Server #3 class limits

Server #3 class limits

We have decided to try out restricting the engineer class to 4 on Dustbowl 24/7 server. This is the result of thorough discussions and now it is time to hear your opinion. For the next week the limit will be forced, and during/after the week you may post your opinion. Re-voting is enabled.

Arguments for limiting engineers on server #3

One of our main goals is a TF2 experience with teamwork. This is achieved currently on server #2 and #4 while our oldest server #3 will remain mostly as before. The only change has been the engineer limit of 4, which is meant to avoid impossible defenses that effective kill the game and the fun. The "fun" factor was considered very carefully with the decisions.

Stacking the engineer class

In case of several engineers both teams face a few problems: Firstly the building team will have hard time getting their guns up before the setup time ends because of limited resources - you have seen this often on #3. The defense with a few lvl 3 sentries and 6 engineers lacks the strength that would contain the weak spots left by the guns. The result is that the guns will be overwhelmed by the lack of support from the team and the nonexistent offensive classes. On the other hand when there are several sentryguns ready and waiting, the large base repairs itself very quickly. A handful of dispensers supply metal for 12 lvl 3 guns and if even one of the 6 engineers understand to assist his buddy in building, the others quickly follow the example.

For the offense to overcome this obstacle they would need optimal balance of offensive classes and medics. Then they would need to defend their medics with ubercharges and coordinate a push from most fronts with multiple simultaneous ubers - a feat that doesn't happen often. After the initial push the offense should also organize an immediate defense to cover regrouping for the next assault, lowering the odds of this happening on a public server.

When the offense tries to do this we can hear some ppl crying class limits in favor of soldiers, demomen and heavies rather than the 3 offensive engineers, 4 snipers, 3 pyros who are knocked back by the enemy when ubered and the sole demoman who is hasn't yet learned to use the stickylauncher. Sure the offense can win, but that is only with proper classes and organization. All these problems disappear when limiting engineers to reasonable numbers.

Argument: class limits = fun limits

The game has 9 classes with unique capabilities, which means that one can derive satisfaction from each of the 9 classes. In addition to the fun from playing a class, most people want the fun from the teamplay aspect, where class balance is in fact a vital element. Browsing steam forums one can see that the majority of TF2 community values teamplay.

This results into an understanding of the fact that people who cannot play a class on a certain level do not see the importance of class balance, therefore only seeing the negatives of not being able to play their very favorite class at all times. As we have stated before, satisfying the community is a very important factor in our decision making but it is not our only goal. The other goals will also be considered.

How to fix this? Learn to appreciate the positives of each class - reason it to yourself by remembering that the game has 9 classes. Missing one would be equal to missing 1 of the 9 parts the game has to offer. Indeed you can see that it is not us that limit the fun with our class balance, it is you that limits your fun with your class preferences. Our job is to provide you the additional satisfaction from teamwork which you cannot achieve on your own - hence the class limits.

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The statement above provides further reasoning for our decisions about servers #2 and #4. Now, your arguments below thank you. --

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

I've not played today yet so can't comment about the class limits. I'm gonna wait for the week and see how it pans out. However as someone who never plays engi but medics alot it may be an improvement for me, will have to wait and see.

Micky 8-)

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

*Cries* "OMG, the evil reds are having to much engineers, and I dont have enough skill to deal with all those Chuck-Norris-like, unbeatable sentrys, so I will keep crying that the game designers suck for creating a class to defend a point with automated guns, the whole world is evil,, so i dont wanna have the reds as much engineeres as they like .... lets limit them the total ammount of engineers, so that i still have a chance with my non-existing skill to get one of them down" *Cries*



That's how I see it. If you are too unskilled/stupid to kill a high number of sentrys, you should quit playing, because Team FORTRESS is designed that way ..... if there should be a maximum of Engineers in the red team, the game designers would have made such a maximum ..... Now trying to rebalance the game on your own is nothing but a capitulation to some tearful nubz IMHO (!) ..... The question should be btw: Class limits, yay or nay ;-)

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

+1 Th . I will vote once the week is up.

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

If you are too unskilled/stupid to realise that a team made up of 50% engineers results in nothing but a hair-pullingly pointless round then you should quit playing - our intentions with trying out this class limit are to make the game more open and allow Blu to utilise the entire class range instead of just demo/medic combinations and also to try and make Red adopt a more agressive defence. It is called TEAM Fortress, yes - hopefully by limiting the number of engineers to 4 (still 25% of a 16 man team) we can encourage some team play and co-operation beyond engies occasionally wrench-wanking someone else's gun by accident. How is us trying to rebalance the game a capitulation to some tearful nubz? The only tearful nubz here appear to be those who are completly unwilling to even try this for a week to see how it affects the game dynamic.

