Soldier Update

[+Henry Spencer 117]

Sure is Steam Forums in here.

[You suck and have no life 203]

If you are not making real suggestions and contributions to the thread and are merely tossing around wishy-washy bullshit and trolling, then your post is completely and utterly worthless and suitable for either ignoring or telling you the usual "shutup suckylife, the real people are talking over here".

Your pick.

Considering your suggestions will have a 0.0000001% of being picked by Valve, for all intents and purposes, its no more or less trolling than my "wishy washy bs" based on the probability of it actually being implemented. A single shot huge radius rocket that cant crit (your idea) is no LESS ridiculous than a single shot crit rocket (my idea).

You want a soldier to play defense... and why? Don't we have enough campers and lamers who stay behind the front lines all the time? That takes the skill out of a soldier. You just want a dude to stand in the back and spam the large radius rocket at a corner hoping to get an assist? What kind of lame game play is that?

[kuttlewug 28]

And here we are again back to the arguing. Its gets to be like fucking childish high school drama here jesus christ. ANYWAY I believe my idea that you can unload all four rockets at one time, no crit would be a very offensive friendly move for the soldier. If your team doesn't have ubers built up in time this can be something that stalls the other team until you do have ubers or if you have a few good soldiers with this weapon it could make the ubers un-needed. You could fire all four rockets at once or just one at a time would be good, (because i understand if you don't want to upload all four rockets at once because thats just not needed all the time) of course the single rockets would do less damage then they do now. So heres how it all comes together

Pros:

Large damage

Could possibly replace an uber/crit (in terms of damage and making the other team run away)

Cons:

Reload speed per rocket same as it is now

No crit

Single rockets do less damage

There are only two pros and three cons but those two pros I think are highly valuable to have so it's pretty balanced I'd say. Add any pros or cons you want I can't think of anything else right now.

Edit: probably should make the soldier with this weapon un-critable by a medic that would just be too over powering and highly unbalanced

Edited June 15, 2009 by podsaurus

[Stabby McKnife-Face 17]

Warning: This post contains gratuitous amounts of opinion. Caution is advised before proceeding.

You just want a dude to stand in the back and spam the large radius rocket at a corner hoping to get an assist? What kind of lame game play is that?

I laugh because I was skimming over the bullshit in this thread and read that sentence thinking you talking about demomen. Here, let me fix it up for the unclever.

You just want a dude to stand in the back and spam stickies at a corner hoping to get an assist? What kind of lame game play is that?

Sounds like DB:St3 Defending on demoman to me.

If you don't like something, nothing short of brainwasahing or some life-altering experience will change your mind. If you don't like something, you won't be as inclined to look into the implications of that thing. I didn't care about the sniper unlocks and still don't, because I don't play sniper well. But believe me, I was all over the spy unlocks.

Let's apply this to your situation. You play offensively. A defensive option to the soldier is something you personally don't agree with, but none can deny it would open up a different playstyle for the class. Don't be a toddler whining about having to eat vegetables, be a grown man and just find some other source of fiber. Just because an unlock exists doesn't mean you have to use it.

So rather than trying to tear apart ideas you don't like, how about coming up with legitimate arguments against it with respect to it's own proposed playstyle, or just politely saying "it's not something I'd use".

It's fucking sad that I can't expect respect among adults.

[Spartan_0214 18]

Considering your suggestions will have a 0.0000001% of being picked by Valve, for all intents and purposes, its no more or less trolling than my "wishy washy bs" based on the probability of it actually being implemented.

Stop citing useless bullcrap (really, how the f*** did you come up with 0.0000001% ?) and let us go back to brainstorming. No, we don't have much data to work with because we're not the developers. The only data we have is the data on the current weapons, which we can apply to future weapons for purposes of tweaking. We know reload times of rocket launcher and approximately how much direct/splash damage each rocket does. From there, we can come up with ideas, bounce them around, and debate whether or not it would be a good implementation without being ignorant assholes who don't so much as listen to other people's ideas.

Valve does in-studio testing to test balance issues. They do, however, listen to the community. All of the ideas posted on this forum are just ideas that we are tossing around. Valve listens to the people on their forums and try them out. If it shows signs of working, they'll try to balance it out. They'll implement it, play with it, look at the data on the weapon, and tweak it. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. If after tweaking a weapon for a while and finding that it doesn't quite work, they toss the idea and pick up another one.

