On Team Fortress And What It Has Become
This entry is written by Joe, a regular reader of this blog. If you’re up for Counter-Strike or another Valve product, drop by his web site. Do it for Ghetto?
(Note: This entry is based on Team Fortress as modded for the Quake franchise. I don’t consider Team Fortress Classic a member of the Team Fortress family.)
I believe Valve did a disservice to gaming by turning Team Fortress into a shallow deathmatch shooter with little emphasis on the team and a huge emphasis on kills. I keep having to argue why Team Fortress 2 sucks and isn’t Team Fortress. Maybe it’ll help if I explain what Team Fortress is and why the sequel isn’t Team Fortress.
In Team Fortress, everybody respawns instantly. It is instant. Killing enemies in their base is a waste of time because they will return to battle in seconds with full health and ammo. In Team Fortress 2, thanks to the deathcam, “instant respawn” takes a number of seconds.
In Team Fortress, players take active roles on offense or defense. Nobody roams looking for people to kill unless one is new to the map. There is no reason to. The game doesn’t reward kills and the player is back in the game before you reload your weapon.
In Team Fortress, capturing the flag nets everybody on the team ten points. A sound is played so everybody knows what happened, and the name of those who touched the flag is displayed in a message at the center of the screen. The flag capture is the touchdown. Nobody gives a shit about kills, it’s about scoring points.
In Team Fortress, everybody knows the status of flags. Every time a flag drops, a message appears at the top of the screen (not the chat log) that says who dropped it and where. If the enemy gets your flag halfway out of your base, teammates will show up to defend the flag until it’s secure.
In Quake 3, you can bind keys for chat and audio commands. Try communicating like that in Team Fortress 2. Assuming they don’t mute you, nobody will give a shit or understand what you’re saying.
In Team Fortress, you have an arsenal of tools and three or four grenade types. Each player has weapons specific to their role: Soldier Grenades kill people, Demoman Grenades clear rooms, Spy Grenades confuse people, Scout Grenades give you a burst of speed. Each player has a role and trying to play different roles results in failure. The result is that people do their jobs. Offensive players avoid fights or soften the defense to let faster players capture the flag. Defensive players never leave the base. This means you can count on actual teamwork, not just “two or three people attacking the same place”. If somebody asks for defensive help, you can immediately see if it is necessary. If someone asks for defensive help, people respond to those requests. With friendly fire on, new players will constantly die until they learn to “spy check”, swinging their weapon to show their teammates they are not spies. These things make people appreciate playing with skilled players, and that encourages cooperation and communication.
Team Fortress can take years to master. Every class has a learning curve, its own techniques. Team Fortress 2 is a game where nothing matters but the funniest screenshot and who got the most Dominations. Valve has quietly smothered the Team Fortress concept and replaced it with a water-down game of tag.
Here’s a video showing how Scouts will focus on movement rather than combat, done without double-jumps, a Team Fortress 2 invention. (You may recognize Mach and Stag, two custom Team Fortress 2 maps copies from their Quake counterparts.)
More good Quake Fortress videos, the last one is brilliant, amazing move after amazing move.
ftp://ftp-tfa.itcwin.com/pub/tf/multimedia/q3f_theclip.avi
ftp://ftp-tfa.itcwin.com/pub/tf/multimedia/q3f/q3f_movement.avi
ftp://ftp-tfa.itcwin.com/pub/tf/multimedia/q3f/q3f_chapter3.avi
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:39 am
Oh great, another “OLDER MEANS BETTER!” crybaby, I thought the Ghetto is aginst this kind of internet whining but whatever.
Okay I’ll guess I’ll answer your article point by point
Instant Spawning: really depends on the game but instant spawning (in my experience) only encourages the “deathmatch fragfest” mindset.
Active roles: actually one of the aspects of tf2 that I enjoy is that classes that are built around Defense are not completely useless if they want to help their team with
Offense, same thing with Offense who wish to boost the Defense.
Flag: tf has messages appear when something happens with the flag ? DUR HUR so does tf2, only it dosent show up in the UPPER PORTION OF THE SCREEN ZOMG HOW CASUAL PFFFT.
the only problem i have with tf2’s ctf is not the game, its the morons who play it, I’ll agree with you here that people just just flail around looking for someone to kill, but thats because they’re idiots, not because of the game.
Audio/chat commands: assuming you dont spam your “FLAG ON BRIDGE HLEP ME NOOBS!!1″ macro it works fine. I know it does for me.
Grenades: they’re fucking gone, move on. was probably the worst aspect of tf.
