No Crits, No Respawn Time

[Remix]

Unfortunately, Valve has ruined some of the key aspects of Team Fortress 2. While they are at it, why not remove medkits and disable spies from cloaking.

Today they released an update that offers server commands to eliminate crits and to eliminate respawn times. If you put those two things together, that is 50% of the game right there. Also in the update, they have reduced the following:

Max Rocket Ammo for Soldier from 36 - 16
Max Grenade Launcher Ammo for Demo from 40 - 24
Max Sticky Bomb Ammo for Demo from 30 - 16

All in all, I think this the update I least like for TF2. I will miss servers that required a certain amount of time before you respawn. Hopefully the no crit command will stay limited to league play. :thumbdown:

 

[DJive]

i personally think this is the best update ive seen.

I hate crits, so i love the option to shut them off.

both those classes needed there ammo downed.. cut in half is a bit drastic, i woulda went 36-20, 40-28, 30-20.

 

[Apex_]

I'm on the fence about the max ammo cutbacks myself. For general play I imagine a lot of people will run dry on ammo given the explosives tend to be very spam-oriented (at least in the eyes of your average player who hasn't taken the time to master nade arc or leading targets with rockets). I don't mind the sticky cutback much since I generally find people to go for demoman and stickybombs when they just want to raise their kill count. It's unfortunate for those players who use stickies to help actively defend areas or take out SGs instead of camping all the time, though. Maybe my ammopack dropping plugin will get some proper use now at least.

I guess so many servers had instant respawn Valve finally put it in officially. I hate instant respawn as well, though I do agree with some proponents of it that spawn times can be far too long if not adjusted to the map itself. Valve's stock respawn wave times are insane for small maps like Mach, but instant is going too far in my personal opinion. I don't think a five second wait will kill anyone...

Eliminating crits is an interesting topic, since I've seen a few 100% crits or increased (double, triple) crit servers as well as those having them disabled totally. Despite the stir many league players made about disabling crits right after the game released, some leagues never bothered modding them out anyway (CEVO I believe plays with crits still on). I like crits myself, and haven't disabled them for any reason on my server.

Luckily they're all options (yeah that's right, I'm still jaded over the friendly fire debacle) so chances are there will always be servers out there for everyone.

 

[Shmitz]

So I guess now would be a good time to start littering our maps with ammo packs.

I don't know if there's any elegant solution to respawn times though. At least that one's only an option.

 

[TheBladeRoden]

I suspect a Scout heyday coming on.

 

[shpladoink]

Eh, instant respawn can be good or bad depending on the map. I've got nothing against customizing it on a per-server basis, but it ultimately should be up to the mapmaker to fine tune respawn times to keep things balanced.

 

[Apex_]

So I guess now would be a good time to start littering our maps with ammo packs.

I don't know if there's any elegant solution to respawn times though. At least that one's only an option.

If you check out my little writeup for ctf_heist in the WIP forum I briefly mention having spawn rooms on the second floor require elevators to reach the main floor (and hence the action). In the case of my office building/evil headquarters style it would work nicely given the timing was tuned correctly. An airlock or disinfecting chamber type thing could also work.

I agree with shpladoink's above post as well...some maps simply aren't made for instant respawn and some work just fine. Unfortunately a lot of admins don't think about the gameplay ramifications and flip the insta-respawn switch because players are too impatient to wait 10 seconds to spawn. I can't count how many times people complain about Valve-default spawn times on 2fort on the rare occasions the mapcycle takes us there. I think some players don't even know the game has respawn wait times!

 

[ryodoan]

Personally Everything that you mentioned in the update is fine by me EXCEPT the no respawn time. I can understand reduced respawn time, but NO respawn time on CTF maps (my favorite type of map) is a bit ridiculous. You end up getting stuck in stalemates more often and its aggravating.

 

[Tokit]

i personally think this is the best update ive seen.

I hate crits, so i love the option to shut them off.

both those classes needed there ammo downed.. cut in half is a bit drastic, i woulda went 36-20, 40-28, 30-20.

I love crits and am very angry that 99% of the servers out there are now crit-free instant respawning servers.

 

[Scotland Tom]

As options I think the instant respawn and no crit switches are fine. My fear, however, is that they'll be abused with no thought as to how the changes will affect gameplay. The Valve maps are designed around 24 players, with respawn timers, and critical hits. I already avoid servers that play certain maps with 36 players and instant respawn because the gameplay is totally different. I hate to think what would happen if these options proliferated even more. And honestly, I've never had a problem with crits. Sometimes they save me from a dire situation and sometimes I get hit with one before I can even pop a shot off. It's not like crits only affect one class or one person, they are indiscriminate. Though I do understand the perception of some classes having an advantage with criticals.

As far as the ammo cuts for soldiers and demos... I've got to agree with DJive. I understand the cuts and why they might have gone in, but I wouldn't have halved the ammo reserves. Maybe a 25-33% cut would have been sufficient.

Overall... we'll have to wait and see on these changes. I'm a little dubious myself. I'm curious if the new options will proliferate such that it'll be difficult to find a server with standard rules.

