After first hearing the rumour on the Something Awful forums that the new gamemode would essentially be sudden death team deathmatch, I was very disappointed. I thought it sounded boring, unoriginal, and unfitting for TF2. However after the day of unveiling finally came on the Heavy site and Valve divulged the details, I couldn't wait to get into the action.
When the update came the first thing I did was join an Arena server and was pleasantly suprised by the new Hud elements, the team scrambling if one team keeps winning, the class balance and the quick battles. I have to say, it was my least looked foward to aspect of the heavy update a week ago, but now it's my favourite part of it.
It has some bad points of course. Sitting out game after game because you keep joining a team that can't battle if their life depended on it isn't very fun, but when you have fairly balanced teams it's just brilliant. I've been playing Ravine and Badlands as a Scout a lot and as long as i'm careful I can last quite a while and make a big difference to the outcome (Killing Medics ). Of course i've also been playing a lot of Lumberyard because it's the most beautiful map in the game, and it's a brilliant map too. Complex and compact.
So. Thoughts? Love it, hate it?
I personally think it could use a little improving. I think the team scrambling should try and put friends together as much as possible (except the 5 wins in a row scramble). I also think that when a team loses, the best player or two on the losing team should stay on it and not have to sit out. Some sort of tweak to make the Engy and Sniper slightly more viable would go down quite well as well. Maybe we just need a bit more time to get the most out of each class.
I also think the default time for a mapchange needs to be reduced dramatically. I don't want to play arena_badlands for 20 minutes straight. I played a server earlier this morning that changed map every 5 minutes and it was far more fun and varied than all the others that changed every 20 minutes. But overall I think it's a brilliant change of pace and a brilliant overall gamemode.
Oh and one more thing. No turtling!
Edit: Retarded server mods that ruin the gameplay (ie respawning) don't count.
When the update came the first thing I did was join an Arena server and was pleasantly suprised by the new Hud elements, the team scrambling if one team keeps winning, the class balance and the quick battles. I have to say, it was my least looked foward to aspect of the heavy update a week ago, but now it's my favourite part of it.
It has some bad points of course. Sitting out game after game because you keep joining a team that can't battle if their life depended on it isn't very fun, but when you have fairly balanced teams it's just brilliant. I've been playing Ravine and Badlands as a Scout a lot and as long as i'm careful I can last quite a while and make a big difference to the outcome (Killing Medics ). Of course i've also been playing a lot of Lumberyard because it's the most beautiful map in the game, and it's a brilliant map too. Complex and compact.
So. Thoughts? Love it, hate it?
I personally think it could use a little improving. I think the team scrambling should try and put friends together as much as possible (except the 5 wins in a row scramble). I also think that when a team loses, the best player or two on the losing team should stay on it and not have to sit out. Some sort of tweak to make the Engy and Sniper slightly more viable would go down quite well as well. Maybe we just need a bit more time to get the most out of each class.
I also think the default time for a mapchange needs to be reduced dramatically. I don't want to play arena_badlands for 20 minutes straight. I played a server earlier this morning that changed map every 5 minutes and it was far more fun and varied than all the others that changed every 20 minutes. But overall I think it's a brilliant change of pace and a brilliant overall gamemode.
Oh and one more thing. No turtling!
Edit: Retarded server mods that ruin the gameplay (ie respawning) don't count.
Last edited by Spidery_Yoda (2008-08-20 16:45:52)