Condensed: SHUT UP SUCKYLIFE and let us continue with our civilized conversation, sans you.

Edited June 15, 2009 by Spartan_0214

[+Henry Spencer 117]

And here we are again back to the arguing. Its gets to be like fucking childish high school drama here jesus christ. ANYWAY I believe my idea that you can unload all four rockets at one time, no crit would be a very offensive friendly move for the soldier. If your team doesn't have ubers built up in time this can be something that stalls the other team until you do have ubers or if you have a few good soldiers with this weapon it could make the ubers un-needed. You could fire all four rockets at once or just one at a time would be good, (because i understand if you don't want to upload all four rockets at once because thats just not needed all the time) of course the single rockets would do less damage then they do now. So heres how it all comes together

Pros:

Large damage

Could possibly replace an uber/crit (in terms of damage and making the other team run away)

Cons:

Reload speed per rocket same as it is now

No crit

Single rockets do less damage

There are only two pros and three cons but those two pros I think are highly valuable to have so it's pretty balanced I'd say. Add any pros or cons you want I can't think of anything else right now.

Edit: probably should make the soldier with this weapon un-critable by a medic that would just be too over powering and highly unbalanced

Perhaps you could lessen the damage and give him only 3 rockets? Firing all 3 together guarantees no criticals, even while under the effects of a Kritzkreig, but a single rocket would still have a regular crit chance. Getting rid of the Soldier's ability to crit, even for a large amount of damage in a small area, makes him less effective in my eyes. I mean, when I think of giving someone crits as a Medic, I look for a soldier. The ability to have a huge AoE AND pinpoint accuracy is extremely appealing. The only downsides to 3 rockets are less overall damage, and you still couldn't kill a sentry. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it take 4 rockets to kill a level 3 gun? Maybe a faster reload and or reduced rocket jump damage could help balance this stuff out. I'm thinking:

Pros:

Large damage

Large AoE

Faster reload/less self-damage

Cons:

No critting when all rockets are fired together

Less overall damage than original RL

Single rockets do less damage

[kuttlewug 28]

Perhaps you could lessen the damage and give him only 3 rockets? Firing all 3 together guarantees no criticals, even while under the effects of a Kritzkreig, but a single rocket would still have a regular crit chance. Getting rid of the Soldier's ability to crit, even for a large amount of damage in a small area, makes him less effective in my eyes. I mean, when I think of giving someone crits as a Medic, I look for a soldier. The ability to have a huge AoE AND pinpoint accuracy is extremely appealing. The only downsides to 3 rockets are less overall damage, and you still couldn't kill a sentry. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it take 4 rockets to kill a level 3 gun? Maybe a faster reload and or reduced rocket jump damage could help balance this stuff out. I'm thinking:

Pros:

Large damage

Large AoE

Faster reload/less self-damage

Cons:

No critting when all rockets are fired together

Less overall damage than original RL

Single rockets do less damage

I like those ideas. So even if the new rocket can't destroy a level three in one go a demoman or uber could easy take care of it from there. Someone before mentioned giving the soldier grenades at a secondary weapon or something which I don't think would be completely unfair since when you think about it the demo HAS a grenade launcher so maybe give the solider 3 grenades? They can bounce around like the demomans, do about the same amount a damage and fast reload since all you have to do is take one out and throw. For negatives you only have a limited amount to use and you can only throw them so far since the human arm can't launch a grenade halfway across the level. And you can "cook" the grenade (for those who don't know that would be when you hold it for a few seconds after the pin is pulled) so you can time your throw right and the grenade explodes right when someone walks through the door. Possibly some knockback from the grenade?

Edited June 15, 2009 by podsaurus

[+Henry Spencer 117]

NO GRENADES. That's exactly what was wrong with TFC.

