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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- Alt Title: TF2 maps have forgotten about Heavy and why I think modern maps are made with generalists in mind. But that title wouldn't work as a TH-cam video but whatever.
This rant is less angry than my alt tab rant, but I'm still very much passionate about the issue.
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The main thing that's changed with TF2 map design over the years is relying on choke points. Older maps used chokes a lot and over time players have found them to be tiering to break though. The good thing about TF2, however, is that it has a ton of maps to pick from so players can find what they like.
As a heavy main, I've never felt more heard, seen and felt, thank you man.
I quite personally love king of the hill maps, they're smaller so it doesn't take forever to reach the objective, they have multiple routes so everyon can get creative and it has a little bit for everyone, though maybe not so much for medics, I don't see a lot of them that often in those maps, but as heavy, OOF, I love that I can just jump into action quickly and outsmart the enmy trough the many flanks but short flanks, or visceversa. There is also attack/defend which are pretty neat for heayv also.
ON the other hand, you have capture point maps, which I detest because I can rarely reach where I'm most useful, I often avoid those maps, they feel to big and I feel too exposed, or there are trauma inducing choke-points. Or Capture the flag, capture the flag maps man... they're pretty choke-y and I die a lot by explosions where I cannot do shit because my enemy is hiding behind the corner, oop there I go dying by that dragons fury pyro which feels like a more op flare gun... why did I died to the pyro the same I would to a demoman... man. I hate chokes.
Of course there are exception maps in each of these categories I mentioned that I do like playing on, but for the most part you'll see me avoiding these like the plague because of how unfun it is.
There is also payload, but when playing Venice, OOH, OOOOOOOHHHH, not having an engineer hurt my soul.
On another note I do like that these modern maps have more flank routes, the issue I find with these is that they're too long and too far away. I like taking advantage of flanks as heavy because he isn't really that much of a frontline class, unlike some noobs would like to think, he is a positional class, he needs to be in the right place at the right time and that's usually not fighiting the whole enemy team, too many people do that and acomplish nothing.
Also could we please buff the items that punish heavy for being fast, since that's what the maps are asking of you as of late.
Also- damage falloff. Map sizes being too large makes any form of chip damage useless. There are metrics of damage for each hitsscan weapon for each class, save sniper. The effective range of every weapon exists as per the original map design and scale. Gameplay actively gets harder and longer the larger the maps are.
most mappers really could care less about competitive. i myself as a heavy main tend to agree, but on most new maps i still see myself having fun.
if you design a map around heavy first other classes still suffer, a small map is generally less fun for soldiers or demos cuz they cant jump around as much. if distances between objectives are just right for heavy, the distances would be come too short for scout and he could reach them way too early. designing around heavy first is something mappers actively tell you to avoid because running around your alpha1 as heavy messes with your sense of scale and distance. sadly, the reality is that if you design for heavy first, you end up with a base that becomes bad for other classes, same as if you were to do it this way for any other class or set of classes which is what youre complaining about in the first place.
the best way to look at it is to strike a middle-ground, think of every class equally rather than one first over the other, this is something that gets echoed all the time in tf2maps and other mapping circles, so its not like the vague entity youre referring to as "mappers" dont know, or are ignorant. theyre aware, they know, and i myself as a mapper find myself quite offended at such a broad generalization.
even when you design for every class, its extremely difficult, because many classes features and needs contradict each other. so you tend to design around the needs most of the 9 classes have, which is generally open-ness.
at the end of the day, maps are there to appeal to different audiences, a map isnt bad because you personally think it isnt fun, to you it might be, but theres plenty of people that do think its fun and that gives it value. different maps cater to different playstyles and different people, and they all have a place in modern tf2 for that reason, with how much the games evolved and the skill cieling raised sky high. phoenix, a really open map, has just as much of a place in tf2 as hoodoo, a really small map, because if players didnt have these options to choose from, maybe they wouldnt enjoy the game at all because all of the maps are small or because all of the maps are huge. small maps still get made, i myself like making relatively small layouts, but this is not some grand conspiracy.
Honestly, one of my all time favourite TF2 mappers didn't even map that much for TF2.
They were a L4D2 mapper, and they used their experience making maps designed for two entirely different teams into TF2 and made a couple maps with each and every class in mind. One was a map small enough for the entire thing to fit inside a middle point, and the other one being a TC map that was fairly compact, Koth_basement and TC_OilRush respectively.
I really wish they would have continued doing more, but I really don't know what they are doing or even where they are now, and the site they posted them to seems to no longer have them, so both maps are unfortunately lost media with only like two videos for basement and absolutely nothing for the TC map. No one made quite such good and smalll maps like them.
could you send the videos?
@@rawmaw watch?v=hx3gDOawsQU
I can't find anyone else that made short vids on it. Other than a skyscraper in the middle of construction, I can't really find anything else TF2 related from them.
Side note, found the only video I could find of the Skyscraper map. I want to say it was updated to 5cp at some point, but that is history from so long ago.
watch?v=DZJfHcHLgo0
You should've scripted this. Your rambling is incredibly incoherent and unconvincing
^^^^
Been playing since 2012, and honestly I do tend to mostly stick to older maps. I'll play around on new holiday maps if they're not total ass to play on like those Halloween maps that decided more bosses equals more fun which...no. That does not math out actually, that's a terrible idea please stop doing that. But otherwise I tend to stick to maps like Upward or Steel or Gorge or even Doublecross if I'm feeling masochistic and wanna play CTF. The modern maps feel more like something I'd play on a trade server when I was bored during Summer vacation as a young teenager. Just remove the objectives and boom, perfect trade/idle maps.
