The Dreaded List of stuff people want fixed...
Ok, this page houses the itemized listing of issues brought up to my attention by YOU, the TF community - followed by my commentary on that entry. The numbering system is NOT a ranking of any sort, it's just there so people can see how many "open concerns" there are.. Some people might read read some of these, and shake their heads, saying it was a waste of time to post it. Some people may recognize their input from Forum posts, or emails they sent in, but see them in a much shortened form. Also, name have been removed to protect both the innocent and the guilty. ^_^ The thing to remember is that the objective of this whole thing is to make it a representation of the TF community as a whole, not just "Tot's gripe list", and what he's gonna scream at Valve about to try to get fixed. This is also a tool for Valve as well, so they can see what the community is indeed concerned about, and that might influence their development cycle. A shorter, more concise list is going to be better received than a rambling rant paragraph. Besides, rambling rants are done by the Fort Bundy staff around here, damnit!
Remember, that 100 voices speaking in unison is heard much better than 1000 voices screaming at once. Anyhow, on with the show...
Issues that are being addressed(eventually)
1) -the large netcode improvements we've heard talked about. At one time, Yahn made a post about wanting to try out the TF2 netcode in a patch for HL. We all would love to see that, as the present netcode is far from optimal, IMHO. This has been Valve's #1, Numero Uno concern for an upcoming patch. I guess Yahn hasn't seen sunshine in several weeks, they just keep him locked in a room with computers and throw in raw meat. ^_^ This WILL be in an upcoming patch( hopefully SOON?). YAY!!!
2) -improved keyboard support (ie: support for mapping numpad keys) Another biggee for me. This functionality was added to the Quake2 codebase in a later patch, but does not seem to have ever made it into any other Quake2 engine games, but would be VERY handy. Yep, it's in there. all you bind-happy people - like myself - rejoice. You have yet ANOTHER chance to redo all your binds again. ^_^
3) -Support for 4th/5th mouse button Groovy for those with those weirdzo supermice, but don't they need special drivers loaded for them, that don't talk to DirectX very well ? All you people that forked out the $75 for the newest UberMice from Micro$oft and Logitech - you'll be able to use all those extra buttons, so you can bind "+gren2;wait;+gren1;wait; +gren2; wait; +gren1;etc..." to your mouse5 buttons.
4) -Grenades frequently disappear while primed, most often when picking up a flag/key and especially when going through a door while holding a flag with your last grenade primed < snipped for brevity > Good! This one annoyed the heck outta me more than once.
5) -the often mentioned skin bug where medics appear as soldiers, or teammates show as the wrong color. They're definitely aware of this, we'll have to wait and see what comes of it. Another annoying glitch bites the dust, and good riddance
6) -the general stickiness of grens, detpipes, and gibs. it sucks running around and getting stuck on one of these and flopping around for a second or two. Gee, you mean no more getting stuck on a grenade someone throws, for a second or more, till it explodes? Doesn't break my heart to see it gone.
7) -Getting stuck in respawn doors. 2Fort majorly. Sometimes it's not even
possible to get out and you have to 'kill' yourself. Sucks Never
experienced this myself, sounds latency-related. Make sure you tweak your connection
and settings. Perhaps the Netcode patch would fix this. Well,
whatever it was, it's been addressed. But still, especially for modem users,
take the time to properly tweak your settings.
8) -Sentry Guns - frags for their destruction, and death messages when they are destroyed. Only thing I got to say about this, is "YAY!"
9) -the ingame font size is hard to read, especially at higher resolutions. Taken care of. I'm informed that the new font used is a LOT easier to read at the higher resolutions - and my failing eyesight appreciates that, let me tell you...
10) -Demos get unlimited ammo when using an autoreload script (i'm guessing it happens either when dying or respawning with +reload) I have no first-hand experience with this one, as I don't use this sort of script. Would want a code example to submit, so it can be taken care of, tho. Good, that was a classic case of CHEESE!!
11) -Detpacks don't damage the demo who set it if he's under water when it goes off Yep, I notice this all the time, although for me it's habit from TF1 to set the det and the GTFO. Good deal, this always struck me as annoying and silly
12) -the "sticky" elevators in Well where you ride to the top and then cannot easily get off (unless you crouch and crawl through). Usually merely doing one crouch unsticks you. I'm sure they're aware of this annoyance. I can hear all the modem users rejoicing at this one already. I'm an LPB, so it rarely happens to me
13) -Ahem ... I know this is pretty much far-fetched and probably I'm the only person in the universe bothering about, but I would like valve to take out the third executing of the config.cfg, after executing the map-config. Makes some bindings unnecessarily complicated. Okay, way far-fetched ... no, it sounds good to me. We'll see if we can get some feedback from the coders themselves as to the execution order of .cfg files, so we don't need to use -zone 4096 statements. ^_^ Anything to make the .cfg execution better and take up less memory is good by me.
