Coming out today! I am in for it, and got it all preloaded, but it won't be unlocked until "late in the day" as Valve so vaguely puts it. This game looks amazingly awesome and will hopefully give me a worth FPS to play again. Once it gets going I'll post screens / comments.
Still not out! Only 3 more hours in the release date (pacific time). Valve really gives me the redass sometimes!
Screwed up release, a series of launching problems but its finally running smoothly for most people. Some people (like me) can only get it to run in a window though. I've been playing in a window and its a great game. The graphics are awesome, the maps are nice, the classes are cool. There are tons of sweet features and tons of little touches. The game keeps track of your stats. When you die, it usually says "On the bright side..." then it will say something like "you lived longer than your previous best with the spy" or "you healed more than your previous best with the medic". It tracks tons of different stats, but seems to only track positive ones. The class balance isn't amazing, but its pretty good save for one or two. The spy is probably too good. The pyro sucks, and the scout isn't much better. The graphical style is awesome. Easy to see whats going on, and everything runs smooth as butter on my machine. I'll post some screens in a bit.
Neat features: Some characters grin more and more as you accumulate kills, until eventually they are laughing hysterically. Sniper must stay in scoped view for a few seconds before his shots will deal full power. This is good from a balance perspective since it prevents people from avoiding the scope walk speed penalty by doing a fastswitch. On the other hand, you can still fire right away if you really need to, it just does reduced damage. Great class, although not great for maps where you only attack and do not defend. I see a lot of snipers being played. Pyro just seems to suck. He's kinda slow moving, his flamethrower range is ABYSMAL. His other weapons are a shotgun and a fireman's axe. Technically the shotgun has a long range but since it spreads, its really only effective at close range. This guys flamethrower is bad news if you get next to him, but because hes slow he seems kinda shitty to me. I don't see a lot of pyros. I've seen a few players do well with him but most of the time he's a laughable enemy and a shitty ally. Scout is insanely fast. Fast enough to avoid a lot of players firing completely and just run past them. However, engineers turrets track the scout pretty much perfectly (or so it seems to me) so scout doesn't seem very effective except for the VERY first spawn of the game where a few scouts can go get a control point really fast (they capture faster than regular classes too). The scout is a weak little bitch and his "scattergun" is only good at close range. Don't see many people play scout. Soldier is good. High HP, a rocket launcher, and a shotgun. He's kinda slow, but if he wasn't he'd be too good. I see a decent amount of people playing soldier, he's good for attacking because of the rockets and his high HP. Spy is rigged/crappy at the same time. He can stealth for short periods of time, and he can disguise himself permanently as another class, and he can choose to appear as either team. He can disable engineer devices with the "electrosapper" furthermore, this doesn't break you out of your disguise like attacking does. If people on defense are not vigilant, he can set up his team for a win by sapping all the turrets and stuff. He has a knife with which he can insta-kill anyone with a backstab. On friendly fire servers he's pretty amazing. However, on non FF servers, a lot of players (especially engineers) just shoot every ally they see just to make sure its not a spy. Still, in the right situation, you can stab 3-4 people in quick succesion. I see a lot of spys always. The Medic is probably the best class overall for the team (or engineer). His healing beam gun is waaay too strong. If a medic just focuses his heal on a Heavy, it takes 3-4 other people shooting that heavy to take him down. His gun that fires syringes is pretty damn good, and reloads super fast, even though it has a short range. After the medic heals for a certain amount of time (doesnt have to be continuous), he gains the "ubercharge" which allows him to make himself and 1 ally invincible for 10 seconds. Me and my friend often go Heavy + Medic and make big pushes on enemy positions. Basically we can kick ass until the Heavy runs out of ammo, or a spy backstabs somebody. Even though this class has a GIANT impact on whether or not a team wins, I don't see tons of them, but I see a decent amount. The Heavy carries a big gattling gun. He moves slow, especially while firing (or spinning in preparation to fire). But he has a ton of HP and his gun is really strong. With a medic, this guy is an amazing assault class and even without a medic he makes a great defense class. He's one of the ideal targets for a sniper though, since he walks so slow and he has a huge body (and therefore a big head!). I see a pretty high amount of heavies. The Demoman has a grenade launcher and a sticky bomb launcher that lets you deploy up to 8 bombs and detonate them later (all at once) when you decide to. He's a good defense class, but because his shots arc & bounce, he's also sometimes the best way to get past an enemy chokepoints. He sucks in the open, but in certain choke point areas, he's really unmatched. On certain maps, you see a lot of demomen, on others, not many. The Engineer is great. He can deploy + upgrade a defense turret, a dispensor (gives health and ammo to allies) and a teleport entrance+exit that allows your allies to take shortcuts. He's really good and I see lots of engineers all over. He's not really great at attacking except to provide a teleport shortcut though. He gets a pistol, a shotgun, and a wrench so he isn't amazing in combat, but he moves pretty fast. The balance could be improved, mostly I think pyro and scout need a buff. Medic heal should get nerfed a bit. Either that or lower the range a bit so he is more likely to be in the line of fire with whoever he is healing. I was taking screenshots with print screen, when in actuality the SS key is F5! Doh. Oh well, I'll try to take some later to show off.