12 minute yapping session
True but tf2 maps are terrible. You just don't need a 12 minute video to explain that
@@micah_up Nah, just some of them. Such as pl_wutville burning your PC hotter than coals and longest sightline make the 8th class unbearable as ever, cp_dustbowl making explosive and sentry spamming basically have no counterplay until you have Ubercharge or spam Short Circuit in 1st BLU spawn in addition horrible spawn camp protection especially at BLU's 2nd and 3rd spawn. But some of them are great and made for every class like pl_upward where scout can flank, soldier can 4 rockets sync jump, pyro can ambush in every corner or spam scorch shots, demoman can put tons of sticky on the cart or trimp across the map, heavy can just rev and spam miniguns at every chokepoint, Engineer can put every buildings everywhere and can get behind enemy, Medic still have strong Ubercharge, Sniper have long sightline but flank routes to do something against him, spy have a lot of decloaking spots and flank routes to go.
List of things I forgot to mention:
I'm aware that that making maps around Heavy's speed won't fix the fundamental issues with his character. He can still be too strong around choke points, good at ambushing around corners, and good at close quarters combat. . It's a developer issue to fix the things wrong with what makes Heavy fun to play. His gameplay can be pretty mindless.
It feels less like maps are designed with Team Deathmatch in mind like the early roots of TF2 were settled in. Big Team Fights don't seem to be on the minds of modern mappers.
Good maps designed for Sniper, should allow him to look at the flank and look at the control point preferably at the same time. What he shouldn't be able to do is watch over the entire map and make everyone else too scared to walk around.
I know that Dustbowl has several large health packs in the first stage, but that doesn't stop that map from still having bad design. Blu team gets more health and ammo compared to red team, that's still unbalanced.
Payload Heavy is great because he can ride the cart, and can be pretty devastating. But I didn't mention that because while he's good for Payload, the maps are still a lot of terrain to walk and there have been cases where, in the time it took for me to walk to the cart, the fight was already over.
Any other points I forget to bring up, I might add to this comment.
Good argument, however: dustbowl is the reverse of this.
Also can you give some examples of good old maps (other than upward and Badwater) aswell as badly designed new maps (I don't play 5cp at all so maybe that's why I can't understand some of this)
two fort
Heavy main with 125 hours here. I think a good way to fix Heavy would have been to slightly buff the Eviction Notice to make his speed the same as a Demoman's base walking speed and have it mark you for death the same way the GRU did, rather than give it the same nerf as the GRU. This way he's still tied with the third slowest class in the game, but at least it's not absolutely painful to walk to the front lines, and it *only* applies when the Eviction Notice is active.
Because the GRU bringing him up to 100% speed was just too much. Heavy's DPS and health pool are the highest in the entire game by a lot, so he needs his poor walking speed to keep him balanced.
@@HunterStiles651 that wouldn't fix heavy, that would buff the eviction notice
@@onepieceofbbq6357 Depends on what you mean by "fix Heavy".
Would it put him on the same playing field as Scout, Soldier, Demo, and Medic? No.
Would it make him less of a chore to play in pubs? Yes.
I've made one functional map (for myself, I've never released it), and I've definitely noticed that designing maps with a proper sense of "scale" is very difficult. It's very easy to underestimate the size of the map because you're looking at a tiny window in Hammer, so you think you have to make the map itself bigger to compensate.
THATS SO TRUE OMG
I don't think old maps were designed for all classes at all.
Any sort of flanking class on dustbowl is terrible, and launch maps like granary, well and gravel pit all have vertically layered points that hugely punish non-mobile classes like heavy. Old maps (eg goldrush last, dustbowl last) also don't have moving blu spawns, so the walk for heavy there is like 1 minute+ to get into the action.
I think it's been pretty consistently a mixed bag since launch, and the maps that are good for all classes (eg badwater or upward) end up being the most widely liked.
Yeah, like I'm listening to this video and thinking Dustbowl is god-awful for scouts. It's insane for Demo, Soldier, Pyro, Engineer - but not great for Spy because of the tiny chokes.
Super huge maps are annoying, I agree. Enclosure, community maps like Shoreleave - just have massive amounts of space for little reason. But those maps aren't always made for competitive. Gullywash was designed for competitive TF2 and it's noted competitive map-hater Zesty Jesus' favorite 5CP map.
I agree in what you said but if you are playing the third map of dustbowl on the second point you are basically required to have an engineer with a tele to skip that minute walk and get to the team fight quicker a dispenser cause near you there is only a small healthpack and a sentry so you dont get pushed back and if you dont have that its basically impossible to win. So yeah if your team wants to win you gotta have an engie.
@@caydenfranklin7028his favorite 5cp map is powerhouse (i refuse to say its 3cp)
@@paquipro7451this goes for like any map thoughever
Yeah same. Im a Sniper main and if im in Upward with any good Engineer on Red, its just over if there isnt a skill gap between the entire Blu team and both of us, however, good luck to that Engie on last if they dont get a lot of help from the team. In that case, its better to have an extra Soldier or Demo watching over either flanks. This isnt the case at all in Barnblitz, where its much better to simply stack Engineers on the 2nd and last points, or help the Engies as Pyro or Demo, as a result of lack of flank routes in those points.
