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Cross-posting from the online content creator thread:CodfishCartographer posted:So, like 10 years ago, there was a series of TF2 vids about how to play the spy really well, by a youtuber named OMFGNinja. The rest of the videos on his channel were almost all TF2 related, mostly just spy clips or guides.
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Nov 9, 2020 06:49
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 03:34 |
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Grapplejack posted:Lmao it loads the whole map at once WHY When I used to be big into TF2 mapmaking like 10 years ago, optimizing the map was a huge task. Often the layout of the map itself, on both a micro and macro scale, had to be designed with it in mind. Properly blocking out visleafs and occlusion blocks was legitimately an artform that took hours upon hours of refining and practicing. It was what separated good maps from great ones. lmao looks like that poo poo don't matter no more
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Dec 4, 2020 00:00
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Been getting back into the game like many others after a long period of not playing. However I've also been getting the itch to get back into map making, I made 3 or 4 maps back in the day which never really gained any traction but were still fun side projects. tf2maps.net seems dead, is there any currently-active community for mapmaking + public playtesting? Was a lot of fun playtesting maps with big groups, both getting feedback for ones I'd worked on but also seeing the cool ideas other people were fleshing out.
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Aug 7, 2023 19:38
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drrockso20 posted:Got links to your maps? They're like a decade old and not very good, but apparently I only uploaded two of em to the workshop (both uploaded years after being made) - cp_clash and ctf_gumption. I also had a map called pl_bayou that isn't on the workshop but I ran on a server I owned for a while. Clash was a weird attempt to make a symmetric version of "pyramid" CP maps like gravelpit - one central neutral point that's locked, then each team had two points they had to try and steal, then if you did so your team could capture the center point. Would have made much more sense to have two central points and one locked point per team, but this was my first full map and was also made within a week for a contest so I'm still happy with it lol. Gumption was made for a tf2maps ctf contest, looking back on it the layout is pretty flat and boring but I'm happy with the detailing I did. Bayou was an attempt to make a pl map where the cart moved along water, it never got to the for-realsies detailing phase, it also got an okay amount of playtime on a server I owned back in like 2009. I remember liking the layout at the time, but remembering back I think it was also very flat, though with a good amount of water allowing for sneaking access into various buildings. I actually met with Robin Walker at GDC around this time and discussed the map with him a bit, I remember talking about struggling to make the map fun for pyros and his response was "gently caress pyros" lmao Looking back I definitely struggled with creating maps that were dynamic vertically, probably because I used a whiteboard to plan them out - so they were naturally designed with a 2D, top-down view in mind. I was also just new to game / level design in general. Aside from those three, I had a 5 point A/D CP map I tested on tf2maps a few times, can't remember the name but it was egypt-themed. Same with a ctf map that had a large ravine in the center with various routes to cross.
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Aug 7, 2023 20:13
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Gwyneth Palpate posted:delete sniper It's wild coming back to the community after like 7-8 years and seeing this being such a prevalent mindset. I remember back in the day lots of people thought snipers were near useless - I remember seeing posts along the lines of "well demoman and soldier get more kills than sniper, and can more easily destroy engie nests! why would you ever want a sniper??"
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Aug 9, 2023 19:25
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Yeah I totally get why snipers get hate nowadays, mostly was just pointing out how funny / jarring it was after being gone for so long to see how the zeitgeist has shifted. Spy's a similar case - it's interesting seeing everyone talk about how it's a "badly designed" class or how it's the worst one or whatever. Granted as people have gotten older with the game knowledge of how to deal with spies is certainly more commonplace, but I wouldn't go anywhere close to calling them a "bad" class. Also funny seeing Scout listed as the best disguise to go for, when back in the day everyone would advise to NEVER disguise as scout because the speed difference is so obvious. I'd think that with more awareness of spies nowadays, that advice would be more true than ever!
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Aug 9, 2023 20:41
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Blind Duke posted:Age has really made me awful at hitting with shotguns while folks are doing the FPS staple of rapidly jerking from side to side, predicting folks will switch directions a few feet before/after they actually will. Seeing folks who can hit shots against me doing the same while jumping and changing directions constantly is what really gets me feeling helpless. lmao I used to play scout back in the day, and HOO BOY have I noticed my aim is absolute dogshit nowadays, and Scout is brutal if you can't aim well.
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Aug 10, 2023 00:05
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I also like to think part of it is Payload just tends to be more dynamic than CP - in CP fights tend to be based around, well, the capture points, so they tend to stagnate around those areas or end quickly. Payload maps obviously have plenty of chokes and areas where action winds up consistently happening, but they tend to have more frequent in-between fights since the attacking team can't just blitz rush for the next point, they have to move more slowly along with the payload, giving the defending team more time to get setup and meet them in weird spots. Also has a bonus side effect of forcing the attacking team to more or less push as a group, since they have to gather around the payload.