I'm enjoying the heck out of TF2. I'm still learning, so I've mostly focused on Soldier and Heavy. Some of the classes are tricky, like the Spy. I keep trying to knife people immediately after deactivating stealth, but there's a 2 or 3 second wait before you can make an attack, so basically all I end up doing is giving myself away and they turn around and kill me.
Don't use stealth to knife. Stealth to an area behind the enemy, then destealth where no one can see you. You should have a disguise already on from while/before you stealthed. Then run back towards your base and you will look to the enemy like an ally who is heading to the front. Then stab people. You can stab immediately out of disguise, theres no delay. Also, you can use the electrosapper to turn off (and destroy) enemy devices. Using the sapper doesn't remove your disguise! Items that get sapped will be immediately disabled and will blow up if the sapper isnt removed in 5 seconds or something. So a great tactic is go behind the enemy line stealthed, come out of stealth, walk back to the front lines as if you are attacking your own team, sap a turret, then stab the engineer who is around it. If there is a lot of action going on you might be able to stab a few people before they change their focus to you. Also, if you have waited long enough out of stealth, you have a chance to restealth after the stab and run away again. I used the pyro a lot today and he is really not as bad as I thought. The thing is his damage all comes from the burn effect so its rare that you get kills right away. Best tactic I've found is hold down the flame on someone for about a second then fall back, or switch to burning a different enemy. Usually they will burn to death. Before I had been focusing my flames on one player but it doesn't seem to make them die a whole lot faster so it just puts me in greater danger. Oh, and getting SUPER close makes a big difference. In areas where there are a lot of healthkits or if the enemy has a couple medics, the pyro really is kinda crappy. He's great in a zerg tho where two teams are really clashing over a control point, you can sorta just run around with your flamethrower flying and get a handful of kills/assists. Of course, that's only when you aren't playing with friendly fire on...
A few screenshots: Click to see larger version. Check out bottom left, MVP as pyro?! In the center photo (scout), you can see the motion blur option in effect (scout runs fast... check out the walls they are all blurred). Really makes the game seem more fluid when you are playing, and as an added bonus its sort of a free" antialiasing for moving objects.
Even more screenies: Another sweet thing I noticed, but didn't get a screenshot of: When you explode from a rocket or a grenade or something, sometimes when the camera is looking at your dead body (or rather, body parts), the game will put arrows up pointing to different peices. For example "Your torso" "your foot" etc. I thought it was pretty funny.
First gripe about the game thus far: Playing a spy on a server with friendly fire turned off is a pain. Smart players will run around shooting their own teammates to find spies, and it makes infiltrating a real hassle. Often times I've stealthed my way into the opposing team's base, only to have a pyro randomly flaming teammates set me on fire and blow my cover.