Wouldnt call either of these bad, but even on these good maps, you can find examples of some classes being less suited for different points in the same map.
- Early maps were smaller: maybe, but please get some empirical evidence before making a yt video about it I think the increase won't be that significant.
- Early maps were made for all the classes: scout is unplayable on dustbowl/goldrush
- New maps are made for competitive and therefore suck: of the 14 maps added in the summer update, only 1 has competitive roots
"early maps were smaller" bruh dustbowl is huge, it just sucks
@@ThePacmandevil technically each round of dustbowl is very small itself with all 3 adding up to a much larger map
I've been playing since 2011 and agree wholeheartedly. The biggest issue with TF2 is that it's designed around medium to close combat, and the big issue with new maps is that they're too large and open. I remember back when I first played spy and sniper were relatively even for getting picks, now sniper is way overpowered because sightlines are massive and it's much easier to get headshots from far away than it is to cross a long distance to get behind enemies. I wouldn't lay the blame solely on competitive though, I think the real issue is the popularity of movement mechanics have led to maps becoming more open to accommodate them. The issue is what used to be a choice has now become a necessity. It used to be viable to footslog as soldier, trading off the faster arrival to the objective with the fact that you'd have more health and likely a shotgun secondary. Now on newer maps if you want to actually get there in time to make a difference it's a necessity to rocket jump. Especially on newer maps I very rarely see soldiers without at least one of either gunboats, disciplinary action, escape plan, or rocket jumper + mantreads. Items that modify movement speed like kunai, GRU, and powerjack are much more important than they used to be. I think the key to fixing modern maps would be to reduce the size, reduce sightlines or at least create viable flanks around long sightlines, and tighten areas so there aren't just wide open killing fields. The fact that sniper is so dominant now when he's supposed to be the inverse of how the other 8 classes are designed shows that the maps are not made with the game's original vision in mind.
finally someone saying something that makes sense thank you waylon
So this is an interesting concept. I haven't considered this before but you bring up a very interesting point about level design. I've been playing TF2 since October of 2011. I've been a casual level designer for the past 9 or so years, and I actually have a degree in game design and development, so these kinds of points that I haven't considered myself before are actually really interesting.
I like to call myself a heavy main, I tend to try and play as heavy on casual as much as I can, but with the perspective you're bringing forward here, I *am* realizing that it's actually quite a frequent occurrence that I swap off of Heavy to either Soldier or Scout specifically because I don't want to spend so much time getting from point A to point B. In fact you highlight some interesting things about the interconnectedness of some maps: GravelPit has multiple routes close to both spawns that bring you to each point. Steel's strange design is built *around* the idea that, on Red, you can always get to whatever point you need to get to really quickly, and on Blu, your spawn and back flank are always safe for engineers to put up teleporters.
I'm not sure whether or not it's true that levels these days are being designed specifically for competitive players or not, but I do notice that levels where the spawn is close to the action seem to be more popular. Take Halloween Mode's favorite gamemode, Player Destruction: Spawns are always close to the action because the gamemode is respawn-agnostic. You're playing to get kills, so it doesn't matter if you have big pushes all at once or not. I think you put forward a very interesting concept, and I'd like to look into it in more detail.
Bro wdym the tf2 maps are dope
You cannot play scout effectively on dust bowl
Sure you can. Who says you can't?
@@collegeguy506 too many choke points that limit mobility and a lack of open areas in general. Level 3 sentry guns will kill you instantly and there are way too many good spots for them on dustbowl.
sounds like heavy cope more than anything. it be better if u made a video with a script and more examples of maps that you think are 'good' or 'bad'.
Man thinks Spy is viable for Dustbowl and Goldrush
Try not to bump into literally anyone in the entire enemy team in Dustbowl stage 3 challenge (impossible)
The way TF2 map design is being done now fits more with Arena mode than normal TF2...
And the new Arena map this 2023 Scream Fortress proves me right.
I queued to Pelican Peak once, and it wasn't fun at all. I went soldier, engie and sniper, but the map is just a huge arena where one team gets the upper hand and the other waits to lose. I don't know who that map appeals to
There is a sewer portion of the map which is a lot more fun to cruise around, instead of taking the way too big snipers shooting gallery range . but that space needs something to take cover from sniper, it's ridicolous. A single decent sniper was dominating my entire team, couldn't even say hi.
In fairness with a good engineer this flaw can be mostly fixed
Engineer is not an everyone-friendly class, though. He is extremely complicated to master. So it'll be a rare chance you'll be in a server with a good Engineer, let alone one on your team.
@@Femme-Pyronot really
Usually even engineer that aren't that good at the game usually place decent teleporters.
One of the coolest but most simple map designs I've found is on dustbowl last, right by the final chokepoint/corridor. There's a set of stepping stones on the wall. It's useless for almost everyone except for defending spies, as it allows you to stand in plain sight above the entire enemy team. So far I haven't found any other map that has something like this, which I find very disappointing. It feels so much cooler to do a mini-parkour, where failure will surely mean your death, to get to a good position instead of just using the same flank as the scout/pyro uses.
