps for the submodes outside 5cp. It's pretty easy, 6s players can not be bothered to test every bad map that comes their way. It's a hobby. It's meant to be fun, so nobody wants to spend their time scrimming on maps that aren't. The problem is pretty simple for mapmakers, there is a vast ocean of not very good maps in alpha, and you can't make such huge changes once you're in beta. It's hard to get the layout right the first time, and progressing too far into detail before the layout is safe is a mistake. The deal is this: it's not a coincidence that 2/3 of the mainstays in competitive are from people who played competitively. You usually need an 'in' to get tested a lot. (example, hyce's logjam was picked up and pushed heavily by ipz, a premiership german player, I had starkie and sideshow on my side.) It's also a very cut throat community. As soon as your map has been deemed 'aids' you will never get playtime ever again, regardless of what changes you make. Happens all the time. Happened to the guy that made gullywash even, everyone hated his 2nd map. So even if you're making a 5cp map it's not gonna be easy. Now imagine you're making a AD or KOTH map. So think for a second again about 5cp, it's actually very simple and formulaic, and most maps follow similar principles. Compare sunshine and process, and you discover that you can gain a lot of knowledge about how to construct a good 5cp map with relative ease. There are no resources for the others. You can't learn anything from viaduct because it's small and koth flows strangely, and gravelpit is not even CLOSE to what you want to be doing with your AD map. Almost every AD map made for competitive has been disastrously bad, and that's because there's no guideline. And almost nobody will test to improve your map, because KOTH and AD maps are generally made for pubbers and aren't even heavily liked thanks to being singular in the map pool. The whole thing is very cyclical, but the essential takeaway you should take from this is this: The first person to make a successful ad/koth map will almost definitely be someone who has already succeeded in the 5cp pool, and even then, it will [I]probably never happen.[/I] But it should :D Wall over, carry on

[QUOTE=rolfum;52983091]the best way to make ctf a viable gamemode in 6's is to just make the flag return on touch and add a time limit to every match, and whichever team has more flags by the end of the time limit wins[/QUOTE] I would consider they remove crits on cap, and mayb make it that the intel couldn’t be picked up immediately after caps as well to keep teams from getting double caps on wipes? Might also be good to require the flag at base to cap as well. But yeah, touch flag return feels required for low player count CTF matches, or at least make it return quickly with teammates around it as long as enemies aren’t as well. Other wise you force your team to have at least one player to constantly be defending the flag more or less. CTF for sixes might require maps for suited for low players counts as well.

All I want for Christmas is.... ....ctf_sawmill and new stranges.

Well said there mould. A good theory piece is always appreciated.

[QUOTE=DrCactus;52983143]return on touch seems a bit too much, but I would like to see the return timer not reset if an enemy picks it up. (ie if a scout picks up the intel when its at around 2 seconds left, if he drops it from death, the timer will still be at 2 seconds).[/QUOTE] I'll repost my thoughts on that: [quote]I'd still like to give the other team a fair chance at retaking the flag. Making flags reset more quickly by standing on it can only feel frustrating for offense if they didn't get a second shot at retaking it. I propose something else: a dynamic pickup zone. If the flag is dropped, it creates a pickup zone around itself. By standing in that zone, defense can prevent it from getting picked up. It'll reset at the normal rate, but if offense is standing in the zone, the timer will enter overtime and prevent reset.[/quote]

[QUOTE=Mould;52983299]A ton of great insight[/QUOTE] Thanks for sounding off! I'd like to think I generally know what I'm talking about, but it's always great for someone with more knowledge to come in and fill in the blanks for me. I actually wasn't really sure [I]why[/I] A/D seemed to be unpopular in 6s until this post (since it doesn't have the cart problem), so I really appreciate you elaborating like this. I think it's interesting that Stopwatch in 6s results in pretty much the opposite result as Stopwatch in HL, which I have much more hands-on experience with. So I have a few questions: Do you feel like gamemode-wide modifications to modes like A/D and Payload would make them more playable in 6s? Things like reduced time in scale to players on the server, auto-pushing Payload, etc. Would you agree that 5CP and its map structure is the main reason that non-Generalists don't get to shine often in 6s? If yes, do you think that the right tweaks to other gamemodes can increase class diversity without ruining 6s' appeal? Also, what map did you make?

