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blufiveSo, it's time for Gav's Fortress Forever (FF) versus Team Fortress 2 (TF2) showdown post.
First, a bit of background. Before Counter-Strike became the most popular PC team-based online shooter on the planet, that crown was held by Team Fortress Classic, a Half-Life mod which was itself a remake of an old Quake Mod named Team Fortress. TF/TFC is class-based, each class having strengths and weaknesses (the Heavy Weapons Guy is slow but well armoured with a big gun; the Scout is fast, but lacks armour and firepower). The pace of TFC is slower than deathmatch games, and therefore less "twitch"-reflex based, with a bit more emphasis on being cunning.
Back in the day, I played TFC a lot, and only gave up when the online community withered to the point where it was almost impossible to find a fun game. So I'm definitely in the market for a follow-up (well, I was, because I've now bought/downloaded both of the main contenders).
The stated aim of the FF team (based around a core of old TF/TFC hands, including several of the best independent TFC mappers) has been to produce a Source-engine-based version of TFC, retaining the overall feel of TFC at the height of its popularity (so, before teleporters were (re-)introduced, but after conc-jumping became one of the primary attack techniques), with a few changes towards the original Team Fortress Quake mod. They've worked on fixing class balance issues, tweaked maps so they don't bog down into pointless stalemates too often, and retained all the old movement tricks like conc-jumping and so on. Providing more guidance for new players was also high on the list of objectives.
TF2, originally announced nearly 10 years ago, was famously a serial contender with Duke Nukem Forever at the top of various "vapourware" award lists for several years, and Valve went completely silent for long periods during development. Now that it's in public beta, the developers are finally giving interviews, and the commentaries included in the game give some hints at their aims, too. Their main objective appears to have been to increase the fun factor, primarily by encouraging team play, differentiating the roles of the various classes and helping new players stick with it long enough to get the hang of things.
Both teams have succeeded in their aims, but the divergent goals mean that the two games are rather different in feel. One of the headline changes in both games is the rebalancing of the classes.
Fortress Forever
Some of the classes get significant changes, but most stay pretty much the same as before. Here's the main changes, as I see them:
- Pyro
- The flamethower is somewhat more dangerous, the Incendiary Cannon is now affected by gravity (so it's a long lobbed shot, rather than a direct-fire rocket). Pyros can achieve maximum damage by lighting up their opponents with all three flame weapons in quick succession. The flamethrower can also be used as a jet to cushion high falls and provide a minor boost to jumps.
- Medic
- Healing an infection now provides a brief window of immunity from re-infection.
- Engineer
- Sentry guns can track and shoot invisible spies, but disguised spies are still safe.
- HWG
- The Heavy's ability to spew a never-ending stream of bullets is curtailed somewhat by gun overheating (though this can be bypassed a bit by even moderately skilled players, and may get tweaked in future updates)
- Sniper
- Non-fatal sniper hits now "tag" the target, giving the sniper's team-mates a (time-limited) ability to see that enemy through walls.
- Spy
- The Spy can "sabotage" a sentry gun, allowing them to (briefly) turn it on its own team at a later time. Spies also have limited invisibility, varying from almost totally effective when they stand still, to less effective as they move more quickly. The weapon shown by a spy's disguise will now reflect whatever weapon the spy is holding, so spotting them is somewhat harder than it used to be. A successful backstab while disguised will now instantly change the spy's disguise to his victim.
FF has added a system of "Fortress Points" which are the primary "score". While these reward kills heavily, there are lots of other ways to gain points - upgrading team-mates' sentry guns, healing other players, killing enemy sentries (with extra bonuses for killing high-level sentries) and more. It's not perfect, but it's a damn good start, and the developers will presumably build on it.
Team Fortress 2
TF2 changes things rather more drastically. The total removal of grenades makes a considerable difference, primarily by reducing the amount of damage a player can do in a very short space of time (thereby neutering the "charge in and spew grenades in the two seconds before you die" attack method) but also by removing grenade jumping in all its forms. The only explosive-jumping going on now is Soldiers (rocket jump) and Demomen (pipe/sticky bomb jump).
The classes:
- Scout
- The scout now moves even faster than before, and has gained the ability to do "double jumps", including drastic direction changes in mid-air. He's also gained some degree of comabt punch, with his scattergun being like a high-damage but short-range shotgun. He captures control points twice as fast as other classes. Still fragile, though.