I main Heavy and I made maps and I just think this video is hugely based around the fact that people don't understand that Heavy isn't about revving your gun and walking, it's a lot more. You can surf stickies, jump-rev, use item buffs to get around places, etc. Your mobility on Heavy is limited because if he were even slightly faster while revving you would be able to death-ball an entire team with sheer damage, which is why his speed is meant for bursts of suppressing fire. I don't know why you decided to only talk about 5cp 6's maps when there are a ton of payload competitive maps where Heavy is really powerful because of the ability to mount on the cart indefinitely. I ran Heavy in NR6s and I did pretty well on Sunshine because I took advantage of places like tetris and cellar where it is a great place for a Heavy to not be instantly shot down but also have the potential to wipe anyone that comes near him.
Do you think Heavy needs more mobility or more survivability? Payload maps, in my experience as a Sniper main, are easy to defend if you get a competent team in front of you, since they usually have a big sight line due to how the map needs to be. Doesnt matter how strong in paper that Heavy might be while pushing the cart since i can just right click his head twice, or once if im using the Bazaar.
Notable exceptions for me would be something akin to Barnblitz 2nd and last that at times feel they need an extra corridor or 2.
Most average players who have no experience in competitive or any basis in understanding class intricacies other than W+M1 think heavy is a walk forward and win/die character. You're completely right in the fact that heavy is more than that, and in the right hands just like any other class, can completely dominate a game.
@@bonkbonk420
Honestly, I think that's just an issue with the concept of a sniper. In any game with a sniper they stay in the back and pick people off. Doesn't really matter what class you are, if a good sniper wants you dead you're gonna die. There isn't really a way to fix/nerf the concept unless you make the sniper worthless.
Kibble Bites heavy main lmao Shart 😂
I play test maps every other day on TF2Maps and have made a few maps myself. It's one thing to say "Make a map with every class in mind!", it's another to fulfill that goal. Every mapper has to learn that your map can't make everyone happy. The maps you like the most for being accessible for Heavy are despised by others for being Kritzkrieg-Demoman spam fests. Also, smaller maps are definitely being made, but at the end of the day, it's the highest voted maps that get added. (...plus whatever else Valve hit on the dart board that day.) This means pretty maps like Phoenix end up winning. (I personally did not like the map for its length and incredibly large finale either, but that is simply what the mapper wanted to make.)
"the difference between turbine or pelican peak; cp_steel or cp_junction." Could you please elaborate on which ones you like and which ones you don't? The consensus in the mapper community is that Junction is one of the worst maps ever made, and that Turbine is mid at best. Junction was designed for at most 6 players per team, which is why it's so damn tiny. Turbine is one of the earliest community maps in the game, having been created during the beta, which is why it's so damn simplistic in both layout and visuals. Meanwhile, Pelican Peak is nearly 5 years old already and Steel is still getting updates after 15 years. That means these maps have had a lot of time to adjust to what TF2 is **now**, and how people play classes like Heavy **now**. It's no longer "stand still and shoot gun". Now it's "jump around every corner to surprise people".
Of course, it's also worth noting that after 16 years of TF2, play testers themselves are getting pretty good at the game. I can easily top-score on Casual just from play testing maps every day. But during a play test, I usually end up around 3rd place. Because of this, low-skill play-testing just isn't a thing. But is it worth designing maps for noobs? Just play Dustbowl! A new player doesn't need 200 maps, the veterans do.
@@Tumbolisuhello tumby
Idk about everything but this 3:56 is the thing that pisses me off the most. I have reiterate, TF2 not a it movement shooter like some popular tf2tubers like to say. TF2 is a is a “class-based” shooter. And the game happens to have some movement options
lol it absolutely is a movement shooter, movement is basically the most important part to any fight. that's like saying "TF2 isn't a first person shooter, it's a "class based" shooter" - when it can be and IS both
@@ThePacmandevil No it isn't, the reason movement happens to be the most important part to a fight is because the game is outdated, people have gotten better, nobody in 2007 would think that Scout, Soldier and Demoman would dominate the game because of them being faster.
Just because the game is played better by faster classes (Which it isn't outside of 6's and 5CP) doesn't mean that the game was intended to be a movement shooter.
@@IgorNetoAnimation It is a movement shooter, based purely on the fact that you don't have to stand still to shoot accurately, and the existence of damage falloff. Movement is baked into the very core of the gameplay, it's the most effective way of avoiding AND dealing damage. Therefore, it's a movement shooter. A good example of a shooter that ISNT a movement shooter is Counter Strike. The two games are vastly different in gameplay.
@@IgorNetoAnimationdude wth are you talking about. If game doesnt punish you for moving then it treats you. And that makes it movement shooter
@@sergame567"If game doesnt punish you for moving then it treats you. And that makes it movement shooter".... Heavy, Sniper...two classes that exist.
I feel like this video is misinformed.
3:49 as a tf2 mapper, I can say, you literally spend half the time doing exactly this. You spend a surprising amount of time just walking around your map as different classes, sometimes spawning in some bots to test how fun they are to play in a certain area.
i agree with this as a heavy main most new maps just dont have cover for you where you can put out any damage and when there is its just a sightline so its useless anyways
We should remember how packed, maps such as 2Fort and Upward are. Go into noclip mode, they're rabbit holes at their max simplicity
"Not a lot of the early maps have health packs."
Proceeds to show off the area with 4 full health packs on Dustbowl.
PS: Heavy has always been seen as a weak class since day 1. He is probably at the strongest he's ever been at this point, with the sandvich, tomislav, and the GRU/Fists of Steel.
