Extra Punctuation: New Team Fortress 2 Classes

[KILGAZOR]

"Brink's biggest mistake is forcing the player to unlock everything."

Holy fuck, did Yahtzee just rail against the plague of multiplayer shooter unlocks systems? Holy shit, I thought no-one would ever say this but me. And him of all people. He never plays multiplayer, but when he plays 1, BAM!, he hits the underlying problem of recent multiplayer shooters right on the money. This beats Jim's position of "unlocks are okay because experienced players being better than the inexperienced is something that shooters always have had, nevermind that unlocks actually worsen this problem", which was clearly thought out in like a 2 second brain fart.

ALL HAIL THE GREAT LORD YAHTZEE! Someone clone this man before he dies.

 

[crazypsyko666]

Here is where I'm going to have to disagree with you, Yahtzee. One of my favorite multiplayer shooters, Battlefield 2142, worked so well because it had so few classes (four in total). What it did was allow for less restrictions, letting players be more creative. What Brink really did wrong was make the classes almost indistinguishable. Instead of limiting the Engineer to SMGs so they could focus on building turrets and fixing things instead of shooting people, they gave every class the same weapons and character combinations regardless of class. The guns are completely independant of the classes, like the saboteur (a class which should have been designed around subtlety and stealth) being allowed to have a heavy body and a gatling gun. If they only allowed certain weapons, body types and attachments per class (instead of the Call of Duty methodology of multiplayer design) then the classes would've had a significantly greater amount of character and personality.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I think you should maybe stop comparing the game to TF2. From what I've played of both, they're very different. The first part being that TF2 has been almost incorrectly identified as an objective based shooter for a while now.

While yes, you win be completing an objective, it's very similar in the way you would win a game of CTF in any other game. While Brink is much closer to the previous games by Splash Damage, which had different and unique objectives. Not in the way they were executed, sure. But in their context.

In TF2, you sprint to opposing team's base and steal the intel, this is the same for all CTF maps. Or you have to capture all the points in a level, which is the same for all CP maps. But in Brink you have a specified objective in the scope of that single map, not in the scope of the game mode.

This is an important difference, and should not be neglected.

 

[SteewpidZombie]

After seeing soooo many reviews of Zero Punctuation...I've noticed that Yahtzee tends to give negative reviews to ANYTHING that isn't absolutely groundbreaking or new, or he just tends to ONLY point out the negatives of games that he doesn't like (Usually because he enjoys playing...say...TF2 instead of BRINK, so he'll make tons of comparisons and ignore anything new/fun that did or didn't work well).

 

[The Cake Is Annoying]

OK, that was so tongue in cheek I now believe Yahtzee has a facial piercing.

Though, it does keep my hopes alive - hopes that they're be more FPS styled games where you don't just run around and shoot at either lemming AI'ed nazis or some wheezing CoD fanboy still struggling with puberty and breathing into the mic.

Maybe it would be nice to have a cross between a Jet Set Radio game and Metal Gear Solid infiltration. Maybe it could create real tension, and there could be a steep enough death penalty that getting caught really is a bad thing - like a respawn time of say 10 MINUTES, in which time your mic is cut to the team and you watch someone who isn't a fuck up do it.

Perhaps once dead, switching back to seeing yourself getting billy clubbed by a gang of security guard is close to spotting a team mate ("look whats happening to you. It may be about to happen to your friend. Bored? Didn't think so. He can't hear you. Maybe if you didn't fuck up you'd be there to watch his back." The subtext would be plain obvious.) and before respawning seeing your corpse chucked to the gutter from a speeding van a few miles away. They can beat you to death and you have to fight them with spray paint and run-like-hell.

Maybe the additional indignity of having to play from then on in a generic looking avatar, instead of the customised one you picked, for the rest of the week. Be seen to be that guy "you, fucked up and died earlier, didn't you? Idiot." If you can keep your colours on for the full week and still get the tags in the hard spots, you get actual respect from team mates, instead of a little achievement and some points alone.

So yes. I want to feel like I'm breaking the law, but without a FPS gun massacre feel. I want to rob banks, and worry that one of the team is going to kill everyone instead of split the earnings afterwards. I want to do the things I cannot do but still can't stop daydreaming about them.

If running around pretending that dressing up a lag tag game as a gritty WW2 whatever can become a genre, why can't bank heists? At least you've got characters and agendas and a need to change your MO. Instead of derp-have-favourite-gun derp-do-what-I-always-do.

I don't want to play as the Batman. I wanna be the other guy. Sometimes I wanna be the Joker.

 

[Strazdas]

unlocking brings some longevity, but when it goes too far it ends up being brink.

 

[themattd1000]

Well after playing nearly a thousand hours of TF2 I can say this game is not a rip off of tf2. In fact it is very little like tf2, thanks yahtzee for generalizing the game but I would say it is much more a rip off of BFBC2 than anything. Thanks for being a complete a*hole in retrospect for reviewing games in any way shape or form...

 

[Ziadaine_v1legacy]

Ben is hereby banned from touching TF2 modding communities and ideas.

I'll admit, they do need a new class though. It's become a bit old now and each new weapon is both good and bad. Example, New spies are hard to learn because of all the freak'n anti-spy weapons we have now.