Are you saying friendly fire should be turned on because it improves team communication ? and because someone swings his crowbar that makes him a good player ?
I’ll ignore the “years to master” comment (el oh el, Tf2 is alot more then “owning” someone and screenshots, if you didnt have your head stuck in your elitist ass 10 years in the past you could see that tf2 is pretty much a team game. going around for kills wont win you any shit that matters.
So by this video youre saying that scouts should be able to cross half the map in seconds, fly, walk on walls and bend time and space itself. whatever, diffrent game – that would seriously break tf2 if scouts worked like that in there.
What is this dumb fad of bashing anything thats new ? is that whats going to happen with SC2 or Diablo3 because they dont have stacking death bats or endless boring grindfests ?
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:04 pm
I’m following this up with an entry at where Joe is going.
August 3rd, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Sc2 does have stacking death bats actually. They went out of their way to re-create that because TL was whining about it.
August 3rd, 2009 at 7:29 pm
the meh guy, you missed the point which is that tf2 is a casual game that is not hard to learn or enjoy but lacks depth. it has nothing do with “older is better.” i would give a testicle to have TF-style gameplay with the great graphics of TF2. thanks for calling me “crybaby” though.
instant spawning does the opposite of encouraging deathmatch because there is no point to killing people. TF2 glorifies every kill – deathcam, dominations, excessive gibs, and the long respawn makes killing an enemy the best thing you can do for your team. if you have a choice between capping the point or killing an enemy in TF2, nine times out of ten you’ll kill the enemy first, then cap the point. in TF, people would avoid fights because they were a waste of time, a distraction. in fact on most servers, there was a “gentleman’s no-chasing rule” that you weren’t even ALLOWED to fight in the middle of the map, because it ruined the game. the emphasis was solely on protecting your flag or getting the enemy flag. tf2 is totally at the other end of the scale, which is what i wrote several times in my post.
re: active roles, so you think it’s a good idea that everyone can play every role. i don’t, because it waters down the whole experience. offense, defense, who cares? just kill some people. that’s TF2. in TF, if you didn’t know what you were doing, you learned, or you failed. that challenge is what creates the reward. where’s the reward in tf2 when all you do is kill, kill, kill, kill until you stop playing?
flag: “DUR HUR” i think you didn’t read what i said. in TF you know the exact location and status of the flag. in tf2, you get an icon that says whether it’s moving, dropped, or home. huge difference.
audio/chat: again, just a huge difference that you don’t seem to understand.
grenades: they are gone, we agree. you’re glad there’s only 1 useful weapon per class, while i consider it shallow and too simple. goes back to challenge = fun.
and tf2 isn’t really much more than deathmatch. you didn’t address that, which is the main point of the article. you apparently like tf2, and that’s ok. they supposedly playtested the thing for 400 bazillion hours, and now they have a game that appeals to playtesters. terrific, and congratulations to the people who love it. but IT IS NOT TEAM FORTRESS. if they gave it a different name, and allowed someone to make an actual TF game, i would be completely happy with it.
August 3rd, 2009 at 7:30 pm
“in fact on most servers, ” i meant Q3F servers specifically. i don’t think that rule existed in QWTF or Q2TF
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Erm, I’m forced to disagree, joe. I’ve only put in a few dozen hours on TF2, but from what I can see some of your points are sort of ignorant.
First, let’s get out of the way that every game has its noob pool, and they TOTALLY fit the demographic that you’re attacking here. What I’m going to be talking of are the servers where people are actually decent and know how to play their class.
I personally see it as a good thing that you can play offense/defense with most classes. While I disagree with your point that there’s only 1 decent weapon per class (I make very good use of all of them), a class shouldn’t be pigeon-holed into an absolute role, and that is the exact purpose of the unlockable weapons…there’s Kritz meds and Uber meds, and each are useful in different situations. Neither is OP and a win-all, they are simply different.
For the record, there are plenty of servers that have an instant respawn on them. It negates a lot of your points.
TF2 isn’t a DM game. Games don’t get won that way, and no person can be responsible for an entire team’s victory…no matter how you want to look at it, there is an amount of effort required from everyone to make something happen, even on pubs.
That Gentlemen rule is absolutely ridiculous. You’re playing a first person shooter. You’re supposed to shoot things. Get over it, the game will still be won one way or another. Preventing someone from getting kills is absurd. Of course I would make the kill before I’d go for the cap, and I’d do it in any other game I’ve played…all the CoD’s, UT’s, etc. Just because this shred of common sense is disregarded in TF doesn’t mean that the game is awesome.