[Mike808 1]

NO GRENADES. That's exactly what was wrong with TFC.

lol

EXACTLY

[+Henry Spencer 117]

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of the new RL not being able to take out a sentry gun on its own. Back before the updates, when everyone was new, the sentry gun was actually powerful; there weren't that many combos that could wreck it. Ubers could, and MAYBE a cornering soldier or demo. The sentry has been getting almost a constant nerf as time goes on because people know exactly how to combat it. Plus, other classes now have ways to disrupt/harass engies. The Scout, who the Engie created a hard counter to with his gun, now has the ability to not only pass sentry guns, but to let his team take them out. The Pyro can use flares to disrupt him from long distance, and reflect the gun's rockets back at it. The Spy, in addition to having an insta-kill and being able to sap his guns, now can shoot through sentries and kill the engineer with the Ambassador.

Basically, there are already too many ways for different classes to kill a sentry gun. I think the Soldier's gun should mainly focus on area defense instead of making him a more viable uber target. Also, perhaps boost the flying speed of the single rockets? They're already doing less damage, and only having 3 shots could cripple his damage output rather severely. Shooting rockets that are pathetically easy to dodge seems almost like a waste.

Edited June 15, 2009 by Henry Spencer

[You suck and have no life 203]

You just want a dude to stand in the back and spam stickies at a corner hoping to get an assist? What kind of lame game play is that?

Sounds like DB:St3 Defending on demoman to me.

Is that the only use of demoman? If that is true, why do I cap 50%+ of the time as demoman? Ho ho.... what now?

If you don't like something, nothing short of brainwasahing or some life-altering experience will change your mind. If you don't like something, you won't be as inclined to look into the implications of that thing. I didn't care about the sniper unlocks and still don't, because I don't play sniper well. But believe me, I was all over the spy unlocks.

Let's apply this to your situation. You play offensively. A defensive option to the soldier is something you personally don't agree with, but none can deny it would open up a different playstyle for the class. Don't be a toddler whining about having to eat vegetables, be a grown man and just find some other source of fiber. Just because an unlock exists doesn't mean you have to use it.

So rather than trying to tear apart ideas you don't like, how about coming up with legitimate arguments against it with respect to it's own proposed playstyle, or just politely saying "it's not something I'd use".

It's fucking sad that I can't expect respect among adults.

You dont care about sniper update because you dont play sniper at all. Well maybe other people care about soldier update because they actually play soldier. Also, different play style does not mean better play style, or worth of a new update. You could make a soldier different in a million ways, does that mean they are all good designs?

really, how the f*** did you come up with 0.0000001% ?)

I made it up. I was actually conservative in my estimates. Its actually 0.000000%. If Valve uses your idea, ill paypal you 1000 dollars.

Valve listens to the people on their forums and try them out.

Thanks, you just proved my point.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of the new RL not being able to take out a sentry gun on its own. Back before the updates, when everyone was new, the sentry gun was actually powerful; there weren't that many combos that could wreck it. Ubers could, and MAYBE a cornering soldier or demo. The sentry has been getting almost a constant nerf as time goes on because people know exactly how to combat it. Plus, other classes now have ways to disrupt/harass engies. The Scout, who the Engie created a hard counter to with his gun, now has the ability to not only pass sentry guns, but to let his team take them out. The Pyro can use flares to disrupt him from long distance, and reflect the gun's rockets back at it. The Spy, in addition to having an insta-kill and being able to sap his guns, now can shoot through sentries and kill the engineer with the Ambassador.

Basically, there are already too many ways for different classes to kill a sentry gun. I think the Soldier's gun should mainly focus on area defense instead of making him a more viable uber target. Also, perhaps boost the flying speed of the single rockets? They're already doing less damage, and only having 3 shots could cripple his damage output rather severely. Shooting rockets that are pathetically easy to dodge seems almost like a waste.

Thats why I hardly play engineer. All that effort building a sentry gun just to have it die because nobody is protecting it. Unless I am eating and want to rack up some teleporter points on offense.

The problem with being an engineer is that:

1. If your team is a bad ass, you dont get jack kills.

2. If your team sucks ass, your sentry gun is destroyed the second it comes up.

The only time I find being an engineer enjoyable is that fine line where my team is neither totally dominating, nor totally sucking. Where the front line is slightly in front of the sentry so my gun isn't taking the brunt of the damage, and I still manage to kill the stragglers that pass the front line.

This fine line is a rarity these days.