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Aug 10, 2023 00:35
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I'd also like to see some recommendations, Uncletopia servers are better than casual but they seem to always be pretty lop-sided. IME it's been rare to have an even match, they're usually very one-sided (if not complete stomps).
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Aug 14, 2023 01:31
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After spending some time using the Baby Face's Blaster, I've decided the community is dumb and wrong and the weapon is Good. Not as good as base scatter, but pretty much nothing is. The speed penalty isn't nearly as crippling as people make it out to be - you're still faster than every other class. So the only major downside imo is the -2 clip size, which does suck but you'll windup wanting to use it as a hit and run weapon anyways, and it's amazing for that. It lets you dip surprisingly deep into enemy territory and still zoom away, I find I get away with a lot more using it compared to base scatter or soda popper. I know guillotine is popular with it but I find a pistol to be a better choice, up to preference which one. One or two pot shots even from a long distance and you're pretty much at regular speed or faster, and then you have a backup in case you beef your shots (but you should probably run away at that point anyways). For comedy, pair the BFB with crit a cola - you're losing all your boost of you get hit anyways, and the burst damage is hilarious. Though probably not worth giving up a pistol or guillotine.
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Aug 16, 2023 06:29
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Kaal posted:The BFB isn't as competitive as the standard shotgun, but it's a great twist on the class and is usually a lot of fun. Yeah this is mostly what I was trying to say. I'm surprised to see how low players tend to rank it, often saying it's straight-up a bad weapon. All you gotta do is adjust your playstyle a bit and it really shines! Hell, I tend to do better with it than the Soda Popper, but that's probably because my aim isn't great so whiffing a shot or two hurts a lot more with the SP, and I tend to die before I can get + properly use a full hype charge. I also find it odd how much players poo poo on the Sun-on-a-Stick, calling it one of the worst weapons in the game etc. Yeah you can't light people on fire as a scout, but if your either has a few Pyros why not bring it along? The crit damage is solid if your team has pyros, and burn damage is pretty threatening for how squishy scout is. Major downside is that it's ugly. Jack B Nimble posted:I can't stop using the PBPP. I'm not even saying its good, but it looks and sounds great and I just can't bring myself to use the vanilla pistol. It is really good too though, it's so hard to justify any other pistol. You usually are using the pistol for chip damage or finishing folks off anyways, so the less damage per clip doesn't feel like a major downside - especially with how much utility it has for topping off your health. CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Aug 16, 2023 |
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Aug 16, 2023 20:01
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cock hero flux posted:it's bad because it's a damage-focused scout melee I'll admit it's not like, the best melee ever, but I wouldn't really call it bad, imo it's situationally a solid choice. I generally see it more as a "help not die from fire" melee more than a "kill people on fire" melee, since yeah you're right it's usually better just to shoot someone. Its value comes from the other team's composition, similar to the candy cane - if there's a lot of pyros it's not bad to take the stick, if there's few explosive classes (lmao) then it's not bad to take the candy cane. If your team has great medics + engies that make for easy healing then yeah you probably don't want it even when against a lot of pyros. But also lol pub servers so that's not reliable, so it can be a good situational pick. Of course, it's hard to beat the wrap assassin, but long-range bleed on a melee weapon is hard to beat with any melee imo.
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Aug 17, 2023 00:09
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cock hero flux posted:generally speaking the best way to not die to a pyro is to shoot them with your gun, since 25% resistance isn't going to be nearly enough to matter if you're trying to beat them to death with your melee. if you didn't need to actually take the thing out in order to get the damage resistance it might be useful for this, but since you do you'd be better off on average just shooting them while running away, since making them die or back off is going to be a more effective way of mitigating their damage output. if you really need to dedicate your melee to not dying to pyros then the candy cane will let you clear the afterburn right after you kill them with your gun, which is what you should be doing anyway, though it does come with the caveat of getting completely owned by explosives. also like half of scout's secondaries are good against burn damage in some way while also being generically useful, and scout is pretty well-suited for dealing with pyros anyway given that you can resolve most unfavourable fights by just walking away from them while they impotently shake their fists at your rapidly retreating backside Yeah these are all fair points, I think its only real utility is just "surviving afterburn after killing / fleeing a pyro" - but this can be a useful utility in some situations. Personally I only call a weapon "bad" if the downsides outweigh the upsides. Sandman? The slow is almost always pointless, and losing 15 health puts you in one-shot range of a ton of stuff - I'd say it's bad. Stick? Losing the bauble from Wrap Assassin is a big blow, but if you're struggling to survive afterburn then it's probably worth taking. Yeah it's a niche situational use, but it is a use. I certainly wouldn't mind if it got buffed to be more generally useful.
