The role of sentries in maps and how it's affected by map design

[Chilly]

In a mirrored map every engy on your team is one less player that can help you win. Engies only delay losing.

This is true in some instances, but not true in others. It's definitely true in 6-6 play, but definitely not true in most 12-12 play. A good engineer will place his sentry near the frontlines, which basically holds that line on the map plus acts as another gun. Whenever his team pushes the line of control forward, he needs to move his sentry forward as well. In addition he'll have a teleporter going forward as well, which allows his team to use larger slow classes against smaller classes more frequently.

True that in many cases it's better to just have another demoman, medic, etc. However making a blanket statement is ignorant. TF2 is a game of situations. There are situations for almost everything, and having an engineer on a 5CP map is one of those situational things.

In addition, I guarantee that if you put two equally skilled teams against each other and you have an excellent engineer on one side, his team will win. I can't count the number of times on 5CP maps that I've worked my way past the battle and gotten a teleporter up behind the enemy's next CP, and then followed it up with a surprise sentry. That almost always guarantees your team will cap CP4 and be able to push CP5 with little effort.

On payload maps it's just as effective. Mangy has seen demos of me getting teleporters behind the enemy and using sentries and my shotgun to slow the defenders. Even if they destroy my stuff easily, that's a little while that my team has to push the cart without any opposition. I've won Badwater on BLU nearly singlehandedly a number of times with excellent teleporters and surprise sentries. Good engineers can do that.

I'd suggest before making more blanket comments about the game that you play once with an excellent engineer. No, good engineers won't need locations set up specifically for them. However, maps without good sentry locations tend to play VERY fast with scouts quickcapping many points. In 6-6 that's fine, but in pubs it tends to get a bit boring. The same can be said for making multiple excellent sentry locations, like on Hydro. The key is finding a middle ground with multiple good locations spread around.

 

[Shmitz]

I never said that. I said the steam forums and the 32 man servers don't know what they're talking about.

EDIT: And some pubbers don't know what they're talking about. They think that cevo shouldn't have banned the sandman. There are people out there who just join any old server and just run in, shoot, die and enjoy themselves without thinking about the game.

If you make a game for comp players the good stuff will trickle down to the pubbers, and they won't know the difference (I'm referencing the steam forum people here.) But trickle down doesn't work the other way.

I was counterpointing the Gman quote. And you're still making the assumption that pubbers aren't capable of coming up with "the good stuff" on their own.

I'll put it plainly: Just because someone plays pub doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about. Just because someone plays comp doesn't mean they do know what they're talking about. It's meaningless to try to point at your background (or anyone else's) and say that proves your point.

The only thing that matters here is logic and the points made in the ongoing discussion.

 

[MrAlBobo]

But engie is the only class where he is encouraged to sit in one spot and mindless +attack. A dispenser provides constant metal, and the sentry aims for him, so he is rewarded for sitting in one spot and +attacking while heavy and soldis aren't. Also, gunhumping is effective enough and it works well enough to allow the engie to be effective. Their is no incentive to not babysit your gun.

Pesh, he is really so well rewarded when 3 stickies land on him and blow up everything. While its under constant fire is the only time you should ever do that. And if you have a problem with that then you better start hating the medic for healing a heavy thats under constant fire.

2. But you wouldn't have time to save your sentry, dispenser and teli. The whole point is, it kinda defeats the purpose of the gun of to have to watch over it

If your teli is in the same place as your sentry while your defending the 2nd point then your a retard, or its meant as a distraction. My point is you can save one, and thats all that really matters, if the sentry is destroyed you still have the dispenser which will allow you rebuild very quickly and if the dispenser goes down, well...its a 100 metal, deal. And frequently I drop a level one near the point then run off to the front to set up that, during the time its alive the sentry makes a great way to alert you that a spy is about to try a stealth cap.

I was critzing the sandman ruining the uber, but what keeps another scout from stuning the pyro?

I was pointing out the bonk hurts the effectiveness of sentries, so the scout update is a 1 for 1 in the uber, sentry relationship. And honestly? did you really just use that as an argument? Bah fine, what stops a sniper, spy, scout, heavy, medic, and so forth from killing that scout.

Well, lets take a look at GPit, the best A&D map out there. Point A has no good sentry spots, the place is too open. C doesn't have any, you can just stand on the other side of the map and shoot them, and there is no readily available metal. All sentries are really easy to destroy. While B is a bit more protected, sentries can still be blown up.