It's still not good map design
the biggest reason for this isnt comp, its that people are making maps for the classes they like to play
people said heavy wasnt fun 10 years ago just as they do now, heavy has always been unpopular, therefor map makers are less likely to have him in mind as they never play him in game and probably often times forget he exists
this is why so many maps are just not balanced well for sniper, people like playing sniper so the map maker adds way to many fucking sightlines for the class (hell on upward a good sniper can just stop the entire attacking team in Infront of reds first spawn because he can see the entire damn map)
people dont tend to like playing spy in the traditional way (actually bein a stealth class and going in for the pick at the perfect moment) so many maps really only make flank routes with scout in mind, lacking ammo packs for spy to refresh his invis, being really long so spy has to burn way to much invis to get through it stuff like that)
people love playing solider so maps tend to be more open and have a lot of rollouts
people like playing demo so many trap spots are there
people dont like playing pyro all that much so similar to spy the flank routes dont take him in mind, being to long for him to be effective, if someone is holding the flank many of the flank route often times they can be well out of pyros range, while the same is true for scout, his speed allows for him to get out much easier, pyro has a much harder time
people like playing engineer so often times sentrys have huge sightlines and can just not allow classes like scout and pyro to play the game
all of this is people making maps for the popular classes, not caring much about balance just wanting the majority of people to have as much fun as possible by favoring the most popular classes
I've recently picked up player heavy more recently and I've began to notice these problems aswell, I'm actively working towards making sure that my maps will avoid this and allow all classes to be viable
I've been playing since 2011. My favorite map is by far Badwater gameplay wise and probably sawmill esthetics wise.
My biggest problem with the newer maps though is the unfitting or poorly adopted esthetics. Things like soujin really doesn't fit tf2s esthetic. Other maps use fitting settings but they make like no sense. Like what is snakewatter supposed to be?
I believe Snakewater is a lumbermill or logging facility, there are logs on the middle and second points
"i have no idea how current map makers make maps or how to balance a map. i don't really know what makes a map good or bad, it's just a feeling. i don't know if map makers balance maps to purposefully disadvantage classes but i'll hammer that completely baseless point home anyway and rely on my second-long annotations where i basically walk back everything i say to fix my video for me. i have no script and am just rambling and don't really know what my point is" Ok. Stop Talking Then.
You missed the entire point of the video
I disagree on sniper, because newer maps are bigger, they have larger sight lines than older maps. While on an older map there are good sight lines the snipers can still be countered by distanced mini gun fire or a few 30 damage rockets.
Come to a map like Venice, step out of spawn on offence *DIE*
You can’t even see the sniper, you can’t do anything to even remotely counter it
new maps have bad sightlines even doe upward and badwater exist
> the snipers can still be countered by distanced mini gun fire
Valve in their infinite wisdom made sniper immune from aimpunch if it's a minigun doing it from distance.
Phoenix is really fun
I 100% agree with what you've said. Encouraging community-created content is great and all, but it really does not work well when you have *zero* playtesters to check out a new workslop map and be like "Hey, maybe don't add this map, it plays like garbage." Most of the people playing TF2 these days just do it because they like looking at pretty hats, not because they understand the complexities of the game or why the art was designed the way it was. If TF2 never existed; most of the people who play it in 2024 would probably just be obsessing over Fortnite or Overwatch instead.
I believe nowadays map design is also a result of the player population mindset changing from laidback game enjoyers who just want to have fun with items and mechanics while shooting eachother in a gun game, to hardcore competitive wannabes who only stick to what is considered "viable and/or optimal" because only victory matters.
Btw, 4:50 This is also true for when you look at people ideas for balancing weapons and items, wanting them viable both in competitive and outside of competitive while also having good stats and interesting gimmicks.
I am a heavy main, and in some maps I feel like I cannot play as him. Sometimes there aren't any engies and therefore no teleports. I go as fast as I can to where the main fight is happening and just when I arrive, someone like a sniper sends me to the respawn queue again. It's sad to not be able to have as much fun as the others. I don't understand why people say heavy shouldn't be fast, that he is too strong and he can make games slower. That doesn't make sense to me. Why? He's only 3% slower that soldier, who has much more power and versatility than heavy himself. Soldier can rocketjump and arrive to the cp faster than a scout, then buff himself AND his teammates to do minicrits, health regeneration, damage resistance or whatever. And with all of that, a medic can kritzkrieg charge him and obliterate the enemy team in seconds. But still he isn't overpowered? What I mean is that I see a lot of hipocrisy in player's opinions. I think heavy deserves better. I don't even play heavy as much as before because he doesn't have much gameplay variety. It's just using the minigun and being pocketed. He can't rocketjump, charge a meter that gave him crits or whatever, he can't go in a melee rampage because he's too slow and anyone can outrun him. Heavy being viable depends entirely on the map and the presence of a medic that will pocket him. Relying so much on a medic and an engineer makes heavy really boring.
To summarize, I think is not only maps fault, it also is the design of heavy. The game has evolved, people now are way more skilled, but the skill ceiling of heavy is much much lower than the other classes. Maybe I couldn't express my thoughts properly, sorry for that. English is not my first language. But thank you for reading, and I will read your responses.
