Things Currently Terribly Wrong With TF2, Whine Edition
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Things Currently Terribly Wrong With TF2, Whine Edition

1. Soldiers
This is the main gripe most players have with TF2, judging from the response on the official forums. Statistics for TF2 will back this claim up and tell you that the soldier is quite overpowered.



A fifth of damage is dealt by the soldier in a game with nine classes? This isn't really due to the total time played as soldiers, the soldier only has 15% of time played; and that in turn might even be affected by how powerful the soldier is. The soldier does not lead the pack at anything save the percentage of damage dealt, but a quick check will reveal that he doesn't have many weaknesses either. Soldiers claim that their short range, slow movement and limited clip size, but these are superficial, at the most.

Sadly, the soldier would not have been such an overpowered class if official Valve maps were larger and more open. Official Valve maps such as 2Fort and Hydro have clearly been designed to only accommodates not more than around sixteen players, but the official player limit is 24. Chokepoints are also a Valve favourite - Hydro being one of the worst offenders. The overwhelming presence of tight spaces and chokepoints only makes it too easy to land four rockets anywhere near a victim and killing him outright with splash damage.

It is undeniable that close-quarters combat is a main portion of the game. In such cases, you either: kill your opponent, or die trying. The abundance of areas for such combat further aggravates the grievances players have about soldiers - all too often players die to rockets.

There are simply too many good things the Soldier has going for him - above average health, high close-range damage, rocket knockback, splash damage, splash damage coupled with critical rockets and the ability to hold an area indefinitely with rocket spam. For the love of TF2, do something about him. Maybe a charge-up time for rockets, smaller ammunition carried/clip size or 1:1 damage to self.

Edit: Seems like Valve reduced the reserve ammunition carried by Soldiers and Demomen a day after this post. Hurrah for that, but it seems like critical rockets are now the main topic to whine about.

Edit 2: Demomen had their sticky damage modified and now they feel rather powerful, rather than very rather powerful.


2. Random Elements
Damage is heavily randomised in TF2. Shots deal varying damage regardless of where you land them and critical shots deal devastating damage on a whim. These detract from an enjoyable experience based on skill, you feel next to nothing when you kill with a critical but feel extremely frustrated when you are killed with one. Modify critical shots to headshots which are difficult to achieve like almost any other FPS, decrease the chance sharply or just remove them . Critical hits(apart from Sniper headshots) are a barrier to enjoyment, please fix them.

Edit 3: Valve finally decided to change how criticals work, the game felt much better after the change.

3. Control Point Maps
We do not want to play games of tug-of-war all day long. We do not want stalemates. Give us more CTF, escort, or some plain ol' team deathmatch to play with. See:RTCW:ET maps - Goldrush, Fuel Dump and Oasis

Edit 4: Ah ha! New payload maps are just reminscent of Goldrush. Arena feels like Counterstrike, and is not played as much as the other modes. Still, more modes would be fun.

4. Spies
Frustrating to play. Fat model sizes and chokepoints, useless disguises, terrible hit registration and slow cloak recharge. End of story.

Edit 5: New backstab animation, unlockables, cloak recharge on ammo pickups and a new backstab detection method finally makes the spy accessible to more players.

5. Medics
Getting called a useless medic by people who are not even playing medics, being screamed at for not healing/ubering them, blamed for losing matches, shouted at for running away to survive and the fact that nobody wants to play the team medic makes it an extremely fun class to play. Or not.




6.Pyros
Soldiers.

Who knows, I'm not the one with game design experience. But I'm sure anyone can tell when certain parts of a game are not fun at all.

Edit 6: The Pyro update did little to improve the Pyro. Damage done is certainly a smidge higher courtsy of the Backburner, but damage is still on the low side. The airblast is a very situational weapon, and is rarely used right. Man, I should have been a game designer at Valve.

DIE, SOLDIERS!

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

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