Crowbcat - TF2 2007 and now - General

I get the feeling that this video was set as a 'Trap' of sorts, and a whole lot of people have walked right into it. Crowbcat said nothing about TF2 looking worse. He merely showed undoctored side-by-side comparisons of how TF2 looked then and how TF2 looks now. If you watch that and your automatic response is to go on the defensive, stating that pointing out downgrades is nitpicky, then [i]that[/i] gut reaction in some ways says more than the video itself.

[QUOTE=Pennywise;52412233]I get the feeling that this video was set as a 'Trap' of sorts, and a whole lot of people have walked right into it. Crowbcat said nothing about TF2 looking worse. He merely showed undoctored side-by-side comparisons of how TF2 looked then and how TF2 looks now. If you watch that and your automatic response is to go on the defensive, stating that pointing out downgrades is nitpicky, then [i]that[/i] gut reaction in some ways says more than the video itself.[/QUOTE] Do you think there is nothing implied there ? That selective shots can in no way be subjective ? You'll be hard pressed to find people who enjoy broken animations or materials.

[QUOTE=Gwoodman;52411943]All the video shows is the graphical difference between TF2 2007 and current version, even the description points that out, no where does he share his opinion or criticize the current state of the game.[/QUOTE] im sure the guy that made a list of every minor graphical downgrade or change had no intention of communicating any kind of opinion. that was sarcasm

[QUOTE=Nabile13;52412255]Do you think there is nothing implied there ? That selective shots can in no way be subjective ? You'll be hard pressed to find people who enjoy broken animations or materials.[/QUOTE]But it [i]does[/i] show comparisons that are so-so on which is better -- or some things that are outright improved. It opens up on the advanced video menu, which has a ton more options. The vast majority of the scenery shots are neglible either way, the main difference is that there is a bit more shadowing going on now. After the revolver chamber bit, there's nothing inherently wrong about Spy's new reload animation. IIRC the main point of that change was actually so it didn't obstruct the player's view as much. The stock grunts upon dropping damage was always kinda dumb, considering that every character had the same one. The bottle comparison is my favorite, though. 2007 only had one swing animation per melee, shared even on crit. He even swings a few extra times in the new one. A genuine aesthetic improvement, and one of my personal favorites added later on. But what does everyone seem to take away from that side-by-side? The bottle no longer breaks.

[QUOTE=Pennywise;52412290]But it [i]does[/i] show comparisons that are so-so on which is better -- or some things that are outright improved. It opens up on the advanced video menu, which has a ton more options. The vast majority of the scenery shots are neglible either way, the main difference is that there is a bit more shadowing going on now. After the revolver chamber bit, there's nothing inherently wrong about Spy's new reload animation. IIRC the main point of that change was actually so it didn't obstruct the player's view as much. The stock grunts upon dropping damage was always kinda dumb, considering that every character had the same one. The bottle comparison is my favorite, though. 2007 only had one swing animation per melee, shared even on crit. He even swings a few extra times in the new one. A genuine aesthetic improvement, and one of my personal favorites added later on. But what does everyone seem to take away from that side-by-side? The bottle no longer breaks.[/QUOTE] For the melee weapon, they added a new thing while breaking something that was personally more memorable to me (and my friend). They just don't bother fixing things. But more importantly is how they're killing off mods: the game becomes a bugged crash-fest once you have too many mods loaded (~48), so you're effectively limited on that front, but also by the overly restrictive sv_pure settings that most populated servers have enabled nowadays. Also, on the video options menu: [img]https://nabile.s-ul.eu/OHeRatSC.png[/img] "A ton" means + 2 options ?

[QUOTE=Wii60;52412072]honestly valve should just throw TF2 and CSGO on Source 2 already, essentially rebuilt from the ground up. they already did it for dota and it would be a good way to see how FPS would work on their engine since the Hammer for Dota 2 only does RTS style maps currently. I think they are waiting for L4D3 to be out first though. Valve loves it's flagship games for new engines.[/QUOTE] Source 2 isn't a magical bandaid that will fix all of TF2's problems.