 

[Narkissus]

I find the no crits switch to be great. There shouldnt of been crits in the game anyways. half the time I die its not my fault, I only die because some asshole soldier got a crit when he was randomly spamming rockets in every direction and I happen to turn a corner right next to one.

I think in games like these you should only die because the other person is better then you, not because they get a lucky crit. All in all im happy about the soldiers ammo getting cut too, maybe it will mean less rocket spam.

If you cant tell I absolutely hate the soldier class. No talent people are the only people who play them. "Woo I shot the floor 15 feet away from that guy and he died! I'm so awesome." Pisses me off everytime.

 

[ryodoan]

There is a difference between crits and different classes.

If a soldier hits you with a crit, you can have full health and its an insta-gib. If an engineer hits you with a crit then its still going to take a few rounds.

 

[Pseudo]

I think that crits and respawn times as originally designed provide good gameplay and I will prefer to play on servers with those options enabled.

 

[Kirko]

i love this update. it makes it so they have to retreat and get ammo instead of just spamming nonstop. i mean isnt that the reason there are no nades to eliminate spam. thank u valve. i like the crit option too. i hate crits. demos and soldiers already have like the strongest guns in the game and they get crits more often then any other class. ive even tested this. ive shot a rocket full ammo until i ran out. about 1/8 shots were crits. demo was 1/6 for both his guns. i took an engineer and shot his shotgun and pistol full ammo until it ran out and 1/24 shots were a crit. and those crits dont do crap for damage like the crit a soldier or demo gets. scouts get a crit like 1/6 shots too. i dont get why the powerful weapons like the rocket launcher, demos guns, scatter gun, flamethrower, mini gun, sniper rifle, all get crits much sooner and more common than the weaker guns like the shotgun or pistol does.

instant respawn is the best thing in the world.

 

[Shmitz]

Oh there may have been reason for changing the ammo count, but someone was on crack when they decided to cut it so drastically. For a demo defending a cap point or something, it's quite literally equivalent to dropping the sniper ammo to 4.

Reducing grenade spam is one thing, but making it impossible for a class to perform one of its intended jobs without constantly running back to resupply is pretty dumb. The "solution" is worse for gameplay balance than the "problem" ever was.

 

[Scotland Tom]

^ /agree

I used to enjoy playing demo and soldier. Not because they were easy or a "noob" class, but because they could perform specific functions that were valuable to the team. With the ammo so drastically reduced their capacity to actually fill the role they were built for is severely hindered. I've tried each class once since the update and I probably won't touch them again unless their ammo reserves are increased.

 

[Hawk]

Today I had my best game as a Demoman ever. I actually attribute this to decisive use of what few grenades I had, a little luck, and yes, those critical hits came through for me now and then. I found myself retreating for ammo A LOT. As much as I enjoyed blowing up so many people, I can imagine a bit of the frustration the other team may have felt. Those critical hits probably are too strong. One of the problems is that your critical rate gets higher the better you're doing, and I was on a rampage today.

If I were to readjust things, I'd raise the max ammo of the soldier and demoman halfway back to what they used to be, and decrease the strength of a critical grenade/rocket/stickybomb. But definitely leave critical hits in.

As far as respawn time goes, I firmly believe that it is necessary, and I avoid zero-respawn servers. It's too hard for Blue to win Dustbowl with no respawn.

 

[grazr]

Crits seemed like a creative response from having removed grenades from the game entirely. Saying that.. i have found them nothing but annoying. The amount of times i've crossed the bridge in 2fort for a soldier to jump over and get a lucky crit on me (and for that to be the end of that) is too many to find amusing. and normally it is 3 times in a row! I don't mind respawn times, infact they help gameplay a lot.. but because i'll have been the first to have unfortunately been killed off so quickly i have to wait the full 20 seconds to respawn each time. It would be nice to actually duke it out with another player once and a while. Come to think of it, 90% of the time i get killed by a soldier is because of a crit i never saw coming. It kinda ruins the fun.

I play demoman a lot and havn't found ammo reductions too much of a problem.. but then that's primarily a defensive class so resupply isn't too much of an inconvinience. But i can see the soldier reduction being too much. Especially on an instant respawn server where you'll probably have to kill the same person 3 times to get to the flag and then again on the way out. If there's an average of 16 enemies in a full server.. that's a lot of ammo.

What would be interesting would be to see crits given to people with inv only. People who get inv although have the added bonus of being immortal for 10 seconds (or what ever) but normally it's a suicide run at the end of it because you run into the thick of the defences to take out key defensive points (sg's, camping demomen). Only then to be wiped out be the rest of the team.

 

[Koei]

Crits are part of the game, live with it. If you are good enough you will throw out more crits than the enemy does. I've got the highest KDR on the server I play on and have no problems with crits. Seems you are just meeting superior players that do more damage and because of that do more crits. Sure, it can be frustrating to be on the receiving end. But when wiping out entire teams in just 3 rockets it just feels good

 

[Snipergen]

Agreed with koei. Crits are awesome. Certainly if you get 4 after eachother after a 10 ppl killing spree.