I am not at all arguing that TF2 is easily accessible to the casual crowd, it’s very easy to get into…but difficult to be very good at, much like any other game.
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:07 pm
So what, they’re only allowed to continually make the same game over and over again if they want to call it “Team Fortress”?
August 4th, 2009 at 12:45 am
On a side-note, I want to kill the man who pushed for “multiplayer unlockables” that went beyond fancy icons and achievement medals.
August 4th, 2009 at 3:06 am
i’ve put in over 500 hours (http://steamcommunity.com/id/joe_to/stats/TF2) and thousands of hours playing tf games. i ran my own QWTF and Q2TF servers for years and i’ve had multiple TF2 servers up since the beta, so i don’t think i’m “ignorant” of tf2 or tf.
i agree that every game has some % of noobs but that has nothing to do with my complaints. let me try to paraphrase to make it more understandable:
tf as a genre lasted 10+ years before tf2 and had a very specific gameplay. tf2 is not in that genre and does not have that gameplay.
since valve now owns tf, that precludes other people (modders) from making a new tf game that DOES have that gameplay. therefore valve has taken TF from us and replaced it with TF2.
TF2 is all about killing. almost every feature in the game was put there to make killing more fun. the developers clearly were focused on pvp fps deathmatch play. the tf concepts of unique classes that were suited for specific roles, working together to capture flags, seems to have been tossed out the window.
the point of having different classes that don’t overlap and aren’t interchangeable is, that adds a layer of challenge and complexity. if the enemy team capped your flag too easily, you can’t just run to your base and start defending. you need to THINK about it: what class would be best suited to counter the enemy tactics? is there a bottleneck? maybe go demoman and pipebomb it. is there a ramp room with a lot of travel time and some overhangs? gren-jump onto a light fixture and put a sentry up. is there a spot with a wide field of fire? go heavy and stand guard. tf requires you to OUTTHINK the enemy to win. in TF2 you just have to outshoot them, and then capping the point is easy because they are waiting to respawn.
and no, instant respawn servers aren’t instant respawn. there’s still a long delay (several seconds) during deathcam.
and tf2 IS a dm game. games DO get won that way. have you watched league matches? that’s EXACTLY how they get won. both teams skirmish until someone uses their uber, then the other team uses their uber. whichever team loses the fight waits to respawn and the winners cap the point and move to the next point. that’s not fucking TF, that’s deathmatch.
the gentlemen rule was put in place by all of the players, not just the admins, to prevent newbies from thinking it was a deathmatch game. the experienced players didn’t need the rule because if you spent time playing and thought strategically, it wasn’t too hard to figure out that time spent fucking around in the middle of the map getting kills was time NOT spent defending your flag or trying to cap the enemy flag. that, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with TF2: usually everyone on the entire team is jerking off playing deathmatch far from any objectives.
“you’re supposed to shoot things” that’s exactly right and that’s why TF2 isn’t team fortress. TF, just like battlefield or any number of other team-based FPS, requires you to do MORE than just “shoot things” if you want to win. some people like shootan things and that’s fine, and tf2 is a great game for them. but it shouldn’t be called Team Fortress. TF is a thinking person’s game, where the smarter player with bad aim will always beat the dummy who has better aim. that’s what’s so great about it.
i don’t think anyone who hasn’t played what i call real TF (qwtf, q2tf, or q3f) can even understand what i’m talking about. battlefield 2 is closer to team fortress than TF2 is. as i already said in a previous comment, it’s fine if you like tf2. i’m not saying it’s a bad game, and i’m not criticizing the people who like it. i’m saying it’s a casual game and i want a real TF game: challenging, hard to learn, but infinitely rewarding.
August 4th, 2009 at 3:16 am
that last reply made it clearer, just wanted to say that im sorry for using those words like “crybaby” and others in my last reply, that was uncalled for.
August 4th, 2009 at 11:55 am
The classes only overlap because you can set them up differently. A backburner pyro is awful at offense because he’s lacking compression and the majority of enemies will be facing you head-on, but he’s great on defense chasing the flag carrier down. The point is, yes overall classes can do more, but you still have to outfit them for a specific role, there’s nothing that can do it all. Nothing from your love of specialization is lost on TF2.
Who cares if it glorifies killing? It’s a fucking FPS. Seriously man, get over it. Why the HELL would you QQ over people killing each other in that sort of environment? I don’t care how l33t TF players think they are because they don’t kill each other, I play FPS games to shoot things. It’s in the title of the goddamn genre, for crying out loud.