This is why I barely make serious TF2 maps these days, its a lot more work than people think, so its more fun to just make silly little trade/hangout ir gimmick maps instead
(but I still think a lot about making good serious maps too)
We know that 80% of all people who play TF2 are major league trash. These new maps encounrages bad habits because it has so many ways to go behind enemy lines and totally unpunished. It is better for snipers because the distance to reach them is ridiculous. The only classes that benefit from these maps are the scout and the sniper. Any other class has to strugle. It is hard to hit things with splash damage. The way to make a map is always first point 1 way .. second point 2 paths to get to the front lines. Two areas for red to defend. 3rd point 2 paths to get to the front lines. The thir point has to be up some hill to give red the advantage and to slow down blue. Final point 3 pathways to get there why? Because the final point is right at the spawn room for red. I can't believe all we got after so many years are a bunch of unplayable maps, and ugly too.
I feel like this is omitting the massive drawbacks in old map design and the give and take in presenting a map that has something for everyone. The situations heavy excels in are the exact opposite of the ones sniper does, and often there's extreme overlap in where heavy's single target damage is optimal and where explosive spam is. I think heavy is just extremely awkward to work around in particular, as his low movespeed is obnoxious yet is also his main drawback while his strengths are situational. He's a focal point on the battlefield, and while the damage he outputs is absurd, it's also reliant on positioning and he himself is only marginally tankier than some of his damage dealing peers with far higher mobility. I think the map design angle is worth talking about, but in general here I think the arguments are seriously uncompelling.
I've made a few CTF maps and many touch-ups of Valve's maps, and have been lucky enough to have a populated server to test them on with frequent and sustained gameplay, particularly with people who aren't necessarily there with a tester's mindset, and just doing what they think is fun, which is important for finding out if a map is quality or not. Early on I would almost always increase health and ammo values and shift them around to areas I didn't see played, and to reduce medic/engineer dependency on any given mode. Many players would lament a lack of individual player freedom, hence the abundant ammo and health which allows them to operate further from their team and for longer. Players also noted greatly appreciating the open areas in SOME maps that allowed for nutty shit with the myriad movement options I gave every class on our server.
As far as mappers going overboard with this idea, especially as the summer maps were concerned, the wide open areas and all the vistas are prettier, and often more fun to make, EVEN if the experience of slower classes (and lesser-skilled players who cant use movement options as effectively) suffers. At least in the mind of mappers. It should be noted, often the map with the best marketing makes it into the game, rather than what plays the best. If you submitted pl_badwater as it is with some screenshots that were less than fancy, it would probably be passed over despite it ending up as one of TF2's oldest and most popular maps. Players also cheer when a popular workshop map is added, of course they do, it was a popularity contest. The thing is, those maps riding on looks also end up largely forgotten or at least overshadowed by the handful of classic, solid maps that ultimately play better.
If any mappers or future mappers read this, try to make the gameplay good first, THEN add a cool vista out of bounds or something later if you need to, lest you should end up as a map that people play maybe once every month+, rather then regularly (You presumably want your map to be the best it can be). Once players start killing each other, all the decorations become a blur, and they stop paying attention to anything other than the enemy team. They might even say your map is really cool, and once the map ends, it is never voted for again. Many times, I have removed maps from my rotation that do indeed look great, but only look great, and always get out-picked and abandoned for maps that scratch the itch better.
Editor's Note: Do your best to put your personal biases away. If you only play trolldier and gun-spy, you might just end up making a map that only suits those gimmicks, while gameplay is un-fun for most other classes and strategies. If you aren't a jack-of-all and familiar with every class already, become a jack-of-all or talk with people who are and see what they think about how your map plays. Also keep in mind player perspective. When a heavy-main complains or praises your creation for example, he is acting like a lawyer for his class/strategy. He might say the lack of options for sniper and spy feels great, But ask sniper or spy players, and they don't play the map because they don't have options there.
The reason why the launch maps are so small is because they were designed to work on Consoles (ie for the Xbox 360 & PS3). Include the low FOV as another design choice and somehow in Valve's (mind for the time) this is supposedly "In Theory" make it ever so slightly easier to aim with a Controller. If you look at the other games on the market like the Halo and COD games, you can clearly tell that's what they were trying to mimic without heavily relying on auto aim.
There is no way Valve considered console releases as anything more than an afterthought. Team Fortress, and FPS games in general, have always been distinctly PC games.
@@TheTdw2000 Mind you at the time console gaming was the craze. It was a market that valve wanted to bargain from and it shows when TF2 first released. Clearly the game was built from the ground up on PC there's no doubt about it. I'm not saying TF2 was exclusively created for consoles. Though when TF2's art style and gameplay was properly developed they realize what they made can "work" on a controller and that's what they did, plus for some players this can be an accessibility thing. Both versions were both made equally despite the lack of polish especially the PS3 version.
Theyre too fuckin huge man. Takes an eternity to walk from area to area and theres too many flank routes for there to be any reasonable way of covering all of them well.
2:58 careful Waylon, your Chuck Mcgill is showing
'You don't need to be a chef to call bad food bad'
That's a good way to put it.
I like how in your talk about older maps having less health at 1:00 you show Dustbowl stage 1 point 1 which has FOUR full medkits just on the first point.
Cramming full health and ammo kits into shitty choke points still isn't good map design
Map design peaked with cp_steel. Everything after that point was a mistake.
"God damn Sniper is too overpowered he ruins the game!" *makes and votes for maps that have huge long sightlines and open air instead of ones that let spies and heavies function* "Why the fuck is heavy so bad why the fuck is sniper so overpowered!?!?!?!?!?!!11111!"