Just gotta learn how to look like an ally. I play spy more than any class and I still GREATLY prefer not friendly fire servers. Too many random explosions and allies still shoot you to see if you are a spy so frankly friendly fire just annoys me more than anything. In a lot of other shooters I prefer it, but not in TF2. Here are some tips: Head toward enemy base as either yourself (no disguise). If the enemy see's a friendly player running from the enemy base, they will often tell their allies "hey, spy coming over here disguised as a ____". Even better: disguise as one of your allies. Yes, disguise yourself so you look like a regular member of your team. This way when you get seen running across open spaces, the enemy has no warning that a spy is en route. After you get close to the front lines, HIDE, and THEN stealth. Now switch to a disguise while running to another hiding location, THEN unstealth. Do not walk out right away as the destealth animation takes a second. If you think you are reasonably hidden, now is a good time to let that cloak meter recharge a bit. Preferably pick a class disguise that they have a lot of. Never pick a class that they don't have or pick the same class of your target (unless there are lots near him). This is because it gives you a name from the enemy team randomly based on what class you pick. If you pick a class that they don't have, you get a random name. So you are more likely to have the same name of the guy you are near. Walk in direct paths back toward your own base. One of the biggest giveaways is when players avoid other players or loiter around. If you were really on their team, you'd always be moving to either the front, the resupply room, or the battlements, not just standing around looking at an engineer and his sentry. Try to stay WITH big crowds of enemies when in disguise. Odds of getting detected in a crowd is so low its hilarious. Of course, you can't really do anything until they get engaged but at least you are in position. Do not walk out in front as it makes it more likely for them to see your name (it might be theirs) and makes it more obvious if an ally sees you and doesnt shoot. When you are stealth, try to stay AWAY from people as they will notice when they bump into you and will start firing all over. If they start to shoot at you, keep going wherever you were heading and don't try to dodge their shots. It took me a long time to not go "oh shit" and try to run away, but it paid off. Usually they fire a shotgun 1 or 2 times and if you just ignore them completely, they stop and let you be. Keep in mind that in disguise, on non-FF servers, your HP doesn't go down in the view of the enemy and you don't show blood, so the only way they can tell is either by seeing you moved by an explosion, lit on fire by a pyro, or see you actually die. Try to avoid your own team. Nothing marks you out like having all your allies run past you and leave you alone. When you see them coming, run backwards like you are scared to fight. When you get ready to backstab someone, try to have a stealth meter at or near full. Right-click immediately after the kill to cloak right away to avoid discovery. Put on your disguise again and hide, then decloak. It's often useful to change class right after a kill or a sap. Try not to sap sentries when the guy is standing RIGHT NEXT TO IT, unless his back is right out in the open. If it is, then simply sap, switch to knife, stab him, and stealth. Don't try to do this if he is repairing/upgrading the sentry or he will automatically remove the sapper and the turret will end your fun really quick (even if you manage to take him out first) If the engineer is sitting with his back to a wall or is leery of you coming near him, wait in some nearby area for your allies to get near the sentry then go sap it right as they come in. This will allow them to bypass it and even if the engineer destroys the sapper, odds are he or the sentry or both will get killed by your other allies. Oh, and, above all, unless its absolutely critical to winning, don't keep trying to sap the same sentry if the guy keeps detecting you. He just gets more and more paranoid every time you make an attempt. Either go somewhere else or change class for a while. If it is really necessary to get rid of the sentry, then just try to go sap while your team attacks. Hope this helps! Also keep in mind to utilize the alternate routes with the spy.
Update, cvar mp_friendlyfire has been disabled! I guess there's no more friendly fire option. Explanation was "it breaks many aspects of TF2". Whether or not that means this is a temporary workaround to isolate bugs, or it is a permanent change because of balance reasons remains to be seen.
Thanks for this summary and in depth analysis, I am now looking forward to this game. I was stoked to learn about the Orange Box coming out this month, do you know anything about it? Price ranger perhaps? I'm on a restricted surf here at work and can't acccess any site directly related to games.
Price is 50 bucks for everything (at least it is on steam). If you preorder on Steam you can get 10% off. I preordered (to get 10% off and join TF2 beta) so I just paid 45 bucks. It includes: Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Peggle Extreme (basically a demo for peggle, but has levels that are not in Peggle. Short, but pretty fun simple time-waster.) TF2 is seriously amazing. Last patch they have fixed some hit detection quirks with Pyro and they buffed his point-blank damage a bit. He's pretty bitchin now. He still sucks at long range but he finally is what he is meant to be: the dominant close-range class. Also, the fact that spys visibly catch on fire even in disguise (and you can still see the flames when they cloak) makes pyro a really great class to play when the enemy team starts getting loaded with spys. I just do a short burst of flamethrower on anyone I see doing anything that seems out of the ordinary. Unlike shooting them with another weapon, you can immediately tell if they are friend or foe, rather than having to shoot them 4-5 times to make sure they aren't a well-disciplined spy. They also changed it so Demoman's grenades no longer explode on contact after they have bounced. They used to still explode if they had bounced 0 or 1 times, now its only if its 0 times. This is an amazing change and helps cut the amount of stalemates. Demoman really annoyed me, because teams that were losing would get a bunch of demomen and just constantly bounce grenades around corners at chokepoints. Basically they could get random kills if the bounce happens to fly right into you. Now, after a bounce, the grenade won't blow up until the fuse is up so even if one randomly bounces into you around a corner, you can still run away from it. And, of course, skilled players can still fire a grenade directly into someone and have it explode on contact. This still allows the demoman to be powerful but really cuts down on the amount of mindless spam there is.