14) -be able for a friendly engineer to see other friendly Sgun's ammo status, as well as health level. I don't remember if that was the case with the "id" function in TF1, but it would be a handy feature to have. I personally really like it that they put this back in - a function I missed from my qwtf days, definitely
Welp, that's what I've gotten from the folks at Valve so far. As soon as I get more, I'll update the list, definitely. Stay tuned - same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.
Open issues from the community (redone on 14 March 2000)
HL/TFC Engine-related bugs: 17
1) -TFC is in DIRE need of a functional spectator mode. Valve has taken the time to assist the CS mod folks, and that mod has spectator mode working. I think it's inexcusable that TFC doesn't have one. We can have it default to spectators = 0 for pub server use, so we don't get people parking themselves on pub servers. But every clannie knows the value of being able to spec a match or a practice. Absolutely vital in the training of new members, etc. This is Tot's #1 beef, right here.
2) -Flag through walls In some places, you can throw the flag thru thin walls, thereby being able to avoid defence that way. Let's face it, the only way to throw things thru walls, should require a hole to be there first. NOTE: this does NOT include throwing the flag out the window in the map Well.
3) -Improved FPS Unsure what can be done about this, as game get more eye candy, the system requirements go up. It's just a fact of life. Don't expect your system that ran TF1 decently, to do the same for TFC.
4) -one team respawns in the respawn with the water pipe in on well, so they can get out and build things during prematch - not a problem if both teams respawned in the water pipe respawn Recommendation being forwarded to disable building in prematch mode, just like in TF1
5) if a player crouches right in front(tonight i even saw a soldier unload 3 grens right in front of an sgun and not take any damage from it... he walked away pretty much unscathed) of an sgun. it'll shoot over the crouched person, who can then take out the gun. I can't duplicate this - perhaps I just suck. Anyone got a demo of this being done?
6) - Fixing demo playback/recording problems. Yeah, right now, to put it mildly, demo support outright stinks. a map change will END a recorded demo. Same with ending prematch mode. Not good.
7) - the scripting that allows a demoman to detonate his pipes almost instantly after firing them, aka the airbursted pipes ala qwtf demoman. NOTE: this was added by popular demand from many in the community. I personally have NO problem with this. It's the way the demo was in qwtf, and I don't see why he wasn't able to do this from the start of TFC. The use of the script to "circumvent" the delay has caused a major uproar in the community, because suddenly a demo can slug it out with a soldier now. Frankly, I'm sick of the petulant whining from the community on this item. Either fix it so it's normal behavior, or fix it so the script doesn't work. Three major leagues have ruled that it's a legit tactic, so *my* opinion is leave it be.
8) -when refreshing HL/TFC server in GameSpy, often you don't get all the normal info - who is on the server, etc. I don't know if this is a HL issue, a GameSpy issue, or a combination of the both. But it's definitely something that *I* think should be addressed, wherever the problem lies.
9) -HWG's that can still fire while hopping in the air, or swimming. Let's face it, the Assault cannon is a HUGE weapon. In qwtf(I can hear the complaints already), you needed to have BOTH feet on the ground for the thing to fire. *I* think this should be restored in TFC. By all means, leave it so he can still move slowly while firing, but a HWG can actually move faster hopping and firing, than walking normally. This is pathetic
10) -Sentry guns fire at allied teams. For example, if teams red and blue are allied and can't hurt each other, guns will still fire. They won't do any damage, just waste ammo. This prevented several new maps from coming up that used allied teams with engineers. Got this one from a map developer, and yeah, this definitely could use to be addressed.
11) -Respawn turrets, sentry guns do not adjust their firing height as the target ducks, feigns, swims etc. Especially bad in the case of spies, since their feigned profile is lowest. Turrets, sentry guns will fire above the body. As for the water bit, that's a "line of sight" issue, and hard to compensate for without totally redoing the entire engine's behavior dealing with water. I doubt that it will be changed. And in qwtf, the vertical tracking was an problem as well, so they should be aware of this.
12) -You can see objects (grenades, nails) hallucinated by other gassed players. I don't think I saw this one in your list. Another one I've never noticed myself. *shrug* anyone else ever see this? I got it reported from a non-cracksmoking source, so it could be valid.
13) -Players getting stuck in elevators and func_trains (HL entity). It is very difficult to make an elevator, train, etc. in a map so that people wouldn't get stuck in it. Another victim of the netcode issue, I believe. We'll have to seeif it gets better whenever Valve deems to release a netcode patch.