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

Scotty if people are lagging they could also go medic aswell i think this is a great idea that its been limited, im sick of engie spam on stage 2 its near enough impossible when they have 5+ engies and just gets annoyingly stupid after a while

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

You cant force anyone to play as a team by dictating them which class they are not allowed to play.

If you play with selfish / noobish players it is nothing but hopeless that there will be any teamplay, even some of the regulars are too focused on their own playing. I mean .... you can see that every day: 2 Ubers are crushing the sentrys away (even if it were more then 4 sentrys, if you are good, you can deal with them) or at least the most of the sentrys, and then you (dead meanwhile) are saying via microphone "sentrys down / only 1 sentry left, push guys, push" ..... but there is no push coming, because the other players dont wanna die "omg, i could die just running to the cp" .... -.-

You cant fiy fix this behaviour with limited classes, the problem is, that you cant guarantee on a public server that are no idiots in your team that dont care about TEAM Fortress ..... as you should know Piss, we are joking sometimes about "Solo Fortress" in such situations ..... as well as after some failed/non-existing pushes after the ubers, the regualrs that are willing to die for the teams sake start beeing sarcastic or insult the "4 blu snipers and 4 blu engis, which are extremly helpful making pressure to the enemy" .....

The "regulars" were performing teamplay before you created the class limits, as well as a "team filled with regular" and some timing via microphone is able to destroy any sentry deffense from red.



Some postings before, someone said something about the 9 classes of TF2 .... these classes would have individual characteristics and skills ..... well, this is true, in my opinion, there is no class that would be overpowered, and you need a mix of all these classes to win a round. I havent seen a whole team playing the same class - because of personal preferences and of unconsciously balancing by the players. A team wants 7 engineers ?! Just let them ! It is their right to choose the classes they like, because it is some kind of tactic -> pure sentry bunkering. Now it is the turn of the blu's to find something to crush these sentrys away, because 7 engineers mean (+ in "normal case" 1 or 2 snipers), that the reds are having a lack of the other classes. So, with some agressive pushing, the reds now shouldn't be able to stop the blu's from preparing several ubers ..... it is the blu's part of the game, to overcome the reds bunkering tactic somehow. If they are not able to win, it is their own fault, not the evil engineers's one, because the reds team was just doing its job: goddamn hold the point, no matter what or with which mix of classes.

The reason for blu failes are in most cases selfish/noobish/feared players that dont give a thing about teamwork, as i allready said. In most cases, red has at least max. 2 counteraattack combos (pyro/heavy + medic) to annoy blu and stop them from bringing in theiry ubers to crush the red's deffense. If there is a red pyro counterattacking, whole blu is turning backwards, instead of standing still and just kill him -> that speaks for a lack of experience. A pyro is easy to kill if he is not ubered, but if 1 or 2 pyros (uber is another thing ..) is able to stop nearby whole blu from pushing the reds back to there deffenses ( now extremly vulnerable for a blu uber because they are all concentrated right at the deffenses that hold the red alive), then there is just something wrong with the blu team, not with the class balances.


The class limits wont change anything about the lackt of teamplay on public server. it just causes some problems imo: It makes it difficult for the red team to react on threads. I allready wrote before, that if your pyros wont spycheck, but you have a big spy problem, there is no possibility to go pyro yourself and deal with it for the teams sake ..... or - what i really like to do - if you see some (running) lvl1 teleporters entrys at you spawn, I go engi myself and upgrade the teleporters for the team, so that we can push faster with them, and after that, i switch back to my class that i was playing before .... such things arent possible any longer thanks to a class limitation.

So, I really would like you rethink your opinion about class limitation. The boys and girls of Valve have thought about this too (i think) and the fact, that there is no class limitation should speak for itself, because these guys really know more about their games then you guys here.

IMO the reaction to the fact, that you cant play your fav. class because others allready maxed it out will be, that the non-regular player will just switch to one of the other ~300 servers out there.

You guys really act, like every round would be dominated by 10 engineers and noone would ever see 2nd stage on Dustobwl :/


BTW: think about the game's nam: Its Team FORTRESS 2. not Team Stormtank 2 ;-)

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

It is their right to choose what class they want....it is our right to modify our servers to attempt to improve teamplay / gameplay as we see fit. At the moment this is just an experiment - we will see the result of the poll after a week and decide whether to continue with the limit or not. As for now your objections are noted and, I assume, reflected in your vote.

