T
tanelorn
Guest
Hi everyone. I know there are other 'my opinion of TF2' feedback threads posted here, but after playing TF2 since it came out I really felt like discussing the balance of the classes. I have actually been paid real $$$ developing several games / mods so I always have strong feelings about balance / design when a game comes out that I really like. I was a scripter / sound guy for BF1942 Desert Combat, and worked on some mods of various games for military use such as VBS for Op Flashpoint.
I'd love to submit my feedback to the TF2 devs, but I'm pretty sure with how popular the game is that they would be flooded with random feedback posts / emails and my message would get lost in all that.
But I'd really like to hear your opinions on what you think about the classes and balance in TF2. So let me throw it all out, I'll break them down with bullets. :sniper: :naughty:
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First off, I really enjoy TF2. There's plenty of nitpicks, but overall its a really fun game. THere do need to be more maps though, especially more capture the intelligence maps.
For an overall complaint, I have an issue with what every single mod that I've played has failed to take into account: the default running speed. HL2 has a fast run speed (not sprinting mode but normal forward speed). I'm sure the speed is fast because HL2 is a single player game and nobody wants to trudge through all those levels at a real-life pace.
The problem comes in when this fast speed is also the default for multiplayer games. Who here has played 'Day of Defeat source'? What were they putting in those guys K-Rations? HL2MP is the same way. So was UT3K, for those who played it. In a MP game, it's a big deal when the default speed is cranked way up. It turns a tactics and teamwork game into a 'who has the better connection and the .01sec faster response time and the razor mousing surface' competition. It's one thing to have a stamina sprint system like BF2 and BF2142 where you get a short sprint and put your weapon away. But when EVERYONE moves very fast, it's quake skills or the respawn screen.
A small issue for me is the swirling floating respawning health and ammo boxes. Everything else on the levels looks so nice, why not put in medic cabinets and ammo cabinets in select parts of the map instead? You know when we first saw those swirly floating medic and ammo items? Wolfenstein 3D, the very first FPS, waaaay back in 1992. Have we not come farther than this?
So here's what I think of the classes:
1- The scout moves SOOO FAAAST that he about outruns rockets and can circlestrafe / dodge pretty much anything you try to throw at him. This wouldn't be a big deal if he didn't have a good weapon, but he does!!! I understand the role the scout is -supposed- to play, and I'm fine with a fast class, but not one with a powerful offense also.
2- The 6 shot rapid fire shotgun! A fast, weak class isn't such a big deal if it weren't for the fact that he is extremely potent as an offensive unit. The scout can dance around anyone firing his shotgun and it's nearly impossible to track him. This is a BIG balance problem! I am convinced that if an entire team went scout only that they would win pretty much every match.
My suggestion would be to give him the Snipers SMG as the primary weapon (but that thing is very weak so boost the damage). Then let him have the RPG as the second weapon, but make it single loading (like when you have fired your last of 4 shots) and boost its power a bit to make it worth the single shot. I'm very suprised that of all the characters, the Soldier does not get an assault rifle type weapon.
1- Turrets. The lvl2 and lvl3 sentries kill people far too quickly. Especially lvl3. The thing is, they are darn fragile, so I guess the devs felt it was balanced. I say it's better for the turrets to take more punishment and be less deadly. It's unfair to everyone to let something automated get more kills than the players themselves. The turret should be a support item and not the final solution. My suggestion on turrets: Make them much much more resistant to non-explosives like bullets, knives, and fire. Make them more resistant to all weapon types to give them more staying power. Reduce their deadliness so they are helping the fight but not doing all the fighting themselves.
2- Teleporters. Teleporters are tough to keep up in the field and rarely is more than one ever running at a time. For these reasons I would increase the rate at which they can teleport people.
3- I have issues with dispensers giving out metal. It's an endless flow of turret upgrading power and lets engineers sit behind a turret and repair it constantly. It's almost an exploit.
1- NeedleGun. I'm really suprised that this weapon is just a basic damage weapon. He's a doctor firing friggin syringes, and he hasn't figured out that he can put something in them??? This weapon should poison, slow, or cause 'shrooms mode' in the victims. It's really the toughest weapon to aim because the needles fall. If you dropped the rate of fire and magazine size, and added some effects to the hit, that would be very cool.