[QUOTE=qubestf2;52983358]All I want for Christmas is.... ....ctf_sawmill and new stranges.[/QUOTE] Throw in CTF Well for good measure

Hmm.. I think mappers should start trying to modify the original A/D maps with competitive in mind. Dustbowl, Gorge, maybe even Mountainlab could all be changed in ways that make 6s actually doable on them.

[QUOTE=Blackavar;52983509]Hmm.. I think mappers should start trying to modify the original A/D maps with competitive in mind. Dustbowl, Gorge, maybe even Mountainlab could all be changed in ways that make 6s actually doable on them.[/QUOTE] I know balancing around idiots is not healthy but i'm curious if there's any reason for your hard-on about competitive? it's a very recurring topic with you.

[QUOTE=Mould;52983299] The other thing I've seen discussed is why mapmakers haven't made more maps for the submodes outside 5cp. It's pretty easy, 6s players can not be bothered to test every bad map that comes their way. It's a hobby. It's meant to be fun, so nobody wants to spend their time scrimming on maps that aren't.[/quote] Flows both ways. Mapping is a hobby as well, so mappers can't be bothered to make maps for an audience that won't test or enjoy it (and in some cases, seem to throw a fit about trying new things). When it comes to anything outside of an established formula, all mappers have to go off of are pub maps and testing. As much as comp players hate how only pub maps keep getting added to the game, it's not hard to see why that is. [quote]The problem is pretty simple for mapmakers, there is a vast ocean of not very good maps in alpha, and you can't make such huge changes once you're in beta. It's hard to get the layout right the first time, and progressing too far into detail before the layout is safe is a mistake. The deal is this: it's not a coincidence that 2/3 of the mainstays in competitive are from people who played competitively. You usually need an 'in' to get tested a lot. (example, hyce's logjam was picked up and pushed heavily by ipz, a premiership german player, I had starkie and sideshow on my side.) It's also a very cut throat community. As soon as your map has been deemed 'aids' you will never get playtime ever again, regardless of what changes you make. Happens all the time. Happened to the guy that made gullywash even, everyone hated his 2nd map. [/quote] Unfortunately true. Iteration is essential to level design. Telling what works and why or why not is difficult without proper testing. Getting your foot in the door without a reputation is a struggle at best, especially if you're trying to sell a greybox. [quote]So even if you're making a 5cp map it's not gonna be easy. Now imagine you're making a AD or KOTH map. So think for a second again about 5cp, it's actually very simple and formulaic, and most maps follow similar principles. Compare sunshine and process, and you discover that you can gain a lot of knowledge about how to construct a good 5cp map with relative ease. There are no resources for the others. You can't learn anything from viaduct because it's small and koth flows strangely, and gravelpit is not even CLOSE to what you want to be doing with your AD map. Almost every AD map made for competitive has been disastrously bad, and that's because there's no guideline. And almost nobody will test to improve your map, because KOTH and AD maps are generally made for pubbers and aren't even heavily liked thanks to being singular in the map pool. The whole thing is very cyclical, but the essential takeaway you should take from this is this: The first person to make a successful ad/koth map will almost definitely be someone who has already succeeded in the 5cp pool, and even then, it will [I]probably never happen.[/I] But it should :D Wall over, carry on[/QUOTE] I doubt any mapper is going to figure out the formula for KOTH or AD in isolation. If competitive players genuinely want new maps, it's going to have to be a cooperative effort. Most mappers don't understand high level play, and most competitive players don't understand level design. I'd love to take a stab at it myself, but it'd mostly involve throwing eccentric ideas to the wall to see what sticks.

[QUOTE=Hell-met;52983526]I know balancing around idiots is not healthy but i'm curious if there's any reason for your hard-on about competitive? it's a very recurring topic with you.[/QUOTE] If I had to guess it'd be to do with so many games and gaming in general being pushed towards a competitive light. Almost every game these days has some sort of competitive following, and everybody wants their game to be the Next Big Competitive thing. Every big game, all MOBAs, Overwatch, even PUBG, and add in the sudden burst of popularity for fighting games with all the big ones being released lately, Guilty Gear, Injustice 2, SFV reaching its second season, and of course, DBFZ. I'm not saying they're wrong for wanting this either, obviously the TF Team had a little interest in it as well since they introduced the queue system and ranked play for the first time in the 10 years the game has been out.