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Aug 17, 2023 00:40
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I do think it's an interesting observation that the FPS aiming skill level of players now is much higher than when the game released, which is almost certainly true. I think the general prevalence of matchmaking in modern-day FPS games can account partially for this - it's much easier to make small improvements to skill nowadays in FPS games since you'll usually be matched with similarly-skilled players and can thus focus on trying to improve in a suitable environment. TF2's lack of matchmaking also probably exacerbates the sniper issue, since a highly-skilled sniper won't be kept away from less-skilled players and can just dominate a server. Ironically Uncletopia is maybe partially to blame for sniper hate. Since it's touted as one of the best environments to play the game in, I think many players flock to it before going to other servers / casual mode. More skilled players will be more likely to know about it (due to intentionally doing research online etc) and thus will also be attracted to it, so there tends to be a wide range of player skills. More skilled players do well and stick around, less skilled ones get frustrated and leave. In my experience, I notice there's usually a pretty big discrepancy between top scores and low scores on a team, and the bottom 2-3 players on each team tend to rotate in/out of the servers frequently. Sniper, being one of the classes that most rewards high aiming skill, dominates in an environment like this - Uncletopia's love of payload maps also probably compounds this.
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Aug 24, 2023 15:07
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I've always been a bit confused by demoknight, it's such a drastic change in role and playstyle, I almost wonder if they should have added a tenth class to fill that niche, or added it to a different close-range-focused class like pyro.
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Aug 26, 2023 22:54
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It's worth noting that the same youtuber did a different experiment where Sniper's sightlines were always visible, and it seemed to be mostly a global improvement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehlrUPrvFuk
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Aug 28, 2023 01:55
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I would say Medic is probably the single class that would have the most impact if removed from the game, but I wonder which would have the least impact? Maybe scout? Soldier, demo, spy, and heavy are important for breaking up defensive lines; engineer (and heavy) are important for establishing a defense; medic is always important for pushes: Pyro is important for spy checking, protecting sentries, and ambushing. Sniper, spy, and scout fill similar roles of "pick off important targets" - but spy brings counter-sentry utility, and sniper does it from a safer position. Scout obviously provides better capping power, but with the community's shift toward payload that's a fair bit less important nowadays.
CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Aug 28, 2023 |
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Aug 28, 2023 05:11
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Offense engie is weird because the better you're doing your job and helping the team push, the more often you have to move / rebuild your poo poo, kinda gets annoying.
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Aug 29, 2023 21:59
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mila kunis posted:Valve should never have ported it over for tf2, but I guess they needed it for nostalgia and early marketing I mean back then CTF was seen as one of THE mandatory FPS modes. Like people could barely imagine TF working without grenades, I think people would have rioted without CTF. Obviously now with hindsight we can see that CP / Payload are the much more interesting game modes (and I think Valve knew this back then too, considering 2fort was the only non-CP map on launch)
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Sep 1, 2023 14:49
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Been playing with the Shortstop a lot lately, man this gun is fun and gets a bad rap. It's obviously not as good at prolonged close-up engagements as the base scattergun or soda popper (though its point-blank-range burst dmg is actually comparable to the scatter), but imo the mid-range damage more than makes up for it. I discovered I'm better at tracking targets at mid-range rather than up close, so I wind up performing a lot better with it compared to scatter/SP. If you're able to space out enemies it winds up being a lot safer too, at least if you're bad like I am.
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Sep 13, 2023 15:21
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cock hero flux posted:the shortstop makes you better at mid range but it hurts your ability to just run up and blast a guy in the face and kill him, which is the fun part of scout While true, I'm also Really Bad, so whenever I get that close I usually wind up dying - or dying while trying to get that close. I should probably work on that skill instead of keeping more at a distance, but 
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Sep 13, 2023 16:43
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The thing I find a bit funny is that competitive players insist on enforcing fixed spread patterns for shotguns...but not pistols? Or the minigun? Like both of those are incredibly luck-based at range, but for whatever reason the community has decided it's okay for those to be luck-based but not shotguns/scatterguns.
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Sep 13, 2023 21:31
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Blind Duke posted:A distinction to be made between spread and random spread. A minigun can have a spread to throw bullets consistently in a pattern that’s relatively even and patterned to be hard to abuse, but is consistent and won’t have a buncha bullets randomly come out left leaning as you are tracking an enemy running to the right. Yeah this is what I meant, random spread. I do think it'd be possible to add non-random spread to miniguns/pistols in a way described here, but also yeah it's a good point that it's way easier to just change a server setting than to develop an entirely new mod for it or something. Just a bit funny to me that I see some servers going so far as to entirely rebalance weapons but like, nobody seems to even try to address this obvious bit of randomness that can easily determine if someone lives or dies. Pistols can be surprisingly strong when all your bullets hit, but sometimes even at relatively close ranges your bullets just decide to fly off into the atmosphere even when you're dead on target.