 

[Dr Jones]

Having extra classes in TF2 would completely upset the balance of the classes. They all do their thing and have their weaknesses and strengths.

Um i believe it was a joke on Yahtzee's behalf...

 

[Gaderael]

Damn it, now I want a class-based multiplayer game where you can control a tiger...preferably a mechanical one...

Damn it! I've been Batman'd!

I was thinking a robotic Tiger while reading this as well. I was thinking it would be an alternative to the traditional Spy class. It would have a Stalk mode, which gives it temporary invisibility with a reduced rate of movement, like a cat stalking an animal through tall grass. It's special move while in Stalk mode would be Pounce, which could only be activated in Stalk mode. It would grant a 2-2.5 increase in movement speed for a quick kill against the enemy, but put both Stalk and Pounce on a 30 second to one minute cooldown. It's other ability, as Yahtzee mentioned, would be to 'urinate' on things. The urine would be for a satellite targeting system that would fire a laser destroying the target. It's be useless for mobile targets, but great for Sniper nests, campers, turrets, etc. It would also have it's standard weapons with it's claws and teeth.

I as thinking the Propaganda Artist could work as well. He/She would come equipped with only a pistol and a diamond tipped Quill Pen (It's mightier than the sword), but would be sort of like an engineer. It's deployables would be loud speakers that spout generic insults against the opposing team, granting an accuracy bonus to your team, and lower the accuracy of the opposing team. This would have a small area of effect, and they could only deploy two loud speakers at one time. These could then be upgraded to loud speakers with televisions, which would spout insults while also replaying every kill by your team that round, granting a further accuracy bonus and lowering the accuracy of the opposing team respectively.

 

[Zarthek]

If a Tiger is added as TF2's 10th class I'll hang up my frying pan, grenade launchers, rocket launchers and flamethrowers... and only play Capture Point modes. I'd also have to find a good pocket medic, über-charged tiger anyone?

Edit:

After seeing soooo many reviews of Zero Punctuation...I've noticed that Yahtzee tends to give negative reviews to ANYTHING that isn't absolutely groundbreaking or new, or he just tends to ONLY point out the negatives of games that he doesn't like (Usually because he enjoys playing...say...TF2 instead of BRINK, so he'll make tons of comparisons and ignore anything new/fun that did or didn't work well).

This is why we (Well... some of us anyway) generally just take his reviews with a grain of salt and laugh at how true his negative observations are, if you still love the game you'll be playing it after Yahtzee finishes verbally destroying it.

 

[Rorschach II]

Having extra classes in TF2 would completely upset the balance of the classes. They all do their thing and have their weaknesses and strengths.

Um i believe it was a joke on Yahtzee's behalf...

I realise but I was just making a general statement rather than commenting on Yahtzee's suggestions. I've never really seen his ramblings as a genuine opinion of improvement but moreover just comedic value

However, I shall retract my statement and say that having a Tiger in in TF2 WOULD BE ABSOLUTELY AMAZING

 

[ALPHATT]

Its funny I guess but it feels more like some comedy Extra Punctuation rather than a building off of the Brink review

Also, Yahtzee I feel its unneeded to continue the shot joke. Returning jokes are one thing but we don't need it to be a "Like god of war but" stamp. Also taking a shot just doesn't sound funny.

Though it would be fun to be able to humiliate some enemy soldier. Placing GIF's of the enemy getting T-bagged on the walls. Thanks for creating the artist class. Might I recommend the General class for RTSers? Or perhaps the Brawler for Fighters?

it is funny, now shut up!

 

[CrawlingPastaHellion]

What can I say other than that Yahtzee outdid himself this time in terms of absurdity.

 

[Ukomba]

Yes! I want to see this implemented tomorrow. I call Counselor. Why? Because it sound like Consular and that's the kind of Jedi I play...

 

[Mr. Sparzy]

Somebody needs to make a TF2 mod that includes these classes. At least just for the fun of it.

I got some ideas

Cook: You can drop tasty treats over the battlefield, if your team eats them they regain health over time. However you can also drop poisoned treats and if the enemy eats them, they lose health, however you got to make sure your team doesn't eat them

Builder: You can build cover for your team to hide behind, not the best class as a lot of people would aim for you, but good for objective based gameplay

I can actually imagine those classes in TF2. The cook kinda sounds fun. The builder sounds a bit similar to the engineer, but still unique enough to be it's own class.

Cook=support class
Builder (or carpenter)=defense class

Now all we need is a offense class to balance it out.

 

[Hyakunin Isshu]

Old man Ben Croshaw, you are just so damn stupid! No one ever called the game a rip-off until you came along. For one thing: we had Red and Blue teams *long* before Team Fortress 2.

God, it's like a kid telling us that *all* FPSs are rip-off of Halo! It's that bad!

 

[Alexander Haslund]

i am pretty sure that yatzee aint gona be reading this.
i also have a fealing that meny of these classes was a joke. even if they came trugh and got createt, who really wantet to be a crime-scene-invstigator. think abaut it, the crime-scene-investigator is investigatin and sodenly a guy with a gun jumps out and gives him and extra nostral.

 

[Tragedy's Rebellion]

I literally laughed out loud when i read "mainstream gaming growing into a more sophisticated phase".