Garbage, dustbowl is far better, regardless i suppose thats personal opinion. Point A has a few decent sentry locations but their not terribly effective, ill give you that, and that is kinda a purpose, it creates a different type of gameplay in that area. You admit that sentries are good on B, so thus gravelpit has good sentry spots and this example is invalid. C follows the concept of defend at a distance, you are not meant to place sentries on the point, they are meant to protect the paths that lead to the point, like the path from A to C is an excellent place for either team to have a sentry.

The problem is that while 1 sentry on it lonesome is easy for a soldi or demo to take it out, when you have 2-3 sentries, and the other 13 team mates spamming the carp out of the map, you don't have time to fire 4 direct rockets at the sentry.

This in my opinion is the fault of the mapper, sentry stacking is something that needs to be taken into account, good sentry spots need to be designed so that only one or two sentries can take advantage of them

Do you guys remember CP_Well before they added the extra stair way? 2 sentry guns with some teammates spamming the doors could complete shut the map down.

Perhaps this is why it was changed?

Which brings me to another problem. On 5 cp maps, when a team is losing and is on their 2nd point or last point, they don't attack, they just defend that last point. They don't push. And sentries are the largest help to the team not pushing problem which causes stalemates in all maps.

I don't like 5 point cp maps, so this really isn't a big concern of mine, but...everytime ive seen that the team will eventually go down

Finally, the sentries slow down the game quiet a bit. The game mechanics make TF2 a slow paced FPS, compared to today's CoD4, and sentries really bring the game to a gridlock.

I don't like CoD and see no reason why a comparison of games is required.

 

[What Is Schwa]

I still disagree... an engy is only good for holding ground, not taking it. In the hypothetical, If a player is equally skilled in engy and soldier, I'd rather he play soldier and help us win.

Engies only help you not-lose. They don't help you win.

 

[Shmitz]

I still disagree... an engy is only good for holding ground, not taking it. In the hypothetical, If a player is equally skilled in engy and soldier, I'd rather he play soldier and help us win.

Engies only help you not-lose. They don't help you win.

Did you not read the several examples given of how engies help win? If you're going to simply restate your position, you should at least take the trouble to offer an opinion as to why you think those are irrelevant. Otherwise this reeks of willful blindness.

 

[MrAlBobo]

I still disagree... an engy is only good for holding ground, not taking it. In the hypothetical, If a player is equally skilled in engy and soldier, I'd rather he play soldier and help us win.

Engies only help you not-lose. They don't help you win.

yawn, fine then, you are not allowed to ever use a teleporter, since they obviously never provide any benefit what-so-ever

I can personally recall many situations where the team was making a big push to capture the last point, so we all rush in, with me taking the time to quickly place a sentry in a obvious up close position, and since everyone is distracted by the people, no one notices a sentry slowly building. The conclusion of the push is a fail, red team wins the battle with a 2-3 people left alive, the sentry comes to life and kills them all, in that time, through the use of a convenient teleporter the blue team runs back in and takes the point...

 

[What Is Schwa]

Are you tired?

 

[MrAlBobo]

Are you tired?

always...

 

[What Is Schwa]

Did you not read the several examples given of how engies help win?

Did you not see the timestamp?

We can weave very interesting hypothetical stories at each other all day. For every epic struggle where the engy saves the day I see a dozen Dubia Engineers. If we are going to do the thing where you imagine the most bad-ass brainiac engineer that has ever graced the face of the earth, I get to do the same with my imaginary demo man.

You can pick the class that has to run a relay race to realign his teleporters every time the team takes a point. I'm going to pick the one that is versatile and more often helpful.

 

[MrAlBobo]

for your reference none of my examples been hypothetical, usually it was something ive done
and ill agree ive got epic stories of every class, but this thread was attacking engie, so I go and defend engie

regardless, you use your class, ill go back to using every class except soldier

this could theoretically be a very nice ending to the thread, but who really believes this will stop?

 

[no means nomad]

I sort of see areas obviously designed for sentries as wheel chair ramps for players who aren't able to play the class that well. If they aren't able to see the good places on their own it's at least a viable placement so they won't be completely useless to their team (although I guess you could argue that someone who doesn't know how to play their class should be useless to their team). Obvious sentry spots with hidden counters that skilled players can pick up on seems ideal to me for both supporting engineers of all skill levels and making sure they can't prevail against better players. Of course designing that is easier said than done.

Usually the better places for sentries just evolve with the map. As long as the map isn't wildly open or closed engineers can be a viable class. One thing I have noticed with cp_erosion though is how too many small nooks and crannies benefit engineers. An overabundance of them will end up leaving a huge number of hard to reach spots they can surprise the enemy from. I guess that's a pratfall of maps that get a little too ambitious with creating environmental pieces that seem more real. If geometry hits a point where it gets too complicated sentries become real powerhouses on the map because it can be impossible to predict sentry placement.