I guess I should give an update on my class view, since it has changed a lot since my initial impression: Scout: Bitchin'. Captures control points at double rate of other classes, is the fastest class by a wide margin, and his speed combined with double-jump means you can really get around. The scattergun you get is bitchin'. The scout is a damn good class if you are a player who can control your aim while moving at such high speeds. Only good (or lucky) players will hit you with slow-firing weapons if you keep moving. Of course, with such low HP, you can't afford to get hit by much. Pyro: Bitchin'. The recent flamethrower fix + buff makes him really brutal. He's one of the best spy catchers and one of the best scout killers because you can spray a continuous stream of fire, making it hard for the scout to dodge. However, when the enemy is set up with sentries and a lot of long-range defenders, playing Pyro can be pretty futile. He's listed as an offense class but frankly I think he's amazing at defense as well. My favorite is waiting under the catwalk staircases and spraying fire thru the stairs right onto the backs of people who walk down them. He's also a good way to kill medics, since your flames will hit the person he is hiding behind AND him. To be honest, you generally don't have much chance of staying alive vs a guy with a medic, but you DO have a good chance to set the medic on fire to either kill or severely weaken him before the flames burn out. This sets up your team to kill the other guy who just lost his medic. Heavy: Heavy is shamefully good if you have a medic. He has 300 hp base (scout has 125 by comparison), and when you have a medic healing you, your max HP goes up to 450. Really the only danger to a heavy who has a medic is a well-charged sniper headshot or a spy backstab (or, getting fired on by LOTS of people at once). He can be shitty without a medic though. I've had some good rounds without a medic but usually I don't play him unless theres a medic to heal me. Medic: The syringe gun is very very good. It's one of the "physics" guns so the syringes arc downwards as they get fired. You can take advantage of this and arc them up onto platforms and stuff. They don't fire super accurately but you get a clip of 40 and about a 1.5 second reload time. If you get good at judging the arc, you can tear guys up from far away too. Ubercharge is a game winner, and is the ultimate counter to basically any stalemate. Engineer: Great class. I have more play time on him than any other, even though he's not anywhere near my favorite class. I play him so much because it is sort of necessary sometimes (and cuz a lot of people suck at playing eng). I try to only play him when I really think I have to. I still have my point record with engineer, but my 2nd best is only 1 point behind, with Heavy (which is my least played class). Usually people will only play engineer on defense, but really even if your objective is purely offensive hes good. Teleports really help your team reinforce the front lines fast, and dispensers nearby help top off peoples HP and ammo. Sentries aren't that useful for attacking but you can put them just behind the front lines to keep people from destroying your other structures and to keep stray enemy players from flanking you. I think he can be really fun to play but he's kind of a "slow paced" class a times... "build stuff then guard/repair it" is the general idea. Some tips for engineer: drop a teleporter entrance as soon as the round starts. Then go back into spawn and resupply. This takes about 5 seconds and makes it so you already have a teleport entrance ready for later (and you still have full supplies). Build everything else (sentry, dispenser, teleport exit). close together so you can defend it / remove electrosappers easier. If you are away from ammo supplies, build the dispenser first, then the sentry, then the exit. If you have a resupply station or a decent ammo powerup, build the sentry first. Always upgrade your sentry asap.