14) -As for the engineer suggestion, it's just something extra I would like them to add (shouldn't be too hard to do I think). Is have your HUD show your dispenser status (similar to the SG status on your HUD). I can't count how many times I've played a game and wondered about the status of my dispenser without having to walk up to it and hitting it with my spammer (to see the status). It would be a *nice* feature, but Sgun status is a bit more crucial, I'd say. I'd like to see it added myself, tho.
15) -The bug with the tell command I like to be fixed. The syntax
is: tell
16) -The next bug is that the -condebug parameter doesn´t work. The qconsole.log file is created, but there is no information of the game. I like to log games even if I´m not the server or server admin. I agree, most clannies like to be able to post the stats from their matches, and unless they get it from the server admin, no good. Definitely fix it!
17) -I would like to see a change in the showscores menu. What I really miss are times. Perhaps after each players ping, show the time he is on the map. And an extra line for the time the map is running. It would be really helpful. Can´t be too difficult, as I can see the information from the outside. Ah, a submission from another oldschool qwtf person. ^_^ I agree with this myself, but I dunno if Valve would do anything about this.
Valve map-related bugs: 13
1) 2fort: Since it's a valve map they should fix it. In the battlement respawn, blue's grenpack holds 4/4 grens, red's only 4/2. Hmmm, never noticed it, because I loathe 2forts. Would be a simple fix, only requiring an ent update, tho.
2) 2Fort: Hole in nest/battlement. You can jump out of the map in 2fort. You will end up at very top of map on left or right wall. From here you have view of nest, bridge area, and the nicely painted dessert. To be specific you can rocket, gren, or conc jump to the top of the wall in the sniper nest (battlement). This is the right wall facing bridge that protects you from bridge fire when you come out of upper respawn (not the left wall which leads to ramp room). You can readily jump to the top of this wall (out of map). a demo or a screenshot of exactly the point you can get out of the map would help. Thanks to (CK)Possum, I've got a screenshot of what you see when this happens, right HERE.
3) 2fort: you can fire through respawn doors with demo, i dont know about any other maps, i guess a lot that have thin doors, you can probably do that on the doors in rock. Thin doors. possibly just an ent fix, Valve will know
5) 2fort: Somone said you can throw the flag through the roof in the basement up to the ramp room, but thats yet seen to be believed. I'd like to see a demo of this, but right now it's being filed here in the"not really likely, but possible" category
6) Rock2: you can throw the flag through the doors. Thin doors again, this is most likely just an ent fix for the flag itself, or the thin wall thing.
7) Rock2: you can conc jump over the lasers in rock2, is this supposed to be possible? No, it's not supposed to be possible.When they ported this map from qwtf, they neglected the fact that a skilled concjumper can crouchjump on a regular basis to get into interesting places. If they wanted to fix this, they'd add multiple laser traces at varying heights.
8) Rock2:you can fire pipes through the gas chamber window too Yep, I've confirmed it. It's the thin walls thing yet again.
9) Rock2: The ground under the platform outside the entrance in is buggy, grenades fall through it and thus won't hurt sentries built there. GRRRR! I call this the CHEEZER spot for an Sgun. I don't know if the grens fall thru, or what, but it's virtually impossible to take out an Sgun there. I've spammed all 4 MIRVs onto that spot, literally touching the gun. nothing. Groo is NOT amused by this one.
10) Well: This is a bug on well, only happened ONCE to me, I was medic, and I blame it on the clipping. I got stuck in the grate on my team's water tunnel. But I mean stuck. 4 Mirvs missed, a few pipebombs too, I was underwater and NOT drowning. Since I was medic, I was gaining health slowly, but that's besides the point. I'm saying you can gte stuck inside/outside an entity and still be able to shoot. I sometimes use this to my advantage in rock2, wait till a friendly demoman closes the tunnel and hop into the rock before it blows. I get stuck inside, mirvs miss, I get jerked in and out of -water- like when you're in a sky texture (say, like the old 2morforts) and cannot be hit at ALL. I recieved a pipebomb in the head and it bounced off. Hit wall first. Wish I had a few screenshots to prove it. A fix would be to make wall_toggles like the ones in rock2 and well HURT people when they set. Hmm, stuck in an entity, that odd. Good, interesting item, tho, hopefully Valve can do something with that.
11) Well: There's a hole somewhere near the joint of the pipes (by the grate). Many people have been sent flying through this hole by rockets and concs and I have lost a flag in it (that sucks). I've only had this happen to me once, and I don't know exactly where, cause it was one of them concgren things, where you're suddenly elsewhere. :/
12) Badlands: If you are a blue guy on red battlements, and try to get the supply backpacks, it won't let you pick them up (you even get a message saying that it's only for the other team). However if a red guy is on blue battlements, he can pick up the packs no problem. *sigh* another elementary ENT problem (most likely) slips thru QA. Why am I not surprised at this?