2- Health beam. This is a great idea, certainly not realistic, but a great teamwork idea. The problem is that it can be exploited. How? When the demoman or soldier hurt themselves with their explosive weapons, the medic can heal them. The ubercharge builds up faster when used on hurt teammates. So... a medic can build up his ubercharge quickly when there is a soldier or demoman constantly shooting themselves nearby. This is done alot in the levels with a 30 second prep time. It allows all the medics to be ubercharged at the beginning of the round. It is also an exploit in my opinion.
I think the medic would also benefit from being able to drop one of those little medic bottles from time to time. Either with a long recharge time or with a low ammo count that requires resupply. Or both.
1. Sniper rifle. Great idea with the charging power meter for being in scoped mode. Not realistic at all, but in CSS the strafe-jump-crouch sniper move was lame and frustrating to deal with. This helps take away from that exploit.
2. SMG. I personally don't see why the sniper should get both a long range and a medium range weapon. I would rather see him get the shotgun and the soldier get the SMG. I also think the SMG needs a serious damage boost, I almost never can get a kill with the weapon even in favorable situations.
1. Invisibility. They are VERY invisible, and movement doesn't affect how invisible they are. In other games that incorporate invisibility, typically movement reduces how invisible you are. Seeing and tracking an invisible spy running at full speed is very very difficult. On top of that, you can quickly turn on and off the cloak repeatedly. This allows you to dance around your victim popping in and out of visibility. This gives you a huge advantage in a knife and gunfight. Only the spray and pray classes can defend against that. I would decrease a spy's invisibility when running, and make his invisibility take more time to turn back on.
2. Sappers. All engineers HATE sappers. I like the idea of sappers, but I have a couple issues with how they are implemented. First off, the spy can place them instantly, while running / sidestrafing, and can place all of them as quick as he can pull the trigger. So he can get a whole bunch of engineer deployables within a couple seconds while dodging gunshots. On top of all that, the sappers act VERY QUICKLY on the deployables, and an engineer will only rescue his equipment if he is right on top of them and kills the spy first. Rarely does this happen unless there are other players also right there to help.
In my opinion, sappers should disable equipment immediately, take a much longer time to destroy the deployables, and take a bit longer to deactivate by an engineer. This lets the spy perform his role of shutting down the guns and dispensers to shift the tide of battle, but does allow an engineer to respond and gives him time to save his equipment. If a spy is out alone and sapping equipment far away from his team, his actions won't be especially effective as the engineer can unsap his equipment in time. If a spy is working in support of his team and saps a turret / dispenser near the fight, then his team will overrun the sapped equipment before the engineer can fix it. To me, that's a better choice for balance and teamplay.
3. Disguises. Great idea, great implementation, with one exception. If I shoot a disguised spy, his disguise doesn't disappear and sentry guns don't attack him. I think that's a problem. The whole idea of a disguised spy does have it's issues in a multiplayer game, as players typically shoot everyone they see just in case they are a spy. So I understand that making the disguise disappear will make it much harder to infiltrate the enemy. But a spy can do alot of damage very quickly with his backstab and fast sapping. The time it takes you to kill a spy usually gives him enough time to cause the harm he had intended to do anyway. TF2 servers with FF on would make the 'disguise disappears when shot' a good option.
4. Backstab. Well it sounds like a great idea, but it takes place too easily in my opinion. It seems that the angle that allows for a backstab is very broad. Also, the spy is allowed to backstab with no prep time and at a full run. This means that if a spy can get past the initial encounter by dodging gunshots or going invisible / disguising, he can run around and backstab people all the while everyone is shooting at him. I've seen plenty of cases where there are several people all trying to shoot the spy, and the spy is jumping and weaving and gets behind people quicker than they can turn their mouse to face him and they all get backstabbed. A running knife hit should not count as a backstab in my opinion. I would set it so a truly stealthy backstab works, which would require standing behind the guy and pulling out the knife, a 1-2 second wait.
With all that added together, I think that spies are very overpowered, regardless of their vulnerabilities. They wreak so much havok so easily that a few spies on one side really change the balance in a match.
