Update on... the Engineer Update (The Repair Node)

[flibitijibibo]

http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=3539

We're plugging away at the Engineer update. He's an interesting class to work on, because he creates a larger footprint in the game than any other class. This means we have a lot of options to work with, and the resulting set of ideas is truly daunting. Since we've already built and playtested some things that haven't worked out (with no false modesty, I think we've mastered the art of rapidly making things that aren't fun), we thought it might be interesting to give you some of our failed experiments.

This is why I don't study game design. :downs:

Oh, and a fun note at the end:

In other news, our minds were blown this week when we saw Andrew Kepple's amazing Spy & Pyro cartoon. We've decided this is final proof that TF2 fans are smarter, more creative, and much better looking than fans of all other video games.

[Cagerrin]

tmst on the tf2 blog. have seen 99% of everything.

[Heathen]

I was gonna post this but heh. Perhapse I will post my thread anyways since your thread title leaves little room for growth. Or have the mods change it so that the title is about all update information, and not this one update update.



We're plugging away at the Engineer update. He's an interesting class to work on, because he creates a larger footprint in the game than any other class. This means we have a lot of options to work with, and the resulting set of ideas is truly daunting. Since we've already built and playtested some things that haven't worked out (with no false modesty, I think we've mastered the art of rapidly making things that aren't fun), we thought it might be interesting to give you some of our failed experiments.

The first was a new building internally known as the Repair Node. We gave Engineers the ability to replace any current building (teleporter entrances and exits were considered one building for this) with the Repair Node instead.

While deployed, the Repair Node would draw from a pool of energy to fix damage to nearby buildings. When the node ran out of energy, it would stop repairing and regenerate up to full, creating a window of opportunity for the attackers. When sapped, the Repair Node's repair function was disabled for the duration of the sap.

The goal of the Repair Node was to solve a perceived problem in the Engineer's play experience: always having to be tied to your base. The Engineer often has little to do after his base is built and fully upgraded except wait for the inevitable Spy sapper attempt, or for the battlefront to reach the base. The Repair Node was meant to buy the Engineer time if he wanted to range out to gather metal or harass the enemy with his shotgun.

This is usually how we approach our game design: Identify a problem, then discuss the ways it could be solved. Our experience told us that even when the Engineer didn't feel immediate pressure, he still couldn't range out away from his base. If a Spy, Soldier, or Demoman found the base unguarded, it didn't take long to blow up. The further away an Engineer was, the fewer buildings he would be able to save from sapping. We also felt that the Engineer invested a lot of up-front work to establish bases that were very easily destroyed. Thus the repair node was born.

Play-testing the Repair Node showed us one expected, and two (somewhat) unexpected, outcomes. The expected outcome was that bases were far harder to destroy, and turtling became a super effective strategy. Fortunately, this is the kind of problem that can be attacked by turning the correct game design knob, and the Repair Node had a lot of available knobs. We could lower the rate of repair, lower the amount of repair energy, lengthen the vulnerable period, and so forth. We tried several options. One change we made was to add diminishing returns so that two Repair Nodes working together were less than perfectly efficient, and adding a third didn't really help at all.

Despite the design choices we had available, we were never really able to get the Repair Node to feel balanced for the attacking team. TF2 maps tend to be designed with very specific predicted Sentry placement locations and length of Sentry survivability. The Repair Node distorted both old favorite maps and made testing new ones more difficult by exaggerating intentional choke points and creating new choke points where they didn't previously exist.

The first unexpected outcome of the Repair Node was the team realizing just how valuable the Dispenser and Teleporter were to so many aspects of game pacing. If the Engineer isn't able to build a Dispenser, his team loses the support power that the Dispenser provides. In most games Dispensers are ubiquitous. You don't really realize what you've lost until you've lost it. Fewer Dispensers had the effect of slowing attacking teams down in a variety of ways: Teams were more fragile, metal was harder to get to the front lines, and team rally points were harder to define.

An Engineer who took a Repair Node instead of a Teleporter put his team in an even less viable position. The pacing of many maps became completely broken without Teleporters in play. Teams weren't able to push as effectively and the lines of battle moved closer to the spawn points. This lack of flexibility meant that attackers weren't able to hold gains and matches took longer to complete.

The second unexpected outcome was downstream from the first. Teams perceived Engineers with Repair Nodes as less "friendly", specifically because they weren't building Dispensers or Teleporters. In retrospect, older data at our disposal should have known this would happen. Prior to TF2's release, the Medic had weaponry that was significantly more powerful, leading to highly skilled players playing Medic as a purely combat class. Aside from the balance issues this created, it also resulted in a Medic that wasn't interested in healing anyone, which didn't typically sit well with his teammates. Their perception was that healing is the Medic's job. Medics who didn't do that weren't perceived to be team players -- an identical reaction to Engineers refusing to build Dispensers and/or Teleporters. Like many design exercises we didn't learn what to do next so much as what NOT to do.