[QUOTE=Nabile13;52412320]For the melee weapon, they added a new thing while breaking something that was personally more memorable to me (and my friend). They just don't bother fixing things.[/quote]True, true. But there [i]was[/i] both a negative and a positive change presented there at the same time, with no extra commentary, and as far as I've seen I'm the first one to bring up the positive. The comments about that scene otherwise I've seen were wholly about the bottle; Either reminiscing on it's loss, or implying that the bottle difference was not worth bringing up and that you were 'Nitpicky' if you did so. [QUOTE=Nabile13;52412320]But more importantly is how they're killing off mods: the game becomes a bugged crash-fest once you have too many mods loaded (~48), so you're effectively limited on that front, but also by the overly restrictive sv_pure settings that most populated servers have enabled nowadays.[/quote] Also agreed... but that [i]actually[/i] has nothing to do with this video. There isn't a single thing in this video that even breathes in the direction of modding or sv_pure. As much as I love the former and hate the latter, bringing either up in regards to this video is an additional oddity. [QUOTE=Nabile13;52412320]Also, on the video options menu: [img]https://nabile.s-ul.eu/OHeRatSC.png[/img] "A ton" means + 2 options ?[/QUOTE] Ah, ya got me there, I used a poor quantifier. But still more options is more options, and it just takes a glance over to the likes of Totalbiscuit to realize how big a deal a FoV slider in particular can be to some players.

[QUOTE=Pennywise;52412367]True, true. But there [I]was[/I] both a negative and a positive change presented there at the same time, with no extra commentary, and as far as I've seen I'm the first one to bring up the positive. The comments about that scene otherwise I've seen were wholly about the bottle; Either reminiscing on it's loss, or implying that the bottle difference was not worth bringing up and that you were 'Nitpicky' if you did so. Also agreed... but that [I]actually[/I] has nothing to do with this video. There isn't a single thing in this video that even breathes in the direction of modding or sv_pure. As much as I love the former or hate the latter, bringing either up in regards to this video is an additional oddity. Ah, ya got me there, I used a poor quantifier. But still more options is more options, and it just takes a glance over to the likes of Totalbiscuit to realize how big a deal a FoV slider in particular can be to some players.[/QUOTE] Brought up mods because it's what makes me enjoy the game as much as I do, and they can also allow to fix or improve on the default assets (like using the SFM variants of the models, or higher quality textures/fixes to lightwarps or whatever), adressing lots of the video's points. I guess the only thing that couldn't really be fixed by mods are the lighting changes, as they're related to compiled maps themselves (or perhaps the engine). While I'm on this subject, TotalBiscuit was right when he said mods are a selling point of games: it's effectively part of what made me buy the Left 4 Dead series.

[QUOTE=Oizen;52412342]Source 2 isn't a magical bandaid that will fix all of TF2's problems.[/QUOTE] True, but it would probably fix a lot of the issues the game has relating to the current engine, such as the poor performance and security vulnerabilities. It's the main reason why I quit TF2, playing it today feels like driving an old, beat up car that could break down at any moment. Of course though I don't see them fixing this old, beat up car anytime soon; TF2 probably has spaghetti code at this point and the current TF2 team is so utterly incompetent that this would probably be the last thing they get to if it ever happens.

[QUOTE=chemo;52412390]True, but it would probably fix a lot of the issues the game has relating to the current engine, such as the poor performance and security vulnerabilities. It's the main reason why I quit TF2, playing it today feels like driving an old, beat up car that could break down at any moment. Of course though I don't see them fixing this old, beat up car anytime soon; TF2 probably has spaghetti code at this point and the current TF2 team is so utterly incompetent that this would probably be the last thing they get to if it ever happens.[/QUOTE] Source 2 can't give TF2 a real development staff.

[QUOTE=Oizen;52412406]Source 2 can't give TF2 a real development staff.[/QUOTE] I know you're fishing for epic zingers but I wouldn't be surprised if TF2 getting a proper Source 2 port would cause some of Valve to jump over and started working on it again.

[QUOTE=Batandy;52411521]As someone who spent 3 years learning how to model by making weapons for TF2, i really hated how weapon models work. Like you said, at some point they switched from having two different models (an high poly model for fp animations and a low poly for thirdperson) to just a single model,this allows to put new weapons in without having to worry about making multiple versions, but personally i find it extremely lazy, not to mention that it was a pain to make custom weapons with custom animations, because you had to modify the general hand animation file instead of working directly with the viewmodel, this is why there are very few weapon mods with custom anims. Another problem was that since an animation was shared between multiple weapons, changing it for a custom weapon meant that it would break with any other weapon in the game. Oh and yeah, merging the models is the reason why extra detail like the revolver's cylinder spinning isn't there anymore.[/QUOTE] Merging the models influenced why the revolver's cylinder doesn't spin, but it's not the cause. The cause is simply lazyness. If they included the bone and had the viewmodel rotate it, it wouldn't have any issues.