Remember Hoodoo? I bet like 5 people remember hoodoo. Hoodoo was fun, it had a lot of flank routes, it didn't let sniper be OP because there were always like 2 or 3 ways for anyone to just
walk behind a wall to get behind him
Hoodoo is way too chockey
i just saw this in my recommended and i was wondering why the name was familiar and then i realized i think i said something mean to you in casual for like no reason a few days ago can you forgive me
I forgive you
It feels less like modern maps are designed with the more team death-match style roots of tf2 in mind and more designed for an open world side quest. They are cool to look at and they have had tons of effort put into them, but they struggle to keep tf2's main design philosophy in mind. I love some koth maps or payload. But those giant payload maps like swiftwater or a large percentage 5cp maps don't keep me entertained for very long because they take forever to traverse or take forever to end. CTF for example is a poorly designed gamemode but people still play the hell out of it. Why? Because it suits almost any playstyle you can think of and allows every class to do their thing. So this is basically a very long winded way of me saying "Some of these maps are bad and others aren't thanks for reading bye."
tf2s main design philosophy was spamming into a chokepoint, getting 2 kills and dying
thats why dustbowl is like that, powerhouse is like that (designed in 2007), granary is somewhat like that, and of course, hydro, which probably had the most attention given to it out of any of the release maps because of how extremely experimental it was, and it still ended up being a choky mess
CTF is popular, IMO, because it never ends. A lot of people just want to play infinite Team Deathmatch - which is totally cool. But people who enjoy the more team-based objective shooter that TF2 was balanced around don't tend to play CTF. Uncletopia, which tends to have a more objective-focused, enfranchised player base, almost always is running Payload, Attack/Defend, or 5CP.
It seems that several modern maps were made by the same idiots who manage traditional 6v6 xdddd
The way I see it is that modern TF2 maps shifted away from the choke and corridor design of the early maps, which in many ways is a better thing, but from that came the problem that combat suddenly was less often fought in mid to close range and had drifted to mid to long range in these wider open areas.
The two classes that mainly benefited from this change was Scout and to a lesser extent Sniper who did decently already. While classes like Soldier and Demo did well in those early choke and corridor maps, because of explosive jumping and the easy access of health packs they weren't hurt as badly as slower classes like Heavy and Engineer were.
Also I would say Heavy has always struggled with longer 5CP and Payload maps so its not really a problem with modern map design but a fundamental design issue of the class.
For real, I swear some of these maps only get added because they look pretty
Phoenix moment
People upvote maps on the workshop strictly based on the screenshots. It's why Wutville got added.
@@AsG_Alligatoryup
In conclusion: build your teles engie mains, ffs!
There should just be a rule for map making called "The Heavy Rule".
it'd be funnier to call it "The Heavy Burden"
Hey what are you using for this damage dealt number thingy?
Cuz they look smooth af
I don't know if you'll like the answer
like spymain i hate all small maps (example dustbowl or goldrush) bcs small coridors are big risk when on other side come enemy player and you bump to him and probably die. If one day you will be able to walk through enemy in invisible, then spy gonna be playable on small and VERY small maps
Perhaps if you do a redo of this vid with a script. I find a lot of these points have solid counter arguments, some of them ive shared in these comments, like Barnblitz 2nd and last being extremely better if you stack Engies and Demos rather than anything else, or Upward where last is a pain as an Engie if your team just doesnt bother to/cant hold the flanks, and youre better off just being another Soldier or Demo. On that token, as a Sniper main, id rather play Upward than Barnblitz, because either Red or Blu, im going to be extremely useless on Barnblitz 2nd and last if there isnt a skill gap.
Neither of these maps would be bad in my standards. Like sure we can point towards Badwater and see thats a crazy good map that allows you to do crazy jumps, lots of flank routes for Spies and Scouts, long sightlines that are spammeable and never truly safe (except last due to how its made) for Snipers, and good luck making a successful push on third if theres no Engie on Blu. However, id say Badwater is both a standard in payload maps, and an exception. Most maps have their pros and cons and making a map balanced for everyone at all times is extremely difficult.
zesty but if they have issue with tf2 maps
This is an interesting perspective because I play a good amount of Heavy/Spy and my main complaints is how restrictive and seemingly small most modern maps feel despite their increased sizes. There is just SO much clutter that you generally can't make use of or they just don't allow you to rocket jump up to neat spots or build sentries in cool places, it's unfortunate :/
The reason is that when people make tf2 maps, they actually make/use overwatch maps.
Of course maps that were designed for another game entirely suck.
Methinks most maps which cater towards heavy by being small also grind gameplay to a hault for whoever is on the offense, which is why i've grown to hate most maps that are built around A/D. Heavy being slow is a problem for him being unfun but that extends to just how he works where he becomes exceptionally powerful when he catches you. Though the main heavy issue is that his gameplay is 90% aim tracking to play him well.
Pumpkin bombs are the reason
This is why i exclusively play the release maps most of the time. every class works on them.