Re: Team Fortress 2 Well the game has been release for a few weeks now and it is still awesome. With the release of course there was a big influx of new players, and of course all the whiny little bitches that complain every time they die about something being imbalanced. All the bitching is starting to die down though as people get used to the game. They've done some changes to the demoman, most notably: his grenades now only explode on contact if they haven't bounced yet. This means that if you don't directly hit someone with them, it's much easier for them to avoid the grenade before it blows up automatically. This greatly cuts down on the demoman "spam endless grenades around a corner" situation where people could get kills just via random spam, which just lead to boring stalemates. Demoman is still great and he's one of my favorite classes. A lot of players bitch about critical hits still. Frankly I think critical hits are fine since everyone gets the same odds (and your crit chance improves if you have been playing well recently). However, I think not all crits are created equal. Shotgun or minigun crits are good but they don't compare to a crit rocket. The critical rocket on the soldier is good-fucking-game. Basically it 1 shots anyone with a direct hit (other than a heavy that is fully precharged by a medic) and the splash damage is waaay too big. I've gotten crit rockets that killed 3-4 people because if a lower-hp class is even nearby they are goners. And since crit chance is based on recent performance, sometimes I've gotten into a situation where crit rockets created really amazing rounds, which just made my crit chance even higher. I've been at what seemed like 33% crit chance. Basically I was an unstoppable juggernaut until the map ended and then it reset back to normal. I don't really see a balance issue with crits except for with rockets... if the splash damage was tweaked to be just a BIT lower it would be fine. Soldier seems to be the "win" bread-and-butter class that is pretty much bitchin' for any situation. A team with a lot of soldiers is pretty fucking hard to fight since there is so much splash damage around. The last patch changed something with Pyro, dunno if it was intended or not. Before, to be effective you sort of had to get at point blank range. Now it seems like at point-blank, the flames don't even apply correctly, but they seem a lot better from a few feet away. Seems like the hit detection area just got moved forward a bit. Like I said, not sure if this is intended or a bug. It seems much better out in the open but worse inside of tight spaces. On granary, where there is tons of open space, scout is SO fun and he is ridiculously good. He moves fast enough to get to stuff while defenses are still being set up. He's not great on some other maps though since he is pretty much cannon fodder if the enemy has managed to upgrade even 1 sentry before you get there. Me and my friends like to all pick scout now and then on capture maps, then go capture the first node within the first few seconds of the game. Then, the enemy usually tries to take it for themselves, so we just ignore them and run to the next node. We are fast enough to cap the 2nd node and lock-out the last one before they get it. Then we proceed to the final node while the enemy team runs back from the center in a vain attempt to catch us. Works perfect now and then and you win the whole game in about 2 minutes. Of course, all it takes is 1 guy to make a full upgraded sentry at either the 2nd or last nodes, and it can kill like 5 scouts easily.
So I bought it, and am downloading it now. This better be close to TFC, or I'm going to go demoman on their offices.
It sounds like the fundamentals of TFC have remained, but I heard a lot of complaints about bugs, and it requiring some decent PC power.
Holy Freaking Shit! I just stayed up all night playing it. It is... 10:00 AM, I last wrote at 4:00. Awesome. I miss the grenades, but awesome.
If you listen to the commentary you can see why they decided to take out grenades, and I agree with the reasoning. During the beta before they changed the demoman's grenade (used to explode on contact, now it only does if it hasn't bounced yet), you used to get a lot of lame demoman spam at certain chokepoints that just lead to stalemates with both teams afraid to enter the constant stream of grenades. Really, grenades are fun on some level but the fact that they just lead to more stalemates and camping makes them not worth it.
There is a point, Fox, where a game mechanic severly limits both the gameplay and the level design. That's when they seriously need to take a look at whether or not the mechanic is necessary. Valve made the hard decision. I can't fault 'em for that.
Valve had the ultimate beta: available to only those that preordered. Funny to watch the same old "OMG IF U DONT BRING BACK NADES I WILL NOT PLAY RETAIL" threads on the steam forums... Hey jackass, you already bought the game, THEY DON'T CARE.
I'm a BF2142 guy myself. Nothing like being an infantry man knocking out a battlewalker with an emp grenade or mine, then calling down an orbital rail gun strike from the heavens... TF2 sounds like it's a better infantry sim, but BF2142 actually is a combined arms game.
Uh... TF2 isn't a sim at all. It's not realistic or anything. It's just a fun game that has 9 diverse classes and really solid class balance.
Just stand on it (or near it, there will be a box drawn on the ground around it). As you stand in the capture zone, the little progress bar will move. The more players on the node, the faster it caps. Scouts count as two people for capturing. If the enemy team has any players standing on it (or if its locked), you can't make any capture progress. In order for a node to be "unlocked" your team must own the preceding capture points. In the bottom center of the screen, a padlock icon indicates if a point is locked. Capture progress decays pretty slowly, so usually it is worthwhile to attempt to capture a point even if you know you won't get it. It sets up your team to finish the progress afterwards. Conversely, since ONE defender can stop the progress of several attackers, it's worth it to stand on the node when the enemy tries to capture. Even if you die, you delay the capture process for a few seconds, which lets your respawning teammates get back to the node in order to stop the enemy. Don't be the guy who would rather lose the game than die. Don't stay and back and shoot while an enemy captures the node. Get ON the node.