I cringed a bit when he tried to pick up the weapon after the ammo pack fell out as well, I know Crowbcat's whole thing is to nitpick and exaggerate how bad something is but that was pretty dumb and over the top even by his standards. aside from that I do agree the lighting as gotten worse but holy hell like 98% of the examples of bad lighting are just him finding spots in 2fort that look different. That would be like me walking around Dust2 in CS:GO and finding little mistakes just to make Counter-Strike look bad. [editline]29th June 2017[/editline] I'm a huge fan of TF2 and I do recognize that the game has A LOT of problems in it's current form but now a lot of Crowbcat fans are gonna dangle this video around for a few weeks whenever TF2 gets mention which sucks because a major update is expected to come out in a few weeks. It's the "Switch is broken" video all over again.

[QUOTE=Oizen;52412406]Source 2 can't give TF2 a real development staff.[/QUOTE] I basically already acknowledged that in my post and besides, if TF2 on Source 2 were to happen then honestly that already would make me more inclined to get back into the game.

I know that it's unlikely that they will move it to a different engine, but it just goes to show that they went too far ahead of themselves with all the shit they were adding with an engine that can't handle it all properly.

[QUOTE=JXZ;52412260]im sure the guy that made a list of every minor graphical downgrade or change had no intention of communicating any kind of opinion. that was sarcasm[/QUOTE] The automatic reaction to some people is that the video is implying that TF2 2007 is the better version despite nothing mentioning it. His other videos are irrelevant because there's not even minor implications here, it's literally just a showcase over graphical differences. YOU perceived the old school version as better and you're criticizing the creator of the video despite him not saying or implying anything at all, some of you guys are being defensive over a decision made by yourselves, it's fucking hilarious. Plus, so what if people think the older version is better? What's the problem in that? If the video was about how TF2 2007 looks better, then it would be a perfectly acceptable opinion.

I don't understand the reasoning of "it was to optimize the game." I thought optimization was making your game run better [i]regardless[/i] of settings? If new cosmetics necessitated lowering the graphical fidelity of the game just to maintain smooth performance, then isn't that the whole point of having user adjustable graphics settings in the first place? And if manually lowering your graphics wasn't enough to maintain that performance, then how can you argue that the new content is worth implementing at all? I think we can all agree the onslaught of cosmetics are almost universally awful, but if that's the case, is that worth having to tone down some of the elements of the original artstyle? I don't think it is. Stuff like the lightmaps changing and the phong getting toned down might be nitpicky, but I think it's little details like that which [i]made[/i] TF2 such a great looking game in the first place. It was always about the details, Valve's detailed analyses are enough proof of that. It's just a shame that it's so consistently been left behind.

anyone who denies valve simply slapping things together with very little regard for basic decent treatment of their game is very delusional. valve stopped giving a fuck about tf2's quality control a long time ago

I love how the medigun no longer animates

As a modder from the "old days", the switch from W/V_models to C_models made me sad. The quality loss was very clear, and a bit of the game's original look was lost in the transition. I understand that the change was necessary so that the game could accommodate the new custom weapon system, but the new models felt a little shoddy, knowing what they used to look like and how they used to animate. I will never not be bothered by how the c_arms don't properly animate when switching between weapons. It used to be that the Medic would draw his bonesaw from off-screen. Now the medigun just transforms into a bonesaw right in front of you, because the animations don't transition properly. It's one of the most glaring issues with the game's visuals right now, at least to me, and it's entirely the result of haphazardly switching from a polished set of v_models to the c_model system. That's not to say that I hate what TF2 has become, but I do wish that they went back and polished it up a bit before it reaches the end of its life. The game has had a [B]massive[/B] amount of content added to it, and Valve didn't bother to make sure it all worked together properly. The game is riddled with broken animations, incorrect sounds, lighting issues, and more. The community would be more than happy to fix this stuff for Valve (and in many cases they have), but Valve is loathe to actually implement that kind of stuff in the game. After all, the majority of users don't even notice the lack of polish and keep buying keys anyway, so why bother?

[QUOTE=Trekintosh;52410741]Why is everyone saying this video is criticizing? I know it's crowbcat and he does that, but this video seems to be purely informative.[/QUOTE] I think it's the overly dramatic TF2 music that's throwing everyone off.