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

No, i voted "yes", lol xD AS a german, it is my nature to headless complain about everything

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

I haven't tried it yet, *PC still not working*

but if you class limit engineers to 4, do the same to all the classes, to make fair.

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

usually i'm against class limits because i believe teams will eventually even out

...except on stage 3, where BLU indeed is often faced by a wall of sentries
to take that out, kill remaining enemies AND cap the point you need to have the entire blu team cooperate and organise an attack
something that pretty much never happens (only when a lot of regulars who know eachother play)

it's ridiculous how the first 2 stages are nice and not too long stages, whilst the 3rd stage can last up to friggin' 22 minutes!
then again
3rd stage ofcourse is the final line of defense for RED so it should be teh hardest to capture, but i think relying on over 9000 sentries is not the way to go

i'm not complaining about the sentries on teh other stages because those are easy to take down :p
one demo can wreck his way through there, but on stage 3 cap 2 i never seem to get far as demo (or any other class for that matter)

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

I wasn't going to bring up that bombshell until absolutely necessary :lol:

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

Now that you argued your points properly I see what you mean, Obaruler.

It is kind of ironic that you speak of how we limit choices by limiting engineer to "only" 25% of a team. If we would not limit it the RED team could have as many engineers as they want. In that case the BLU team would in fact face a lot more strict limits: the game would advance ONLY if about 10 players would take the most useful class in that situation, usually in the lines of medics, demomen, heavies etc. Now we are only limiting a few, maybe 1-3 wannabe engineers. See my point? Its the lesser evil.

The argument about letting ppl make good or bad choices as they want was the reason why we voted against a general class limit of 4 on server 3. All classes have valid reasons to get limited:
-several scouts are mostly weak against solid defense
-several soldiers are usually too powerful
-several pyros cant deal with a few heavyguys and a few guns

-several demomen make the game spammy or just kill the movement
-several heavyguys are often too strong
-several engineers stall the game

-too many medics have no strength without offensive classes
-a lot of snipers are easily overrun from a single weak flank
-more than a few spies make the enemy too paranoid for all of them

We indeed want to support your idea, Obaruler, of letting people choose. We decided however to host a server limiting only the engineers, because above all other classes they are the hardest to counter when stacked which results in a stalled game, that is not pleasurable for anyone. Well, for most.

We are aware of the fact that all will not like this decision, and we accept it. There are many TF2 communities out there, ours is like this.

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

Well, that engi is the only class that will have a limit would be a nice compromise .... I am not playing engi that often that i would start to cry if I wouldnt have the option to chose that class because the limit is allready reached by my team (but of course there are some people out there that will hate it, that their favoured class engi isnt available for them) .... but I see, that there are too many people, that cant deal with a high ammount of Sentrys (caused by own lack of skill or some guys in their that seem to "hate" teamwork) ..... and as I said: I havent seen a whole team of engi's , the normal ammount is something arround 4 or 5 engis in red team, so a limit @ 4 isnt the worst thing i guess ... If the other classes wouldnt have any limitations (ever seen 7 heavys ?! I have ... xD) , this would be a consensus that the most players would agree to, i think.

But ...

This is a pretty poor way of countering my point (old clichee: germans have no humour ;P ). Limitating (all) the classes is nothing but re-balancing the game(-play) itself, a Dustbowl only server isnt a real comparsion to that.

But of course, in the end, it is the server's administrators decision what and how to do with a game that is running on his server ...... my warning was: It is the player's decision, if they are willing to accept the changes or to move to other servers without any changes on the game balance.

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

I don't understand what the good thing with this poll will be? There are 20k + players on the servers and the poll will end with 0.001% of the total amount of players opinion. I do hate engineers and I would love to have it limited, but I don't think its fair to the people who like to play engineer. If you have four retarded engineers building sentries in spawn for no reason you will fail and that will just upset people. TF2 is designed so stacking any class will fail. I've been in teams where the red had 10+ sentries in a bunch and all it took was one ubered demoman and a good spy to kill it. The map design (except stage 3 ending) is designed so engineer abuse is kind of useless with a decent attacking team.

If there is no teamwork involved the blue will fail even if the blue abuse heavy/medic only, should we limit that then as well? If you have two decent spies and a team that follows when you scream "All go now because I'm zappin'" you will win easily. I'm sure GM will lose people by introducing limits on any class to be honest, don't do it.

Erik

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

^
|_ Ze Cheeze has indeed no life xD

Just my point: Sentry-wall only exists to be crushed by Blu uber-team-ownage

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

whilst you're at it make a sniper class limit. 5 snipers on attack ftl

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

Well you can't limit retardness can you? :mrgreen:

Erik

 

Re: Server #3 class limits

ow