- Pyro
- The pyro has been tweaked into the supreme short-range combat class. The flamethrower varies from "useless" at 5+ yards to "serious ouchy" at 3 yards to "almost instant death" at 1 yard. If they can get close enough, pyros are great at causing chaos and carnage in groups of enemies, both on offence and defence. Pyros are also a great spy defence, as disguised spies are much more flammable than team-mates.
- Demoman
- No grenades, no detpack; the pipebomb launcher has been replaced by a sticky bomb launcher, which works pretty much the same, but the bombs stick to the first surface they hit rather than bouncing around, so demos can now set pipebomb traps on ceilings or walls if they feel so inclined.
- Medic
- The medic has changed completely. No more infection, no serious guns at all, no grenades. What he does get is a "medigun", which beams health into teammates from a range of up to 10 yards or so. Once locked-on, it needs minimal effort to keep on target, even snaking around corners to a limited extent, and will keep the recipient alive almost indefinitely against a single attacker. In short, the medic is a major force multiplier, particularly in combination with high-damage-dealing classes like the Heavy or Pyro. To make it even better, after a certain amount of healing, the Medic gains an "Übercharge", which can be triggered at will, providing 10 seconds of invulnerability for both the medic and his target. Great for cracking heavily-defended bottlenecks, or holding the line until reinforcements can arrive.
- Engineer
- Building and upgrading is slower than before, but there's so much cool stuff to build. Teleporters are in, allowing an engineer to speed up the arrival of team-mates at the front line (a big factor in attack-defence maps). Dispensers now heal, as well as providing ammo, and high level sentry guns are considerably more lethal than they used to be.
- HWG
- The heavy is now the ultimate short-to-medium-range combat class. He'll mow down most classes in no time at less than 10 yards range, and hurt them a lot out to 20. The main limiting factor on this firepower is ammo consumption; expect to run out far quicker than in TFC.
- Spy
- The spy has also changed radically. Again, there's invisibility, but TF2's version is time-limited, intended as a tool to sneak past the front line before falling back on the usual disguise-based trickery. Sappers are an electrical widget that can be placed on the engineer's buildables (SG, dispenser, teleporter) to disable them and sap their hit points rapidly; a single spy can disable several sentries in seconds, and provide at least a temporary "hole" in an enemy defence.
TF2 has also tweaked the main scoring system, so that you gain points for kill assists (a primary method for medics to acquire points), defending capture points, knocking sappers off buildables and other team-oriented jobs. There's also a personal stats system, that tracks your best performances and tells you when you match or beat them.
Both
Both games have "hint" systems in place that provide little tips and tricks to help you pick things up. TF was always a game that needed such things, so it's welcome all round.
Other stuff
A few more quick observations...
- Fortress Forever
- TFC-style gameplay, mostly Capture-The-Flag based
- Medics are a conc-jumping attack class
- Movement is a little faster than TFC
- Free! (as in beer) provided you've already got a suitable source game to run mods (Half-Life 2, for example)
- Team Fortress 2
- Streamlined gameplay, mostly control-point based
- Medics are a support class that heal people
- Movement is (generally) a little slower than TFC
- Comes as a multi-pack with HL2, HL2:Ep1, HL2:Ep2 and Portal in Valve's "Orange Box" package
- Respawn timers cause "bunching" of respawns into waves every 10-20 seconds or so
To summarise the two games: FF is effectively TFC with the annoyances fixed. TF2 is a much more radical overhaul of the whole Team Fortress concept.
If you're an old TFC hand, appalled at what Valve have done with TF2 (no grenades!? teleporters?! minimal CTF!?) then go check out FF. Ditto if you're an old-school FPS player who finds TF2 too slow-paced.
If you're generally intimidated by online multiplayer shooters because the twitch-reflex gamers hand you your ass on a plate 2 seconds after you spawn, try TF2. It's a slower pace, and most classes reward tactical cunning more than twitch reflexes
If you're new to this whole Team Fortress lark, then I recommend you try both. While there are many similarities, they're rather different games, and different people will prefer different flavours.
My preference is for TF2. This is mostly due to the "fun" factor, but I think it's also down to the TF2 developers evolving the game in pretty much the direction I wanted it to go.
I really feel for the FF developers. They've worked hard for the last couple of years producing a really high quality multiplayer mod, which makes numerous improvements to the TFC game style yet keeps the overall feel, only to release it right in front of the oncoming TF2 juggernaut. I hope they don't get squished, it's a damn good mod.
Re: TJ
Date: 2009-09-11 10:14 (UTC)Re: TJ
Date: 2009-10-13 12:54 (UTC)