[QUOTE=Shugo;52413047]As a modder from the "old days", the switch from W/V_models to C_models made me sad. The quality loss was very clear, and a bit of the game's original look was lost in the transition. I understand that the change was necessary so that the game could accommodate the new custom weapon system, but the new models felt a little shoddy, knowing what they used to look like and how they used to animate. I will never not be bothered by how the c_arms don't properly animate when switching between weapons. It used to be that the Medic would draw his bonesaw from off-screen. Now the medigun just transforms into a bonesaw right in front of you, because the animations don't transition properly. It's one of the most glaring issues with the game's visuals right now, at least to me, and it's entirely the result of haphazardly switching from a polished set of v_models to the c_model system. That's not to say that I hate what TF2 has become, but I do wish that they went back and polished it up a bit before it reaches the end of its life. The game has had a [B]massive[/B] amount of content added to it, and Valve didn't bother to make sure it all worked together properly. The game is riddled with broken animations, incorrect sounds, lighting issues, and more. The community would be more than happy to fix this stuff for Valve (and in many cases they have), but Valve is loathe to actually implement that kind of stuff in the game. After all, the majority of users don't even notice the lack of polish and keep buying keys anyway, so why bother?[/QUOTE] Don't forget about the glaring gradual texture loading. For fuck's sake, my system can and has always been able to handle the load, but it doesn't account for it. Stupid optimisations.

[QUOTE=GHOST!!!!;52411175]Honestly I miss the time when TF2 didn't have like a bazillion weapons and shit for each class and instead it was alot simpler, like if you want to keep up to date with all the shit that's been added to the game you have to have been playing it since the updates were coming out, because honestly I look at it now and it's barely even the same game I remember.[/QUOTE] I never really understood this mindset. Most of TF2's weapons are very simple, and after 1 encounter with it, you can generally find out how each one works. That's also not taking into account that the default weapons are generally regarded as the best, and most reliable options for every class. Also, it seems like a lot of the map lighting errors are from constantly recompiling the map with hammer.

[QUOTE=Untouch;52410723]most of these "downgrades" are because the game is 10 years old and runs like total ass, and theyre trying to squeeze as much performance out of it as possible[/QUOTE] No they changed the lightwarp some time ago to a much harder gradient higher up on the ramp. There's literally no benifit to the change and it looks like garbage. Ditto for the nice phong highlight disappearing on the weapons, there's no gain, it's functionally identical but worse.

Since we are talking about the comparison between the 2007 TF2 and the recent one, anyone remember the moment you could get the higher texture quality than intended with mat_picmip command? Shame that it got locked to -1 (Very High in options) because from what i remember, people were using it and complained that the game runs like ass on their PCs which don't handle these things in a 1st place.

I feel like you could probably convince the new TF2 team to unlock the command, since it's not the same people who locked it in the first place.

[QUOTE=DrCactus;52413250]I never really understood this mindset. Most of TF2's weapons are very simple, and after 1 encounter with it, you can generally find out how each one works. That's also not taking into account that the default weapons are generally regarded as the best, and most reliable options for every class.[/QUOTE] The only one I found mildly complicated to use was the vaccinator because it's functionally very different from every type of medigun they had in the game.

[QUOTE=Keychain;52412726]anyone who denies valve simply slapping things together with very little regard for basic decent treatment of their game is very delusional. valve stopped giving a fuck about tf2's quality control a long time ago[/QUOTE] Also why i felt just saying 2017 TF2 isn't that relevant since the problems were noticeable years before [QUOTE]I think it's the overly dramatic TF2 music that's throwing everyone off.[/QUOTE] It was honestly a poor choice of music if the point of the video was to just put the differences without "dramatizing"

Not gonna lie, a lot of the criticisms of the video in this thread sound more like desperate denial than anything else. It's just a video demonstrating graphical changes, most of which would be considered a raw drop in visual quality by the average viewer, and yet people are going on the raw defensive. "The game is still good guys! those changes are just to streamline gameplay!" yeah, good for you, the video never claimed otherwise. [editline]29th June 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Rixxz2;52410980]The limitation's in the engine, not the hardware. Source's really being pushed to it's limit. Garry's mod is a pretty good example of this, spawn in a ton of explosive props and blow them up and it runs just as bad on a modern high-end system as it does on a high-end system from 2006[/QUOTE] The engine itself is still capable of some good things despite the fact it's a rotting, twitching corpse by now, with every new added feature killing some of the older ones. The problem ultimately lies with Valve itself not giving a fuck about the lasting quality of their older games.

[QUOTE=DrCactus;52413250]I never really understood this mindset. Most of TF2's weapons are very simple, and after 1 encounter with it, you can generally find out how each one works. That's also not taking into account that the default weapons are generally regarded as the best, and most reliable options for every class. Also, it seems like a lot of the map lighting errors are from constantly recompiling the map with hammer.[/QUOTE] Because it turns a game of rock, paper, scissors in to the kind of game children play where they keep making up different shit "I have an anti destruction shield!!" "yeah well I have an anti, anti destrution shield!" while muddling all the classes unique weaponsets