It's not a circlejerk because a lot of people dislike something. Me believing Overwatch is absolutely overrated garbage has nothing to do with the opinions of other people on this forum. I think Overwatch is overrated garbage because of terrible balancing issues, horrific character design, weird Blizzard priorities, and then it's all wrapped together and we're supposed to see Overwatch as fresh and revolutionary. Overwatch is what you get when you smush MOBAs and team shooters together; it's only 'unique' in that no one else has mixed games together in such a blasé and unorganised manner.
Great to hear this
The Steam tracking only goes back to 2012. TF2 was released in 2007; i.e. TF2 was five years old when they began tracking. We'll never know the true highest concurrent player number.
Aren't bots prevented from going in-game? Because, to my knowledge, that was necessary to stop the catbot invasion.
Huh? For some reason SteamDB has data before 2012
Team Fortress 2 · AppID
I wasn't aware of that, but given that it claims TF2 had 0 players for the majority of 2008, something's fishy about it.
Not really, the data that does exist is consistent with snapshots of the official Steam stats page from the Wayback Machine.
The average number of players between 2007-2010 was actually drastically lower than it is today, the F2P update did and is still doing wonders for TF2's longevity
So instead of slowly dying, TF2 suddenly came to life and then never lost a significant amount of players to this day. Huh.
Medic is the best waifu.
Change my mind
Remember, the first year it launched, Overwatch overtook most other Pornhub categories. It's still mega popular to this date. Blizzard may be shit at balancing, character design, map design, and virtually everything else in Overwatch, but damn if they aren't the masters of designing appealing characters that everyone wants to fuck.
Maps and character visual design is at a very high standard in OW though. They put a lot of effort into the visual design of each map. Level design wise it might be meh, but as a designer myself, there's a lot OW does that most games don't bother with at all, visual design wise. There's a lot of very tasteful, mature design decisions. It might be hard to appreciate it again after being overexposed to it for years. Their color theory, shape design and balance of contrast in maps is masterful - it's sad the visuals effects from abilities often ruin that balance and visibility in combat though.
Like I genuinely dislike playing overwatch, mainly because of the hero abilities and insane amount of CC, but visualy? The maps and heroes are still a treat for the most part, and that's way beyond the "waifu effect".
I understand that. I wasn't referring to the visuals at all. The maps are eye candy, yes - but every single one of them is godawful, cut from the same cloth as the worst 2007-era TF2 maps like Dustbowl and 2-Fort.
ill fuck you up
Man, I'm sorry, but having enjoyed 2fort at times myself, it's objectively one of the worst maps in the game for anything other than super-casual play.
No matter how bad the Overwatch maps gets its still not as bad a 2fort. That said a below average TF2 map beats every Overwatch map by a rather wide margin.
2Fort is a great starting point for new players because it teaches you and expects you to learn about flanking routes. Things like pl_upwards are otherwise a fucking mess.
New players should have a rotation of ctf_2Fort, cp_powerhouse, pl_badwater, and koth_harvest. Those 4 are fantastic introductions into the more open map design and playground that is TF2.
ctf_turbine should die in a fire though. Fuck that map.
And what does that say about Team Fortress as a whole?
That it is a game with a history that is not afraid to embrace and make fun of its own flaws, that's what
I always feel bad for Well not having any love it deserves
"Look at me I'm important"
2fort is a map that has a wikipedia page. How many other maps are there with a wiki page? It is symmetrical, with every class having something to do. 2fort2furious wasn't a popular server for no reason.
Not my favourite map, but can't call it exactly garbage.
That and it's the ultimate "come and chill" map. Like stated in that article, nothing happens unless one side makes a concentrated effort to actually push and play the objective, and the rest of the time it's just laissez-faire antics and goalless deathmatching. Like just kicking a soccer ball around on a pitch but not actually playing a "game" of soccer, and people only kicking the ball into the goal because they feel like it or "hey, watch this".
It almost serves as the game's de-facto lobby. It's where many people end up first when they start a session or are winding down after playing other modes, it's new player central, and you're always welcome to come and just screw around.
I can. Mid is simultaneously way too powerful for snipers while also limiting snipers to be able to stand in only one spot, so half the team ends up doing something extremely boring (standing still in one spot sniping) and extremely frustrating to play against (have fun leaving spawn then immediately getting sniped because 6 people have their crosshairs on the spawn exit) because it's a powerful strategy. The rest of the map is extremely cramped, effectively removing the huge variety of movement options in the game, reducing the depth of gameplay a shitton. A single engineer can lock down every path to the intel with a single gun. New engis are encouraged to turtle in the intel room, which is the most mind-numbing experience imaginable, teaching new engis to use strategies that are terrible on any well-designed gamemode (read: any gamemode that's not capture the flag).
The reason 2fort is played commonly is because lots of new players want a version of the game where there's no incentive to take risks and play the objective, so they can stand as far away from the enemy as possible and never have to challenge themselves. I can understand why gamemodes where you have to play the objective can be intimidating but those players are never going to get out of their comfort zone and actually improve at the game. I honestly think that 2fort is responsible for a substantial chunk of the players you see in the game that just have absolutely no clue what they're doing, because they learned how to play the game on a map that encourages terrible play, and if it had never been released the game and its playerbase would have been better off. It's not just a bad map, it's a map so bad that it makes the rest of the game worse.
2Fort is the literal worst starting point for new players because it reenforces bad habits early on. Gameplay for 2fort doesn't have the healthy back and forth something like KOTH or 5CP would have. There's no reason to develop strategies and teamwork because they can usually just be overthrown with ease because of a single player. 2Fort (and CTF in general) is basically a glorified deathmatch mode with no score system, which, considering TF2 is an objective based shooter, is a trainwreck of game design.
But as other have said I will admit it's the single best map aesthetically when it comes to showcasing the artstyle TF2 is going for.
Agreed. Visually, the maps look pretty good, and the character designs are great, too.
Unfortunately, this is a video game, not a movie, and visual clarity for gameplay is the most neglected aspect of it all.
The maps look cluttered, a number of them have physics objects every few corners that get blown all over the place, lights like the sun have an obnoxious blinding effect, and the only thing they did for team recognition is thin, team-colored lines and floating names, while the line thickness actually depends on resolution, so someone playing in 4k has a harder time seeing those than someone who plays in 1080p.
And as you said, the invasive and often downright confusing particle effects aren't helping, either. Nor does the atrociously unreadable HUD. It's not just way too small, it also lacks contrast. There's many spots on various maps where your health bar and numbers just blend in with the background, making it nearly impossible to read. And I get that they want me to know that I'm currently being healed, but is it really necessary to plaster my screen with floating health icons that appear and disappear quickly, in a game where being able to spot an enemy in the distance in the corner of the screen may be crucial?
Also, to be honest, TF2 does look visually dated to me now (though it blew me away when I saw it back in 2010), but its art style completely makes up for it as far as I'm concerned. It's far more unique and interesting than OW which looks much more like a generic CGI film.
Lastly, I'm all for pretty character designs, but the writing in OW just flat-out sucks. As a result, their characters weren't doing much for me other than looking good, and I grew tired of them quickly.
The best thing in TF2 writing is that it is a simple multiplayer FPS with no story to be had until you read the comics. The lore is giant, the sfm movies are well written and real fun and you still simply play a basic shooter with no regards to a story.
i've seen a lot of tf2 sfm movies and all they did was fuck what lore are you talking about
If that's true then it was indeed ultra niche, which makes me sad, but it also means that people pissed off at the polycount update back then were just gatekeepers and a loud minority, which makes the whole deal even more hilariously sad and pathetic
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