[+Henry Spencer 117]

Yep, I barely ever see a balanced game. It's usually HERE COMES THE RAPE TRAIN, CHOO CHOO! on one side or the other. That's a pretty good reason to say, why bother giving the soldier a sentry buster? Heavies, Pyros, and Demos are all great for it. Let him focus on blowing up some magets.

[redruM_13 17]

Maybe the engie update will be next then. That would probably change all the comments left on this post?

[+Henry Spencer 117]

Eh, I just don't want the Soldier to turn into one of those classes that goes WELL FUCK YOUR SHIT BUDDAY to every Engineer. In my eyes, he should be focused on killing other enemies. So, give him a gun well suited to fighting humans, not an aimbotting machine with rockets.

[kuttlewug 28]

So, give him a gun well suited to fighting humans, not an aimbotting machine with rockets.

Heat seeking rockets!

[Spartan_0214 18]

Eh, I just don't want the Soldier to turn into one of those classes that goes WELL FUCK YOUR SHIT BUDDAY to every Engineer. In my eyes, he should be focused on killing other enemies. So, give him a gun well suited to fighting humans, not an aimbotting machine with rockets.

Seconded.

And Sucky, I'll take you up on that 1000 dollars. Remember, a rocket launcher that fires in a similar fashion to the one in Unreal Tournament 2004: it'll fire multiple rockets at once, but has to prepare them first, usually at the same time it would take to reload one rocket.

EDIT: Heat seeking rockets will lock onto sentries, too.

Edited June 16, 2009 by Spartan_0214

[Game AI Dev (Dave) 17]

Valve does in-studio testing to test balance issues. They do, however, listen to the community. All of the ideas posted on this forum are just ideas that we are tossing around. Valve listens to the people on their forums and try them out. If it shows signs of working, they'll try to balance it out. They'll implement it, play with it, look at the data on the weapon, and tweak it. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. If after tweaking a weapon for a while and finding that it doesn't quite work, they toss the idea and pick up another one.

Which kinda brings me back to what I said on page 2. There are a number of mathematical tricks you can use for unit balancing. The original Starcraft was a wad of spreadsheets. However, there is only so much you can do without playtesting because much of the variability in the effectiveness of a weapon, armor, ability, or whatever, is largely dependent on the human element. There are certain things that a formula can do that a person either can't or won't. On the other hand, there are plenty of clever uses for items that a formula won't take into account. For example, a pyro circle-strafing a sentry, a speed-scout decoying a sentry so that others can kill it head-on, or even a demo shooting over or around things (i.e. bank shots) to kill it. Those kinds of applications only come out when you put it through the paces... for a long time.

On the other hand, the guys in the AI Game Programmers Guild are almost constantly having a conversation about automated game testing and even game-design. In some ways we can start to pare down the human element using level visibility tests, bots, etc. It's rough, though - and certainly not 100%.

[You suck and have no life 203]

Which kinda brings me back to what I said on page 2. There are a number of mathematical tricks you can use for unit balancing. The original Starcraft was a wad of spreadsheets. However, there is only so much you can do without playtesting because much of the variability in the effectiveness of a weapon, armor, ability, or whatever, is largely dependent on the human element. There are certain things that a formula can do that a person either can't or won't. On the other hand, there are plenty of clever uses for items that a formula won't take into account. For example, a pyro circle-strafing a sentry, a speed-scout decoying a sentry so that others can kill it head-on, or even a demo shooting over or around things (i.e. bank shots) to kill it. Those kinds of applications only come out when you put it through the paces... for a long time.

On the other hand, the guys in the AI Game Programmers Guild are almost constantly having a conversation about automated game testing and even game-design. In some ways we can start to pare down the human element using level visibility tests, bots, etc. It's rough, though - and certainly not 100%.

hey nerd, if I wanted to use my brain, id go back to work.

[+Henry Spencer 117]

I think we should hack out some sort of a weapon most of us can agree on, then bring it to the Steam forums. They will be the ultimate judges of how good the idea is.

[Game AI Dev (Dave) 17]

hey nerd, if I wanted to use my brain, id go back to work.

hey asshole, if I wanted to listen to your pathetic insult-spamming, i'd go play on a server with you.