[QUOTE=Hell-met;52983526]I know balancing around idiots is not healthy but i'm curious if there's any reason for your hard-on about competitive? it's a very recurring topic with you.[/QUOTE] TF2 will fade eventually, without proper support for competitive. Balance is my area of expertise. 6s is the only format Valve is willing to support. By coming up with proper competitive balance, and sending it to the TF2 team in the hope that they listen, I'm doing what I can to keep TF2 from fading. And since, like you said, balancing for idiots is not healthy, we should be doing the opposite. There's no "balancing for slightly good people", this is a pretty black/white issue. Maps are a huge part of the game, and a massive part of balance. As such, I share my opinions one what I think should be done. The fact that toxicity in the map community, as discussed by Mould, causes a roadblock for the creation of new, non-5cp 6s maps, is unacceptable, and we should be trying to fix that.

Probably already been suggested, but what if the Thermal Thruster had an alt-fire like the Half-Life long jump, some vertical height with a lot of horizontal speed, and the boost could vary based on what direction you're moving in when activating it.

[QUOTE=TheBorealis;52983684]Probably already been suggested, but what if the Thermal Thruster had an alt-fire like the Half-Life long jump, some vertical height with a lot of horizontal speed, and the boost could vary based on what direction you're moving in when activating it.[/QUOTE] what if? Well it'd be annoying to deal with, that's what.

[QUOTE=Mould;52983299]Alright it's time to clear up some of the misconceptions around 6s mapping, viability, etc. I feel like I can give a pretty good opinion on this, since I'm a decent level comp player and also a mapper, which isn't a hugely common overlap actually. I was drafted in by a couple of prem players at one point to make gravelpit_pro, but it never happened. I won't talk about CTF, because ctf just blows in 6s, nothing to say about it. So first thing is that you're missing why stalemates are such a huge problem in 6s, and that's why you don't really understand why it's not on an AD map. I can explain it a bit.. This is often true in highlander but isn't true at all in 6s. Gravelpit is the only commonly played AD map in 6s and doesn't function this way. It's quite common that red wins. We play stopwatch, just like overwatch, and it does turn out to be way more ok than you'd expect. So the problem with stalemates in 5cp is not as severe as it is on AD. The difference is that a team that is ahead on 5cp can slow down the game, then the losing team also struggles to take initiative. It's simple, 5cp, against top level teams, takes far more skill to attack than it does to defend. If you're behind, you attack, and fail that push, then you become even further behind because the other team will push you afterwards. That's why teams, if they're stuck on last and behind, would rather wait the 10 minute limit than risk out on a 2nd push, because if the ahead team doesn't screw up, it's barely possible. 10 minutes of nothing is boring to play and watch, you're right. The difference with AD is that you don't lose anything when you attack. So that really opens up the strategy for what you can do - in 5cp if you lose 2 people you're at risk of getting counterpushed, in AD you can launch 6 people in and you're back in 20 seconds, so at the very least you're going to get an attempt at a push every minute or so, as the attackers get uber that often. Between that, players are going to be going for spy plays and bombing constantly, because they can't be punished for that. Yes it's the same 'lack of movement' but so much more goes on during an 'AD' stalemate compared to a 5cp stalemate, and that's why they're not so problematic. AD is actually really good for spectators on 6s because of this constant attacking, which you simply can not get in 5cp, or even koth to a certain extent. So why isn't gravelpit played more? The main problem is scheduling. Gravelpit is played in a set of follows, attack then defend, then defend again and attack. If it's a draw, you play one more of attacking then defending, so that the map score is 2-1. Consider this: every round on gpit can take over 20 minutes. I did the math once, and I'm pretty sure that a full fixture on gravelpit can take 1hr30, if you add in teams discussing and smoking etc. It's happened to me and it's NOT at all fun. Comparitively, 5cp maps tend to take 30 minutes. That means if it's a tournament gpit doesn't fit generally, and teams are just bored by the end. Gravelpit is also not a perfect map and has its fair share of problems, such as that A is given up for free apart from fringe scenarios, and some other flow issues, but these could be improved, which brings me to next subject. - The other thing I've seen discussed is why mapmakers haven't made more maps for the submodes outside 5cp. It's pretty easy, 6s players can not be bothered to test every bad map that comes their way. It's a hobby. It's meant to be fun, so nobody wants to spend their time scrimming on maps that aren't. The problem is pretty simple for mapmakers, there is a vast ocean of not very good maps in alpha, and you can't make such huge changes once you're in beta. It's hard to get the layout right the first time, and progressing too far into detail before the layout is safe is a mistake. The deal is this: it's not a coincidence that 2/3 of the mainstays in competitive are from people who played competitively. You usually need an 'in' to get tested a lot. (example, hyce's logjam was picked up and pushed heavily by ipz, a premiership german player, I had starkie and sideshow on my side.) It's also a very cut throat community. As soon as your map has been deemed 'aids' you will never get playtime ever again, regardless of what changes you make. Happens all the time. Happened to the guy that made gullywash even, everyone hated his 2nd map. So even if you're making a 5cp map it's not gonna be easy. Now imagine you're making a AD or KOTH map. So think for a second again about 5cp, it's actually very simple and formulaic, and most maps follow similar principles. Compare sunshine and process, and you discover that you can gain a lot of knowledge about how to construct a good 5cp map with relative ease. There are no resources for the others. You can't learn anything from viaduct because it's small and koth flows strangely, and gravelpit is not even CLOSE to what you want to be doing with your AD map. Almost every AD map made for competitive has been disastrously bad, and that's because there's no guideline. And almost nobody will test to improve your map, because KOTH and AD maps are generally made for pubbers and aren't even heavily liked thanks to being singular in the map pool. The whole thing is very cyclical, but the essential takeaway you should take from this is this: The first person to make a successful ad/koth map will almost definitely be someone who has already succeeded in the 5cp pool, and even then, it will [I]probably never happen.[/I] But it should :D Wall over, carry on[/QUOTE] Well, when your competitive scene is small, insular, and elitist, this kind of toxic and exclusionary behavior will become common.