Lesson 1: The problem of the Engineer being tied to his base still exists, but the Repair Node was too heavy-handed a solution. If we solve this problem in the future, it will have to be in a way that doesn't distort the existing balance between attackers and defensive choke points.
Lesson 2: The Dispenser and Teleporter are really good. We already knew this, but we didn't know that they were really, really good. Encouraging Engineers to either avoid build them entirely, or to build them in weird ways, broke the game's pacing immediately. New buildings in the Engineer update will probably take the form of upgrades, or entirely new choices alongside the old buildings, instead of replacements.

These may seem like obvious lessons, but knowing for certain why a particular idea doesn't work can often be as valuable as an idea that does. This process highlighted specifically where and why the Engineer is valuable, and how even slightly altering this value can have game-shattering implications.

Ultimately, the Repair Node was cut because it made the game more of a grind. While it definitely made it less stressful to manage a base as an Engineer, it wasn't fun. The Engineer gained a little bit of fun, but nearly everyone else in the match suffered as a result.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In other news, our minds were blown this week when we saw Andrew Kepple's amazing Spy & Pyro cartoon. We've decided this is final proof that TF2 fans are smarter, more creative, and much better looking than fans of all other video games. On the competitive side, we've been addicted to watching CommunityFortress's eXtv series of commentated competitive TF2 matches. If you haven't watched any, take a look at some great European and North American matches. If you haven't watched much competitive play, eXtv's commentary does a great job of helping you understand the tactics being employed

[English Mobster]

Poor Engie... Everything you do to him breaks the game... :ohdear:

[Bodzilla]

HA!

now i said in one of the podcasts that the reason he wasnt done with the war update was because they wanted to evaluate and analyse the effects of all the new secondary equipment :D

[n00b1n8R]

Who knew that the second most useless class in tf2 was so important. :???:

[Jelly]

Liking the commentaries that were linked to at the bottom of the blog. Engineer stuff is cool too I guess

[ICEE]

Who knew that the most important class in tf2 was so important. :???:

ftfyhth

[Phobias]

leave engi alone, just give him a wrench with a "saptapper" decal on it or something

[Dwood]

Howsabout a building that when placed (is invisible//unsappable) that automatically rebuilds a lost building after a short period of time after that one is lost?

[sdavis117]

I think the Engineer update in the end will be more geared towards replacements for his Shotgun, Pistol, and Wrench more than replacements for his buildings. Most likely he will get weapons that themselves have effects on his buildings, like maybe a shotgun that repairs a building every time it does damage to an enemy. Or maybe a pistol that recharges your metal every time you kill someone. Or maybe a wrench that auto-builds lvl2 buildings but takes twice the metal to repair the buildings and cannot upgrade buildings.

[Good_Apollo]

^ This is most likely. I still believe that the wrench is going to be replaced with a version that builds twice (thrice?) as fast but can only build level 1 stuff. The shotgun might be replaced by something like every hit gives you metal or some bs but the pistol might be replaced by some sort of anti-sapper/spy thing (building) or some other new building.

His core buildings will stay the same if you ask me.

[n00b1n8R]

ftfyhth
Sorry but 10K'th posts are always right bro.

[Dwood]

I think the Engineer update in the end will be more geared towards replacements for his Shotgun, Pistol, and Wrench more than replacements for his buildings. Most likely he will get weapons that themselves have effects on his buildings, like maybe a shotgun that repairs a building every time it does damage to an enemy. Or maybe a pistol that recharges your metal every time you kill someone. Or maybe a wrench that auto-builds lvl2 buildings but takes twice the metal to repair the buildings and cannot upgrade buildings.


I just don't see that happening. I see it more likely that, given Valve's update on the engineer update, there will be some new buildings if not some super upgrades to them (such as active camo for the turret when it's not shooting at someone) in another upgrade level for it. Yeah I see a lvl 4 upgrade to the buildings more likely than some mods to the weapons, demonstrated by Valve's initial attempts to give him a new building.

[Timo]

Having a random chance to destroy a sapper at a distance with a pistol would be pretty cool.

[Heathen]

I just don't see that happening. I see it more likely that, given Valve's update on the engineer update, there will be some new buildings if not some super upgrades to them (such as active camo for the turret when it's not shooting at someone) in another upgrade level for it. Yeah I see a lvl 4 upgrade to the buildings more likely than some mods to the weapons, demonstrated by Valve's initial attempts to give him a new building.


all your suggestions are terrible stop

[ICEE]

Sorry but 10K'th posts are always right bro.
My 10k'th post is going to be "n00b1n8R is a faggot and australia is bad".

all your suggestions are terrible stop
all your posts are terrible stop


I think the engie will get something that enables him to remove sappers better. Other than that (and maybe a razor back) I don't see what he really needs. hes already a texan, and one who isn't chains for that matter.

