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[Burrito Al Pastor]

Legacy support for concepts or mechanics in game franchises is a knotty topic. On the one hand, preserving bad game design is bad. On the other hand, there are many franchises in which, if you stripped away every bad game design element that was ever associated with the game, you might find there's very little left that's distinctive in the franchise anymore. Bad design elements can be signature design elements sometimes.

[Bal]

No, because then it wouldn't be 2Fort. This is not supposed to be a balanced Team Fortress 2 map; it is a remake of a map from Team Fortress Classic, which was an entirely different game.

No, it's a remake from Team Fortress. TFC's version is based on 2fort from the Quake mod. The only major difference is the layout of the ramp room, and also in some version of the map the stairs were replaced by an elevator that was only usable by the home team, but the shaft could be traversed by scouts and medics due to those zany old grenades.

All the essential elements were there though. Bridge, sewer, ramp room, battlements complete with sniper's nest, spiral, resupply in the basement, everything. I think the scale of things is different. Older versions of 2fort were much bigger.

Really, modern ctf_2fort isn't so much a bad map as it is a relic of an outdated version of Team Fortress. Engineers did not used to be that good, medics could propel themselves practically any distance and incredible speeds with conc-jumping. I hate it in TF2, but it was great fun when it was current, and it's too bad people would have screamed bloody fucking murder if they hadn't included it TF2.

[JDigital]

Legacy support for concepts or mechanics in game franchises is a knotty topic. On the one hand, preserving bad game design is bad. On the other hand, there are many franchises in which, if you stripped away every bad game design element that was ever associated with the game, you might find there's very little left that's distinctive in the franchise anymore. Bad design elements can be signature design elements sometimes.

See: Dungeons & Dragons.

I think it's possible for an old-fashioned game to have positive attributes that we simply don't understand, like a folk remedy that turns out to have actual merit.

For example, character fragility and survival based on obscure lore is gone from modern D&D, but it's still the entire appeal of Nethack.

[AČ]

2fort and 2fort_classic then

Bam

[JDigital]

How do you tell the difference between an archaic feature which is liked because it has appeal, and one which is liked simply because it's become part of the character of the game?

[Brentai]

Fairly sure 2fort is kind of supposed to be broken in the context of actual TF2 at this point.  It's kind of like a deathmatch mode but they give you a vague goal to work toward if you're crazy enough, but yeah, not really winnable or meant to be.

there are many franchises in which, if you stripped away every bad game design element that was ever associated with the game, you might find there's very little left that's distinctive in the franchise anymore.

Oh hey what's up Dynasty Warriors.

[Zaratustra]

2fort is usually played on infinite time, for people that want to get in the game, rack up their kill count to whatever, and leave.

In other words: 2fort is tf2 for casuals.

[Mongrel]

Basically, yeah.

There IS a sort-of playable 2fort map, called 2fort engie power or something. But it's a mod that adds tunnels from the sewers to the intel. It's still a grindy nightmare, but with 3 paths to the intel sometimes a win breaks out.

[JDigital]

I once joined a 2fort server where the capture score was 238-245.

[McDohl]

That 2fort game has been going on since the dawn of time.

[Lottel]

Press a button once, it holsters your weapon.
Press the button again, nothing happens. Weapon doesn't come out unless you attack.
Can't block unless your weapon is out.
Place a room that makes you holster your weapon in front of a boss fight.

One or two of these is fine. All four? At once? RAGE.

[Thad]

There's something really fucking irritating about RPG battles like your first encounter with Exdeath, where the AI is 16-bit vintage dumb-as-a-bag-of-hammers (casting Hurricane on party members who have 1 second before automatic death, Earth Shaker when everyone is floating, repeatedly casting the same elemental spell on a party member who it heals, etc.) but he manages to mop the floor with you anyway just because he's fast as hell, constantly dispels all your buffs, can change your row, and has a bevy of attacks that will almost certainly one-hit-kill you.

And then when he nears death he starts doing double-attacks and hitting you with spells you didn't know he had and if he'd just killed you with them in the first five minutes you could have reloaded and chosen equipment to cancel them.

The neat thing about FF5 is that the versatility of the Job system means that most times you can succeed with all kinds of different parties.

The thing that's not so neat is occasionally it'll hit you with a battle where, say, you want overwhelming offensive power and Samurai/Dragoon/Chemist/White Mage just ain't gonna cut it.

[Bongo Bill]

If you have a chemist, you have all the power you need. Just !Mix up some of these:

Holy Water + Antidote = Samson's Might, gives one target 10 effective levels.
Potion + Dragon Fang = Dragon Power, gives one target 20 effective levels.
Ether + Phoenix Down = Reincarnate, revives and fully heals one ally.
Elixir + Dark Matter = Antilixir, reduce target's HP and MP to 1.
Phoenix Down + Dark Matter = Death Potion, instant kill.
Maiden's Kiss + Holy Water = Blessed Kiss, gives the target Berserk, Haste, and Image.
Holy Water + Dragon Fang = Holy Breath, which casts Holy.
Potion + Ether = X-Potion, fully restores HP.
Phoenix Down + Dragon Fang = Dragon Defense, Shell + Protect on target.

As a boss, he'll be immune to some of those, possibly the instant death ones, but others will work nicely. And those are far from the most ridiculous combos available. And they're all completely undocumented, at least in-game, which does in fact constitute an unforgivable sin. You might want to look into the ones that grant elemental resistance (or was it absorption?) until the end of the battle, or which boost magic damage.

[Thad]

I can see Reincarnate and Holy Breath doing some good.  (And maaaaybe X-Potion if I need my fighters to use potions in a pinch.)  As for the buffs, I expect they'll mostly be useless given all the Dispels he throws around.

[Bongo Bill]

I don't think Dispel works on the level-increasing ones, but I admit I don't remember the last time it ever came up for me.

Also, there are several abilities, including the blue spell Goblin Punch, that can overcome the crippling weakness of the ridiculously powerful weapon you just got.

[Roger]

Random trivia: The already hard Exdeath was supposed to have an auto-regen effect during that battle, but due to bad coding or a glitch, he doesn't get it.

Remember, the game's plot specifically mentioned the whole reason the Warriors of Dawn sealed him away in Butz's world was because no matter how many times they beat him down, his body kept recovering from the damage done.

I kind of miss when battles and storyline weren't two seperate things in an RPG.

[Zaratustra]

Big Guard is a huge help against Exdeath, too.

Against most FF5 bosses, several job combinations will suck, a few will be good, and one or two will defeat them in a blink (like the classic 4x Dragoon + 2 weapons + 2x Dragon Spear + Coral Ring against Shinryuu)

[Thad]

Big Guard is a huge help against Exdeath, too.

...talking about the FIRST fight with him, though.  Pretty sure you don't get Mighty Guard 'til after that.

[JDigital]

Could they have taken it out at the last minute because the fight was too hard?

[AČ]

The earliest possibility you can get Mighty Guard is right after acquiring the Airship, at which point you can jet right over to Stingrays. Airship cannot be gotten until you thump Exdeath the first time.