[QUOTE=Hell-met;52983699]what if? Well it'd be annoying to deal with, that's what.[/QUOTE] You're probably right, I guess all they need to do with the thruster is shorten the deploy and holster speed, and maybe make the activation delay when you switch to it shorter. Also make it so you boost by holding the button down while switching, like every other weapon. Also, have the first person arm models ever been updated? Hope they fix the sniper model inconsistency and make the arms longer for higher viewmodel fov.

[QUOTE=TheBorealis;52983767]You're probably right, I guess all they need to do with the thruster is shorten the deploy and holster speed, and maybe make the activation delay when you switch to it shorter. Also make it so you boost by holding the button down while switching, like every other weapon. Also, have the first person arm models ever been updated? Hope they fix the sniper model inconsistency and make the arms longer for higher viewmodel fov.[/QUOTE] things Thermal Thruster need : long holster gone increased knockback gone landing airblast gone fall damage resist gone (i guess we can keep stomping but I still feel like that should be mantread's thing) also hide that "1 ammo count" thing then it'll be :ok:

I was looking at tftv and found this [URL="http://www.teamfortress.tv/45130/pre-jungle-inferno-demos-through-steam"]thread[/URL], Valve added a "pre_jungleinferno_demos" branch for TF2. Thanks Valve, I guess they did some really deep changes in Jungle Inferno to break all the demos.

[QUOTE=Hell-met;52983832]things Thermal Thruster need : long holster gone increased knockback gone landing airblast gone fall damage resist gone (i guess we can keep stomping but I still feel like that should be mantread's thing) also hide that "1 ammo count" thing then it'll be :ok:[/QUOTE] local pyro barrels into populated zone and fucking kills everyone because his movement has no penalty no seriously you're just giving him a rocket jump with no self damage

[QUOTE=ikes;52984170]local pyro barrels into populated zone and fucking kills everyone because his movement has no penalty no seriously you're just giving him a rocket jump with no self damage[/QUOTE] He's giving up a secondary and any range beyond his flamethrower for it. It's not the end of the world if it does get buffed like that.

[QUOTE=TheBorealis;52983846]I was looking at tftv and found this [URL="http://www.teamfortress.tv/45130/pre-jungle-inferno-demos-through-steam"]thread[/URL], Valve added a "pre_jungleinferno_demos" branch for TF2. Thanks Valve, I guess they did some really deep changes in Jungle Inferno to break all the demos.[/QUOTE] As far as I know demos just re-create a game in engine so if there's weapon or class balance changes in an update an old demo will be broken since the game can't properly re-create that game anymore.