Im sure sniper makes maps unfun.
the competitive language of mapping is really felt in maps like venice and pier. not only are they not fit for the tf2's setting (and debatably, artstyle at large), but they have those crazy winding layouts and elevated walkways, it's cringe and nonsensical. same in metalworks for the catwalks. gullywash is cancer. also i hate how similar process and sunshine are essentially the same map.
heavy doesn't deserve a speed buff or a movement ability. giving pyro a jetpack was an L move by valve. "make a map designed for heavy first" - stupid idea
Hm, i wonder what his main is.
i have like 2000 or 3000 (i forgor) hours in tf2 and i never play heavy. if its a location where a soldier or demo can get the high ground or its a tunnel, your just fucked. too slow to move away from splash damage and too immobile to utilize terrain advantage. and your a easy pick for any sniper if you get in the front line and try to start shooting at people from far away where slower moving projectiles are harder to use.
Factual video, pretty much the only really good TF2 map we got (that isn’t halloween or christmas) is sharkbay, all others just caters for generalists
On one of the summer maps I played engineer and placed a senty in a little cupboard like up on top and I single-handedly stopped a team from being able to push the cart
Two medics
Two heavies
Two soldiers
Two demos
And three spies
One engineer with two puppy guaring pyros held out that point for three minutes
Then I died and they managed to steamroll after being hardlocked
That is bad map design
One fucking sentry locked down THREE ROUTES WITH ZERO FLANKS BEHIND ME, sure i was killing the other team but I knew it was unfair.
That's apart of the tf2 charm, there's 9 classes and will only ever be 9 classes.
As far as I see it, sniper and Heavy are the main issues for making "good maps" for the exact opposite reasons. The tf2 source engine being something entirely different altogether. This video is good food for thought.
I could sense the "maps are designed for competitive generalist players" narrative from 10 miles away as I opened the video.
It's always fun....when u happen to be on the rolling side.
The thing i hate about maps nowadays it's that's my main class gets me punished for liking to play with him. There are maps that can work well but vALVE just doesn't care so much about this game than let's say cs2(I'm never playing this again cs:go was better). I hope that this Halloween update isn't a sh*t show of bad warpaints and weird cosmetics and hellish maps that can make you(by that i mean myself) want to rant and then the only thing you might do is make someone angry.
What I'm saying it's that we should start using our brains to help make a good update instead with good warpaints and maps and cosmetics so the stupidity that the cosmetic case of 2021 was. Also this summer update brought with itself some really good maps and warpaints and cosmetics too.
this video is just blatantly wrong, heavy always relies on teleporters to be effective on payload, and there are plenty of maps from the summer update that are perfectly medium in size
why do you complain so much about maps being long if you should expect every class, shouldn't you also expect an engi to place a teleporter so the heavy doesnt have to walk?
As a heavy main, i should express my anger to map makers who disregard him as the slow turtle who relies on engineers to build and maintain their teles, but i'm just disappointed
So do you main Heavy then? Or are you trying to be sympathetic for heacy mains.
This person had a heart attack when they played megaton for the first time.
Honestly i just think heavy isnt a very well designed class :/
granary is a launch map and it takes heavy forever to get to the frontlines from spawn.
tbh, even with these points I still love the new maps..
You just have to play differently as heavy
Great video and great heavy gameplay
I am a spy and heavy main and I agree with you.
Are you playing against bots?
this is the actual best video about the state of maps in tf2
PREAAAAAAACHHHHHHHHHHH
Just fix the GRU really.
hm. I think tbh since the newer maps are very often just more liked by the community, it could make sense to just buff heavy
i know, i know. He's whole think is about being slow, but at this point his immovable. Maybe make him take all teleports instantly? or add some other heavy-spicific mobility option
I agree with this. Heavy is basically out of pace with Modern TF2. He was balanced around things like the slow-moving frontlines of Dustbowl.
The problem is you have to be very careful, because Heavy is balanced around his speed. Make him too mobile and he'd be the most powerful class in the game and impossible to fight.
I've been playing since 2011 and I agree that the map design has changed but it also reflects the change in the people playing it. Some of the launch maps had a fairly strict mentality for what each class is expected to do. These were maps in development before gunboats, kritz, airblast, wrangler and all of the other major playstyle changes that make up the current game.
Heavy can still excel on newer maps like phoenix it just requires good positioning and support from your team. It feels great to occasionally use the flank routes to close the distance and mow down the other team from an unexpected angle but an uber on the cart can work just as well. Maps of that length provide both forward spawns and strong positions for engineers to build offensive teleporters. These are all things that get considered when playtesting maps, some mappers are just better or worse at addressing those concerns.
Sixes / highlander mapping is a much smaller scene and doesn't have much sway on what gets added in official updates. You can look at highlander / sixes leagues map pools and see that they use a lot of community maps or classic maps added to the game pre 2017. Reckoner is one of the few recent comp maps to become official and even that was already in beta seeing use in sixes in 2016.
Buff Heavy's movespeed to match Demoman's. Problem solved.
I was listening till he implied Turbine was a good map
....you're serious?
I would erase this video from people's minds if I could
Tbh, instead of ranting abt bad maps, why dont we rant abt we dont have new maps that could be called "legendary" or smth, that ppl would love to play over and over again like hightower, harvest, badwater, upward, thounder mountain, maps that coming w updates are usually played first days or weeks of update, and then ppl are forgetting abt them, they're not seeing anything special in them, ik its easy to say to do smth special and on the same level with Valve, but imo creators just should try(no offense to map creators)
Nice video. I actually like that it's unscripted. Makes it feel more genuine.
Teleporters.....
I only have like 22 maps selected. I do not like so many of the maps in this game.