Basically what I’m getting out of all your argument points is you have to be better at shooter games to be better at TF2 and you don’t like that, you’d rather people not shoot at you while you use ridiculous amounts of “strategy” to “outthink” other players (that are somehow lacking in TF2 because GAWD, it’s so easy) to go get the flag. That sounds REALLY riveting and fun.
August 4th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
I can’t help but perceive some hypocrisy here Ghetto: you ridicule the anti-MBS position in SC2 (justifiably so, I feel) while complaining about respawn times in TF2 is treated as a valid opinion. Maybe there is some fundamental difference between the two positions but from what has been written so far I don’t really see it.
I’d like to offer two examples from WC3 custom games: first, the map Battleships that used to be popular a few years back – it had a unique trader ship mechanic where players could elect to ferry goods instead of fighting, ensuring an economic victory for their team in the long run. There were plenty of games on bnet with “-no trader” in their name. People didn’t want strategy to decide the game, they wanted to sit there with their ship and blow stuff up.
Second example, the map Elimination Tournament, a CTF shooter map. Again, games with “-no flag” in their name were a common occurence. People just wanted to play a straightforward deathmatch.
I don’t really agree with this, but it does seem to be a prevailing trend. It should come as no surprise, then, that Valve, a publically traded company, would gear their FPS games to, you know, facilitate shooting. Again, I don’t necessarily like it, but there is no appeal that you can make that could serve any purpose other than venting – it won’t convince a copany who’s only responsibility is to make a profit for it’s shareholders. If the games made with this system don’t appeal to you, it’s time to start looking into indie developers.
On a side note, yes, multiplayer (gameplay) unlockables are an abomination. They effectively turn any game into a MMORPG.
August 4th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Just to note, if I post somebody else’s work on the blog, it doesn’t mean I necessarily have any room to agree with it, since I may not have even played the game in question.
The difference between this and multiple-building selection is that MBS simply makes the game more difficult. It doesn’t add any additional creativity to the game, it simply increases the skill cap in an arbitrary manner. When Epic removed double-jumping from Unreal Tournament 3, they gimped a great deal of what made Unreal 2004 such an exceptional deathmatch game.
August 4th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Personally, I think that feature was retarded (you can jump a second time off of… thin air?) and just a lame attempt to copy Quake2’s double jumps where you had to use the level design to pull them off. This, however, is more on the topic of your next blog entry about fast abstract games vs slow realistic games. Double jumping certainly isn’t realistic (whether it is UT’s jump-off-thin-air or Quake’s jump-past-a-higher-ledge version), but it makes for a faster game. At some point, it can strain credulity though (like the UT’s version did for me) which can reduce enjoyment of the game.
August 4th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
i’d like to give much thanks to G.O. for allowing my controversial opinions to appear here on his excellent blog and for cleaning up my very sloppy, hastily written first draft. it’s an honor for me and i appreciate the opportunity to discuss this topic with informed gamers.
August 6th, 2009 at 6:20 am
I used to be in a top tf2 clan in Australia.
Some comments
‘In Team Fortress, players take active roles on offense or defense. Nobody roams looking for people to kill unless one is new to the map. There is no reason to. The game doesn’t reward kills and the player is back in the game before you reload your weapon.’
If you play on pubs, yes everyone does just roam around, but in competitive games people are given certain roles. There will always be an odd public game where people do stick to their roles, but because the game is so popular (because its fun) there will always be people who will play differently (and poorly).
Again in high level games, people do care about capping, because kills wont win you the game overall. Your complaints revolve entirely around the public players you play with.
I can go on like this.
People may not listen to you in public games on your microphone but if you play in more competitive games they definitely will. Most people in pubs listen to me anyway.
In competitive game, when you tell your teammates where you dropped the flag or where it is they will react. CTF is notoriously bad in TF2 in pubs, nearly always leads to a dm style game which I agree is undesireable.
If you play in a compeditive environment I think you’ll find there is more of a skill involved in TF2 which you’ll never find on public games.
Many good players do not play on pubs because it will make you a worse player and it can often be quite boring.
If you’re looking for more competition try joining a clan, or even better, find a PUG on your local gaming MIRC channel and find a clan from that. It’s alot of fun! Highly recommended!
Failing that, there’s some people that still play fortress forever that is much more similar to the old tfs.
So many more people play tf2 because it is alot more accessible then the old tf you’re used to. More people = more noobs. you should adapt to it or go play something else like fortress forever