[Heathen]

Lol @ icee.

Also, since all you tf2'ers are here

what in this would make my audio off by about a half a second?

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// PRE-REQUISITS:
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// Material Quality (Lowers FPS Somewhat)
mat_picmip -10 //"Ultra High" textures.
mp_usehwmmodels 1 //Uses the high quality faces from the "meet the" videos.
mp_usehwmvcds 1 //Use high quality facial animations.
r_eyeglintlodpixels 12 //Allows eyes to be rendered at full quality across the map.

// Physics (Increases CPU usage in some situations. Don't use this if you're not running Multicore.)
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dsp_enhance_stereo 0 //Better quality sounds. Defaults to 0 on some systems. Comment this if you use headphones.

// Team Fortress 2 Effects (Lowers FPS)
cl_burninggibs 1 //If a player is on fire and gibs, his gibs are on fire too.

//HDR, Distance Viewing
mat_hdr_level 2 //Better HDR.
cl_maxrenderable_dist 3000 //Makes everything outside the map visible.

//(Daimao) VAS HERE
cl_wpn_sway_interp 1 //Smooth weapon bobbing.
cl_wpn_sway_scale 8 //Smooth weapon bobbing scale.

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mp_decals 4096 //Maximum number of decals visible at one time.
r_propsmaxdist 5000 //Maximum visible distance for props.
r_rainradius 2500 //Makes the radius of rain fall around you larger, so you can see the rain from further away.
r_rainsplashpercentage 100"//Sets the percentage that the rain makes a splash in the water.
r_avglight 3 //Puts more lighting on objects.
r_decals 4096 //Sets the amount of decals that stay on objects.
r_maxmodeldecal 100 //Sets the amount of decals that appear on models.

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mat_motion_blur_strength 4 // Stengthens the blur.(Thanks Daimao)
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mat_specular 1 //Activates specular highlights of the models.
fps_max 1000 //I really don't think you'll get more than 1000
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r_rootlod -10 //?
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echo *=============================================*
echo * Ultimate Orange Box Graphics Config Loaded! *
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//====================Copyright lololol=================\\

[PlasbianX]

I think a little mechanical bot that followed you around and shot at stuff would be pretty cool.

[Phobias]

I'm a faggot


Don't talk shit about Australia, leave that to us. We do it much better. I do love you, ICEE but ya'know, taking the piss out of a country is best done by the locals.


Throwable wrench that can knock sappers off of sentries.

A guitar to give us something to do while waiting for the front line to reach our base (I'm thinking a little mini-game too, like acoustic guitar hero)

Spy detector that gives us the (approximate) location of spies. When I say approximate, I mean something like "the spy is somewhere within 10m" not "HE'S 2.35M TO YOUR LEFT, SHOOT NOW"

[Bodzilla]

I personally think that a little device that works like the spy multisapper would be great.

Just deploy it in exchange for your pistol and your sentry is safe for 15-20 seconds, long enough to get ammo.
Or inexchange for your shotgun citing balancing issues.

[Heathen]

Spy detector that gives us the (approximate) location of spies. When I say approximate, I mean something like "the spy is somewhere within 10m" not "HE'S 2.35M TO YOUR LEFT, SHOOT NOW"
Maybe like the marines radar on AVP. It beeps as he comes closer.

[Heathen]

I say some kind of RC unit would be nice. You deploy it while turtling, but it leaves you open to attacks because your engie is not controlled at the base. Also, while controlling your engie, your (metal costly) RC unit is naked on the battlefield.


Though I do see all the issues with that, so I wouldn't imagine it working out.

[ICEE]

I am a tool

wat. Everyone rips on America, and Americans who have nothing to do with the government. I reserve the right to rip on anyone I choose, especially in a satirical sense.

[Timo]

Any country that isn't New Zealand is fucking gay.

[Heathen]

Any country that isn't New Zealand is fucking gay.
this

[Jelly]

Any country that isn't New Zealand is fucking gay.
«--- Timo (~Timo@imgay.co.nz) has Quit (Ping timeout)

[Timo]

The arrow is pointing towards Jelly's name because he's talking about himself (he's gay (because he's not from New Zealand (haha))).

[Jelly]

there are no arrows only (Ping Timeout)

[ICEE]

Any country that isn't New Zealand is fucking gay.

I might call you a liar... but then that IS where aragorn lives...