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Ok, that was a huge post but it's alot to think about and discuss. I'd really like to hear your opinions on TF2 class balance. I'm trying to figure it all out while I play, and my opinions will probably change as I spend more time playing. Please share your feedback and your ideas.
I'd love to submit my feedback to the TF2 devs, but I'm pretty sure with how popular the game is that they would be flooded with random feedback posts / emails and my message would get lost in all that.
But I'd really like to hear your opinions on what you think about the classes and balance in TF2. So let me throw it all out, I'll break them down with bullets. :sniper: :naughty:
---------
First off, I really enjoy TF2. There's plenty of nitpicks, but overall its a really fun game. THere do need to be more maps though, especially more capture the intelligence maps.
For an overall complaint, I have an issue with what every single mod that I've played has failed to take into account: the default running speed. HL2 has a fast run speed (not sprinting mode but normal forward speed). I'm sure the speed is fast because HL2 is a single player game and nobody wants to trudge through all those levels at a real-life pace.
The problem comes in when this fast speed is also the default for multiplayer games. Who here has played 'Day of Defeat source'? What were they putting in those guys K-Rations? HL2MP is the same way. So was UT3K, for those who played it. In a MP game, it's a big deal when the default speed is cranked way up. It turns a tactics and teamwork game into a 'who has the better connection and the .01sec faster response time and the razor mousing surface' competition. It's one thing to have a stamina sprint system like BF2 and BF2142 where you get a short sprint and put your weapon away. But when EVERYONE moves very fast, it's quake skills or the respawn screen.
A small issue for me is the swirling floating respawning health and ammo boxes. Everything else on the levels looks so nice, why not put in medic cabinets and ammo cabinets in select parts of the map instead? You know when we first saw those swirly floating medic and ammo items? Wolfenstein 3D, the very first FPS, waaaay back in 1992. Have we not come farther than this?
So here's what I think of the classes:
- Scout:
1- The scout moves SOOO FAAAST that he about outruns rockets and can circlestrafe / dodge pretty much anything you try to throw at him. This wouldn't be a big deal if he didn't have a good weapon, but he does!!! I understand the role the scout is -supposed- to play, and I'm fine with a fast class, but not one with a powerful offense also.
2- The 6 shot rapid fire shotgun! A fast, weak class isn't such a big deal if it weren't for the fact that he is extremely potent as an offensive unit. The scout can dance around anyone firing his shotgun and it's nearly impossible to track him. This is a BIG balance problem! I am convinced that if an entire team went scout only that they would win pretty much every match.
- Soldier:
My suggestion would be to give him the Snipers SMG as the primary weapon (but that thing is very weak so boost the damage). Then let him have the RPG as the second weapon, but make it single loading (like when you have fired your last of 4 shots) and boost its power a bit to make it worth the single shot. I'm very suprised that of all the characters, the Soldier does not get an assault rifle type weapon.
- Pyro:
- DemoMan:
- Engineer:
1- Turrets. The lvl2 and lvl3 sentries kill people far too quickly. Especially lvl3. The thing is, they are darn fragile, so I guess the devs felt it was balanced. I say it's better for the turrets to take more punishment and be less deadly. It's unfair to everyone to let something automated get more kills than the players themselves. The turret should be a support item and not the final solution. My suggestion on turrets: Make them much much more resistant to non-explosives like bullets, knives, and fire. Make them more resistant to all weapon types to give them more staying power. Reduce their deadliness so they are helping the fight but not doing all the fighting themselves.
2- Teleporters. Teleporters are tough to keep up in the field and rarely is more than one ever running at a time. For these reasons I would increase the rate at which they can teleport people.
3- I have issues with dispensers giving out metal. It's an endless flow of turret upgrading power and lets engineers sit behind a turret and repair it constantly. It's almost an exploit.
- Heavy:
- Medic:
1- NeedleGun. I'm really suprised that this weapon is just a basic damage weapon. He's a doctor firing friggin syringes, and he hasn't figured out that he can put something in them??? This weapon should poison, slow, or cause 'shrooms mode' in the victims. It's really the toughest weapon to aim because the needles fall. If you dropped the rate of fire and magazine size, and added some effects to the hit, that would be very cool.