13) Badlands: the flags won't initially spawn if the map is in prematch mode (but I haven't played prematch mode myself so I haven't been able to see if that's true). Yep, another bug in an otherwise really cool map. And one that will prohibit it's use as a match map.
Assorted suggestions: 6
1) -More Transport Vehicles (Drive of Fly). Might totally ruin existing game strategy though so implementation would have to be well thought out. I truely love flying in Tribes but TFC maps probably not practical for this as we are today) This one falls under the category of "adding to game content", and I'm only leaving it here because a) I don't want to be viewed as a dictator - yet.. and b) an example of things that we shouldn't waste our time lobbying for. Usable vehicle will come in TF2, most likely, and besides, with the player model being approx 20% bigger, all the maps seem far too small already.
2) -Make scripts more accessible to general public. I can do things with scripts that many on pubs have never seen. As must as I enjoy the small advantage this gives me I have not doubt the general public would enjoy these maneuvers and capabilities. Might want to have the next patch come with some fancy script sets as an option depending on player interests. Beginner, intermediate, or advanced script setups would change play as we know it. I truly feel that scripting SHOULD remain an advanced feature, being one that a person SHOULD have to spend the time to learn about the game itself to do. Offering this sort of thing would only open up a Pandora's box of troubles. TFC is fairly complex as is - with newbies asking questions like " How the hell do I build one of those $%$^% guns? " Now imagine them asking for help with a script, in midgame. No, leave scripts for the more advanced user to add in themselves¸ I feel.
3) -I was playing one game where a lamer had found a hiding spot in 2fort that on one could locate and was dropping the flag and picking it back up rapidy. The "Enemy has your flag/Enemy has lost your flag" messages piling on top of one another endlessly. . . Something to prevent that kind of thing would be nice. Annoying. Valve will have to make a call on this one. However, it's hard to elimate EVERY trick the wankers like to use, like message spamming, etc. I dunno what could be done in this case, personally, so I'll leave it to the experts.
4) -First, as a suggestion if we actually get Valve to fix this stuff---they really, really need a votekick option for those public servers where people are being lamers. For example, you can build a sentry in respawn in 2fort, but if it's a single sentry you can get around it. Well not when several llamas team up. They were doing this on a server (4 llamas!), and I had to do the emp-and-switch to remove their blockage. Also saw a "friendly" demoman on a team damage server who had -79 frags at the end, after wracking up all those kills on his team. Well, even IF they implement votekick, when I played TRIBES, votes failed 90% of the time, because people are apathetic idiots. It's hard to fend off wankers all the time. The only solution to that is for server admins to police their servers, and to give rcon to trusted people to help remove cretins like that. I doubt Valve could/would implement a solution like you suggest.
5) -*sigh* too bad more server's don't run the teamplay rules where you hurt yourself when you shoot a teammate. It's not spam friendly at all, and newbies hate it. Hey, there's something to put in a petition. That should be the default teamplay rules. Nope - cause server admins would switch back to other mode, so people would play on their servers. TK and Mirror Damage servers don't get as much play, because Johnny PubPlayer can't aim, and would rather spam. This isn't an issue for Valve to act on, trust me. This would have to come from a shift in the mentality of the players.
6) -one thing that is available in Q2 CTF that I think should be available in TFC is variables for teamchat. For example, the variable %h will tell your teammates your health level. Or perhaps a variable to indicate location. EG: say_team "HELP! I have the flag at %l and am down to just %h health!" Well, this is a nice idea, and we'll pass it along. But I don't know if it will get implemented. In pub play, there's next to zero commo, and in clan matches, the VAST majority of them use either Roger Wilco, or Battlecomm.
7) . What the game really needs is a form of knowing that the other one is typing. So that the honorable player stops shooting at you. I got killed many times typing messages. The solution of Q3 with the bubble is really good. Oh, you mean the Free Frag Bubble? *laugh* With the lack of honour and moral fibre in the TF community, I highly doubt anyone other than a select few would honour that convention.
8) I like a form of reset after you die. All +commands (+reload, +attack...) should be set back to their -. Sometimes I get killed in the execution of a long script and the game hangs. I solved this by making my own reset.cfg, which I activate with a key. A good solution would be to execute the class.cfg´s at respawn time again. E.g. I like to start with the supershotgun as engineer. It works if I start as engineer and if I change to engineer. But if I die, I start with the rail. Well, that's the price of using long scripts. Someone who thinks out their scripting well, codes it out that if in case they do get killed in the middle of one, merely hitting the button bound to +attack resets stuff. Sorry, I'll put this in, but I highly doubt it'll be seriously considered. As for execing class.cfg at respawn, I do like that, cause when I play Engy, I prefer to use the SShotgun, rather than the flashlight....err, "railgun".