Constant uncertainty of something like that can just make a map really frustrating for players.

 

[MangyCarface]

Chilly+nomad are two of the few engineers I admire and are perfect examples of people who will forgo the easy engy route to really help out a team.

We're discussing sentries too heavily.
A good teleport /alone/ could sway an entire battle. If you can hide a l3 tele somewhere behind the enemy, it's essentially an entire new flanking route. This is a support option unique to the engy that can move games away from stalemates towards resolution.

 

[MrAlBobo]

Thread Title: "The role of sentries in maps and how it's affected by map design " thread is about sentries

but regardless ive brought up teleporters a few times

 

[Agentkid]

On payload maps it's just as effective. Mangy has seen demos of me getting teleporters behind the enemy and using sentries and my shotgun to slow the defenders. Even if they destroy my stuff easily, that's a little while that my team has to push the cart without any opposition. I've won Badwater on BLU nearly singlehandedly a number of times with excellent teleporters and surprise sentries. Good engineers can do that.

Team player to the win
Engineer's goals in game should be to help your team get to the objective faster, defend the objective by either using a sentry gun or using your dispencer to heal your team instead them having to look for packs or the nearest spawn room.
Also if you can get behind emeny lines any surpise sentry will cause the other team to have to spend time, health, and ammo on you instead of your team, which if timed correctly (scoreboard can show you the best time to build near a spawn) can land a lvl 1 or even lvl 2 sentry, distracting and killing the other team for about 15, 30 seconds.

 

[Mar]

A good engineer will place his sentry near the frontlines, which basically holds that line on the map plus acts as another gun. .

Ok, I don't have time to dissect every post, looks like I'm going to have to call in backup.

Alright, when is the last time you saw a good engineer in a pub. And if you see one, please send me the IP of the server. Most people that get good at engi realize its low skill skill ceiling and move onto other classes.

Edit: Also, you sneeked behind enemy lines and built a tele and a sentry on a 5 cp map without getting killed? Some how I doubt the skill of the enemy team.

 

[Mar]

Garbage, dustbowl is far better, regardless i suppose thats personal opinion. Point A has a few decent sentry locations but their not terribly effective, ill give you that, and that is kinda a purpose, it creates a different type of gameplay in that area. You admit that sentries are good on B, so thus gravelpit has good sentry spots and this example is invalid. C follows the concept of defend at a distance, you are not meant to place sentries on the point, they are meant to protect the paths that lead to the point, like the path from A to C is an excellent place for either team to have a sentry.



I don't like CoD and see no reason why a comparison of games is required.

1. I said B is better, but there is little ammo, and all you have 2 do is RJ on one of the buildings to destroy a sentry from above. There are no good spots.

2. I just said the pacing of the game is slow, unlike CoD4 which a fast pace game. Or Quake Weapons Factory.

 

[Mar]

yawn, fine then, you are not allowed to ever use a teleporter, since they obviously never provide any benefit what-so-ever

I can personally recall many situations where the team was making a big push to capture the last point, so we all rush in, with me taking the time to quickly place a sentry in a obvious up close position, and since everyone is distracted by the people, no one notices a sentry slowly building. The conclusion of the push is a fail, red team wins the battle with a 2-3 people left alive, the sentry comes to life and kills them all, in that time, through the use of a convenient teleporter the blue team runs back in and takes the point...

1 medic helps you win a lot more then 1 engi does.

And 5-cp maps should be a concern of yours.

 

[MrAlBobo]

k...1st, the ip 8.6.15.72:27015 there are no dedicated engies but there are a few good players that can use every class well

1. I explained in detail a few of the good spots, remember that I am using my definition of what a good spot is from a few posts back
2. it irritates me when people use other games as an example to prove their point, if you like the other game so much, go play it and leave us to tf2

ill admit one medic is more valuable then one engie, but 1 medic and 1 engie is more valuable then 2 medics

Also, you sneeked behind enemy lines and built a tele and a sentry on a 5 cp map without getting killed? Some how I doubt the skill of the enemy team.

have you played badlands? its incredibly easy

 

[Mar]

I play badlands all the time in 6v6 scrims. Have you ever heard of scouts. They usally take the flanking routes that are opposite of the action, and they kill engies.

Again, sentries just break the flow of the game and create more of a dead lock then help.

And in a 6v6 with 2 soldis, 1 demo, 1 medic and 2 scouts, (this is normal comp setup), who are you going to sub for an engi?

 

[Mar]

Also, @ Mr. Albobo. You can tell us a great story of how an engi one a point becuase everyone was distraceted, but then I can just as easily join a game of Well or 2fort where there are 3 engis and 3 snipers, and 3 pyros doing nothing.