2- Health beam. This is a great idea, certainly not realistic, but a great teamwork idea. The problem is that it can be exploited. How? When the demoman or soldier hurt themselves with their explosive weapons, the medic can heal them. The ubercharge builds up faster when used on hurt teammates. So... a medic can build up his ubercharge quickly when there is a soldier or demoman constantly shooting themselves nearby. This is done alot in the levels with a 30 second prep time. It allows all the medics to be ubercharged at the beginning of the round. It is also an exploit in my opinion.
I think the medic would also benefit from being able to drop one of those little medic bottles from time to time. Either with a long recharge time or with a low ammo count that requires resupply. Or both.
- Sniper:
1. Sniper rifle. Great idea with the charging power meter for being in scoped mode. Not realistic at all, but in CSS the strafe-jump-crouch sniper move was lame and frustrating to deal with. This helps take away from that exploit.
2. SMG. I personally don't see why the sniper should get both a long range and a medium range weapon. I would rather see him get the shotgun and the soldier get the SMG. I also think the SMG needs a serious damage boost, I almost never can get a kill with the weapon even in favorable situations.
- Spy:
1. Invisibility. They are VERY invisible, and movement doesn't affect how invisible they are. In other games that incorporate invisibility, typically movement reduces how invisible you are. Seeing and tracking an invisible spy running at full speed is very very difficult. On top of that, you can quickly turn on and off the cloak repeatedly. This allows you to dance around your victim popping in and out of visibility. This gives you a huge advantage in a knife and gunfight. Only the spray and pray classes can defend against that. I would decrease a spy's invisibility when running, and make his invisibility take more time to turn back on.
2. Sappers. All engineers HATE sappers. I like the idea of sappers, but I have a couple issues with how they are implemented. First off, the spy can place them instantly, while running / sidestrafing, and can place all of them as quick as he can pull the trigger. So he can get a whole bunch of engineer deployables within a couple seconds while dodging gunshots. On top of all that, the sappers act VERY QUICKLY on the deployables, and an engineer will only rescue his equipment if he is right on top of them and kills the spy first. Rarely does this happen unless there are other players also right there to help.
In my opinion, sappers should disable equipment immediately, take a much longer time to destroy the deployables, and take a bit longer to deactivate by an engineer. This lets the spy perform his role of shutting down the guns and dispensers to shift the tide of battle, but does allow an engineer to respond and gives him time to save his equipment. If a spy is out alone and sapping equipment far away from his team, his actions won't be especially effective as the engineer can unsap his equipment in time. If a spy is working in support of his team and saps a turret / dispenser near the fight, then his team will overrun the sapped equipment before the engineer can fix it. To me, that's a better choice for balance and teamplay.
3. Disguises. Great idea, great implementation, with one exception. If I shoot a disguised spy, his disguise doesn't disappear and sentry guns don't attack him. I think that's a problem. The whole idea of a disguised spy does have it's issues in a multiplayer game, as players typically shoot everyone they see just in case they are a spy. So I understand that making the disguise disappear will make it much harder to infiltrate the enemy. But a spy can do alot of damage very quickly with his backstab and fast sapping. The time it takes you to kill a spy usually gives him enough time to cause the harm he had intended to do anyway. TF2 servers with FF on would make the 'disguise disappears when shot' a good option.
4. Backstab. Well it sounds like a great idea, but it takes place too easily in my opinion. It seems that the angle that allows for a backstab is very broad. Also, the spy is allowed to backstab with no prep time and at a full run. This means that if a spy can get past the initial encounter by dodging gunshots or going invisible / disguising, he can run around and backstab people all the while everyone is shooting at him. I've seen plenty of cases where there are several people all trying to shoot the spy, and the spy is jumping and weaving and gets behind people quicker than they can turn their mouse to face him and they all get backstabbed. A running knife hit should not count as a backstab in my opinion. I would set it so a truly stealthy backstab works, which would require standing behind the guy and pulling out the knife, a 1-2 second wait.
With all that added together, I think that spies are very overpowered, regardless of their vulnerabilities. They wreak so much havok so easily that a few spies on one side really change the balance in a match.
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Ok, that was a huge post but it's alot to think about and discuss. I'd really like to hear your opinions on TF2 class balance. I'm trying to figure it all out while I play, and my opinions will probably change as I spend more time playing. Please share your feedback and your ideas.
