Comments on: They Will Stick To The Wall: Sniper Update Day One

By: itsallcrap

itsallcrap — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:15:20 +0000

Hey, look at the update for today folks.

Payload race confirmed and two new arena maps.

By: Walter

Walter — Thu, 14 May 2009 08:02:35 +0000

Shack: Are there plans for any kind of “vanilla” game mode to filter out the new items for players that just want to play a quick match of the core game?

Robin Walker: Almost all the requests we’ve received in this area have come from competitive players. While we don’t think this update adds any new issues for competitive play, we are aware of the desire for leagues to control what their players are using, so we’re thinking about how we can help them do that. Still, we’re optimistic as ever. We believe that the more interesting & viable choices available to competitive players, the more depth there is for them to use to their advantage. It’d be a shame if they’re prevented from exploring the strategic possibilities that the new items add.

By: Walter

Walter — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:28:35 +0000

There aren’t “no unlock” servers. There is a lot of complaining on the Valve forums about this and Robin Walker (?) did say something about a competitive mode in a Shacknews interview a few days ago.

Currently “vanilla” servers are just server with default spawn times etc. No gameplay features removed from the updated TF2.

By: ChampionHyena

ChampionHyena — Thu, 14 May 2009 02:17:12 +0000

Team Fortress Classic. Why is it better? You have grenades.

Whoops, your argument seems to have hit a snag.

By: J.Edgar Hoover

J.Edgar Hoover — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:50:26 +0000

All this ranting and raving about a game that will be defunct in a few short years. Just go back to the classics; Team Fortress Classic. Why is it better? You have grenades. And you actually need some skill to play it. That means no double jumping for scouts. No ubers. 10 years and it’s still going. Think about it.

By: syrion

syrion — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:15:35 +0000

@ChampionHyena: TF2 was not designed for instant spawns. That pretty much breaks the game, whatever map you’re on. Other than that, though, the ability to capture the final point comes down to the map design.

Besides, you could easily use one “advantage,” like spawn movement, to make it equitable. There’s no need to move spawns while also reducing spawn time and making the capture times ridiculously different. Remember that the winning team is probably also getting bonuses to their crit chances and that they can easily afford to sit back and build an uber. What’s the point of even trying to build a sentry, for example, when you know that the guys who have your 4th are just going to walk in with an uber and waste it in half a second?

Sure, it’s nice to come back against a stacked deck like this, but it’s also perfectly fine to have equality throughout the game. One of my most memorable comebacks was in a match on mulch_trench in TFC; my team was down 6-4 after about twenty minutes in the first half. We finally managed to exploit a weak soldier playing defense upstairs, and pulled out three caps in succession. The round ended 7-6. The next round, both teams were scoreless for a while until they capped two in succession due to an error on defense. It was 4-1 (10-8) with about two minutes to go until we managed to “train” two so close to the end that we actually capped a few hundredths of a second before the round ended. It went to overtime, where both teams got the flag out (first cap wins). The other team won by less than a tenth of a second.

I was shaking and sweating at the end, and I have never experienced anything like that in TF2 or L4D. The play experience feels too predictable and scripted.

By: Sam C.

Sam C. — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:58:23 +0000

To everyone that says you have to grind to get the unlocks – I’ve played as a Medic for ten hours, and I already have the Blutsauger. Personally, I wouldn’t consider that a grind. That’s the only unlockable that might be a “powerup”, but I think the main reason it feels that way is that crits you lose by taking it are infrequent enough that you don’t really miss them. I don’t believe medic is “unplayable” without it.

By: Shadowmancer

Shadowmancer — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:48:30 +0000

@ ChampionHyena
Instant spawn Lazytown’s awesome it is winable it just takes time and the results always epic.

By: ChampionHyena

ChampionHyena — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:46:45 +0000

Valve’s devotion to the “rich get richer” design is also a little bit strange. On all of their CP maps, losing your fourth point is a death knell because the other team gets closer spawn rooms, faster spawn times, and faster caps than you. If Valve wants the team that’s already winning to get even more of an advantage, why even bother having the last cap point?

Ever played on a Lazytown server? Or worse, an instant spawn Lazytown server? The map’s not designed to allow the winning team to spawn closer, and the result is that a single round goes on for HOURS. Can get a little tedious from time to time.

Re Everyone Else: VALVE UPDATES ITS GAMES TO SLIGHT YOU AND YOU ALONE BECAUSE IT HATES VIDEO GAMES AND YOU AND YOUR MOM

By: jalf

jalf — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:36:05 +0000

@syrion: Yeah, I agree. TFC elitists unite! :D

By: RodeoClown

RodeoClown — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:29:08 +0000

@Syrion Valve’s devotion to the “rich get richer” design is also a little bit strange. On all of their CP maps, losing your fourth point is a death knell because the other team gets closer spawn rooms, faster spawn times, and faster caps than you. If Valve wants the team that’s already winning to get even more of an advantage, why even bother having the last cap point?
It means that once you get to the 4th point, generally the game will be over in a very short amount of time, meaning you don’t have the endless dragging out of the end-game.

BUT… it also allows for amazing comebacks – the stress on a defending team in those final moments is pretty high – and winning back from a half-captured final point is completely exhilarating – which, I imagine, is why they didn’t just have 3 points and be done with it.

By: syrion

syrion — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:31:21 +0000

Regarding emergent gameplay: I think it’s embodied in the ability of people who love the game enough to play it for hours every day to differentiate themselves from the mass of casual players. In TFC, for example, it was almost impossible for someone who was just starting to kill someone who had put many hours into the game. TF2 is a lot more random, and VALVe seems to like that, but it means that the game is less rewarding. It’s fun to get better, to master a game. It’s not so fun if the reward for someone with a few hundred hours in soldier is that he gets randomly powerful rockets 2% more than someone who just started the game.

Valve’s devotion to the “rich get richer” design is also a little bit strange. On all of their CP maps, losing your fourth point is a death knell because the other team gets closer spawn rooms, faster spawn times, and faster caps than you. If Valve wants the team that’s already winning to get even more of an advantage, why even bother having the last cap point?

The funny thing about this is that Valve’s history with TF has not been spectacular. Their best TFC maps were re-creations of older maps (well, hunted). Their worst maps were either based on new gametypes (push) or betrayed a total lack of understanding of their own game (badlands, ravelin).

The only Valve map I can think of that people liked and voluntarily played towards the end of TFC’s lifespan was crossover2, outside the horrifyingly spammy “dustbowl 24/7″ servers.