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Sep 14, 2023 14:41
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The only new class I'd like to see would MAYBE be demoknight being pulled off into its own thing, but even that I'm not sure about because then it leaves demo without any real subclasses. It would solve the weird problem where demoknight is so fundamentally different from demoman that you never know what specific niche the other demos on your team are filling. Battle Engie still gives teleporters and dispensers and still provides area denial, Bow Sniper is still picking off key targets, etc. Base demoman is all about heavy area denial and aoe damage, but demoknight has neither of those thing and thus fundamentally changes what he's giving to the team.
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Dec 15, 2023 00:03
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drrockso20 posted:Yeah my suggestion of splitting off subclasses into being classes of their own(and maybe a couple new classes too) would be only if this hypothetical TF3 were to have a wholly new cast of characters filling the roles I actually think most of the subclasses should stay subclasses. One of TF2's biggest strengths is how flexible the classes are, and it's ability to "create" hybrid builds within one class. If battle engie was split off into a separate class from turtle engie, then we'd lose out on being able to do weird hybrid poo poo mixing and matching those two. Countblanc posted:sure you do - it's demoknight. it's always demoknight. 
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Dec 15, 2023 00:37
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Oxyclean posted:Even without hearing from the people running the bots, it's pretty obvious they're just trying to spoil the game for other people. Like, bots in most other games are either for making money (MMO farming bots) or cheating something, but that's more of the territory of like "aim bot" where it's still a player mostly at the wheel. There doesn't seem to be much to be gained by the TF2 bots, since you can just idle for items in a trade server. Many of the bots seem to advertise various sites, I'd imagine the intent is to get other people to pay to download the aimbots / hacks / etc for themselves.
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Feb 2, 2024 20:44
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The Shortstop fucks hard and it's severely underrated imo. Yes, it is worse than the scatter gun if you try to play it like a scatter gun... Which is why you don't do that lol. Surprisingly few classes are actually good at mid range - most have to rely on a pistol, meaning if you keep at the right distance you can basically clown on everything and there's nothing they can do. It also doesn't really have the downtime as the scatterguns do, so you don't need to rely on your secondary, meaning you have a lot more options there. Crit a cola for even longer range damage, mad milk for more support, bonk for getting out of bad situations, etc etc. It's a great primary that is severely underestimated because most scouts (and players in general) refuse to adjust their play style.
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Feb 9, 2024 00:53
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YER is a great knife imo. Pubs are uncoordinated enough to where you can go on massive killing sprees without worry. While the kunai is probably better at that, it's easier to get into position due to better health.
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Feb 17, 2024 23:10
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 03:34 |
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I love seeing people talk about Scout weapons so please effortpost. Honestly, I feel like the majority of scout primaries are undervalued. I feel like this is mostly because the playerbase refuses to use differing playstyles, and also only seems to consider things in an ideal situation with perfectly-skilled players. I've been using the FAN a lot lately and have had great results after shifting my playstyle towards more hit and run tactics and taking unexpected angles with the extra mobility. Yeah it's worse than the scattergun when it comes to prolonged fights, so just don't get into those! The common consensus for the FAN I see online for these situations is "Soda Popper is better for burst damage" because the FAN pushback means the follow-up will deal less damage. In practice though, this usually isn't a major issue - and the increased initial damage usually more than makes up for it. People act like every scout is an aimgod who will always hit every meatshot at full damage, but that's realistically not the case - people are moving, they'll react to that first shot, etc. Even with the Soda Popper, against everyone except maybe a Heavy you're going to get the first meat shot, then the second will probably be at a bit of a distance and you probably won't hit every pellet. FAN makes that second shot much easier to hit due to the predictable knockback, and you'll probably wind up dealing more damage with a second mid-range FAN shot than a second mid-range Soda Popper / Scattergun shot. I'm bad at aiming, I miss a lot of follow-up shots, and the FAN makes that easier. Is the FAN a crutch, then? gently caress yeah it is! But that's fine because, again, not everyone is a competitive-level FPS player - I'm fine with a weapon that's a bit easier to use in exchange for not being as optimal, and I feel a lot of people handwave this fact. I've also posted before about how I think the Baby Face's Blaster is underrated, and I think there's actually some merit to even the fuckin' Backscatter. These weapons may not be as good at the classic "meat shot and jump around" Scout playstyle, but if you adapt your strategies they can be very effective and fun!
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Apr 22, 2024 17:57
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