[Graedus 9]

How about some sort of rocket/ammunition that covers an area in mustard gas or some other poisonous equivalent? It would lower visibility and cause damage (Something like drowning)? That'd be something 'different' for a class to do. Could be used to provide cover or clear out an area. Jarate could help clean it up and pyro air blasts could help blow it around.

[+Henry Spencer 117]

That would be a pretty sweet secondary, but a lot of people will probably complain that none of the secondaries are actual weapons. I mean... Kritz is ok, but a Sandvich? Bonk!? Jarate? None of them are actual weapons.

[h3gi 5]

If we're going with the loadable rocket launcher, then I'd reduce the "clip size" to three. As for rocket jumping, three rockets should outright kill you unless you fired them at the peak of your normal jump, and even then you'd have to reload or switch to shotgun to do any mid-air damage before falling to your death anyway. Unless overhealed. With two rockets, you should take the damage of both of them but go less than half the jump distance; that would be pretty unfair, I'd say. Soldier's not supposed to be able to move that fast, and with good knowledge of the map's med packs you could make ample use of traveling anywhere at unprecedented speeds.

The main problem I had with being able to fire three rockets at once, even if you had to wait for them to load, is that the burst damage would allow you to kill most classes in one shot at a range without ever being in danger until the last second, when it was too late for them. This was possible in Unreal because your characters practically played like hyper Scouts and if you died to the rocket it was your fault, but in the slow pace of TF2 it's just too powerful. Imagine being a Heavy; you see a Soldier spot you around the corner, then ducks back. So you chase him. In the three seconds it takes for you to travel there and turn the corner to actually face him, he's already loaded up half your health in damage, and you weren't even given a chance to fight. What if you ran away instead of chased him? Then he'll stay out of sight while loading rockets and turn the corner to shoot you down anyway. Point is, burst damage has to be moderated, or it becomes too deadly. Take the FaN for example; while it CAN kill the weaker classes in half a second, you pretty much have to be point blank to do it, AND if you don't kill them the reload is a huge penalty. But to be able to fire three rockets at once is beyond crazy unless you dumb down the damage to stupid levels where firing one rocket wouldn't be worth it.

[+Henry Spencer 117]

If we're going with the loadable rocket launcher, then I'd reduce the "clip size" to three. As for rocket jumping, three rockets should outright kill you unless you fired them at the peak of your normal jump, and even then you'd have to reload or switch to shotgun to do any mid-air damage before falling to your death anyway. Unless overhealed. With two rockets, you should take the damage of both of them but go less than half the jump distance; that would be pretty unfair, I'd say. Soldier's not supposed to be able to move that fast, and with good knowledge of the map's med packs you could make ample use of traveling anywhere at unprecedented speeds.

The main problem I had with being able to fire three rockets at once, even if you had to wait for them to load, is that the burst damage would allow you to kill most classes in one shot at a range without ever being in danger until the last second, when it was too late for them. This was possible in Unreal because your characters practically played like hyper Scouts and if you died to the rocket it was your fault, but in the slow pace of TF2 it's just too powerful. Imagine being a Heavy; you see a Soldier spot you around the corner, then ducks back. So you chase him. In the three seconds it takes for you to travel there and turn the corner to actually face him, he's already loaded up half your health in damage, and you weren't even given a chance to fight. What if you ran away instead of chased him? Then he'll stay out of sight while loading rockets and turn the corner to shoot you down anyway. Point is, burst damage has to be moderated, or it becomes too deadly. Take the FaN for example; while it CAN kill the weaker classes in half a second, you pretty much have to be point blank to do it, AND if you don't kill them the reload is a huge penalty. But to be able to fire three rockets at once is beyond crazy unless you dumb down the damage to stupid levels where firing one rocket wouldn't be worth it.

Hmm... perhaps you could make the loading process really slow, and make the Soldier totally vulnerable while doing it? Like... left click, fire one rocket. Right click, begin charging up your 3 shots, which all fire simultaneously after 4 seconds.

But really, lowering his damage and getting rid of a rocket is already lowering his damage potential so much that anything that moves faster than him and has half a brain could take advantage of it.

[You suck and have no life 203]

hey asshole, if I wanted to listen to your pathetic insult-spamming, i'd go play on a server with you.

You actually do that quite often.

So you are saying that I can say insults and still have a higher score than you? I must have some godly multitasking skills.