Pyro wrote:Well having the original is great and all, but for the people who wish to play TFL with others... and others might not have it or can't run it... vTFL is great.
Certainly, vTFL is pretty much the *only* way to do TFL multiplayer (except for local groups).
Pyro wrote:As for the whole differences... I hope you aren't talking about some of the collections being Myth 2 instead of TFL, or how pressing T for units without special attacks won't taunt like they would in TFL.
I actually didn't even recall the partial taunts, but you're closer than you'd hope. What I'm describing is largely the "feel" of playing the original (as the OP stated, we're talking solo with the official single-player campaign here, not competitively or coop). I don't think that translates to Myth II (regardless of how identical the mechanics) to say "Just play vTFL" when confronted with a working TFL session (and like stated, I wasn't really compelled to investigate the specifics of what's different between the two, especially when I can just sit down with the game I know is bug-for-bug identical to TFL: TFL). When I play TFL, I play it because I *want* the nostalgia, not because I'm boycotting the improved mechanics of Myth II or because I want to "rough it" for a game or two for some imagined thrill.
I should have clarified that I wasn't suggesting that vTFL was failing to emulate the original gameplay behavior in some way that's actually meaningful. If you were expecting deep analysis of flaws of vTFL, you ended up in the wrong thread.
Pyro wrote:As for the zoom comment, if I recall correctly originally TFL could only zoom out so much...
The first or second TFL patch allowed you to zoom out (you could only zoom in on release). TFL 1.3 and mythdev/Magma patches should all be identical (although, like Khadrelt says, it's still less than Myth II), so I still think the OP is misremembering or has a local issue.
So the only reason that vTFL isn't as good as TFL is nostalgia?
Or am I just reading this wrong, if so apologies, I am a bit out of it.
The way I see it, either provide some concrete support for your claims or don't make them. If you can't or won't support them then what's the point? It's just a waste of time. I'm not trying to be mean spirited as you put it earlier, just trying to get to the point. Why is vTFL not an authentic experience? Why should we not recommend vTFL every time a question about TFL comes up?
From what I understand, TFL had larger mesh triangles than M2, or something like that, so units could not be moved as efficiently as in M2. I don't know for sure, but I imagine that because vTFL is run in M2, it would also have the finer mesh, making unit movement in TFL different than in vTFL. At least, it feels different to me. I actually prefer the unit movement in vTFL.
It might be my imagination, but it also seems to me that the fir'Bolg in vTFL have less propensity for shooting each other in the back than they do in TFL.
I don't know about vTFL and TFL differences in gameplay, but I know for a fact that the Fallen Levels plugin for M2 is not 100% accurate. From the top of my head, I can remember 3 things (may something here is inaccurate):
- In the second level, the health of the Mayor does not change according to chosen difficult. He always has the normal health level. In TFL, his health did change with the difficulty, being a full bar on legendary.
- In the secret dorf level, later on you get reinforcements by dorfs parachuting from above. In vTFL, the parachuting animation is bugged for some reason on this level. The dorfs will simple popup from the ground with the parachute animation playing.
- In the Last Battle (alric vs balor), sometimes one of the fetches, instead of attacking your starting units, go for the units at the flag where Alric is. They don't respond at all and get zapped to death. When you arrive, a good portion of the units are dead, making the level much harder. Seems to happen more on legendary (extra fetch maybe being spawned maybe)?
UNless the grouned dorfs can do things sooner or differently than the parachuting dorfs, the dorfs not parachuting isn't a 'gameplay' bug - if it doesn't effect how you play the game or the outcome or the difficulty, it's not a gameplay bug.
Avatara wrote:I don't know about vTFL and TFL differences in gameplay, but I know for a fact that the Fallen Levels plugin for M2 is not 100% accurate.
wow, my bad - I completely misread that post and thought it was listing gameplay issues.
sorry for my confusion.
ps. while not player unit gameplay related, I would say the other two (not the duff one) issues are definitely solo gameplay related. If the baron is harder to kill or fetches kill your units in vTFL but not in TFL those both effect gameplay significantly.
Since I haven't played in a long long time I can't go into all the intricacies of TFL vs vTFL, when Iron originally created vTFL he did so using his skill & finesse as a programmer to create a good likeness of the TFL code, even though he had no such access to the TFL code. (That's a deep subject for a number of reasons). Many TFL players helped Iron get the vTFL mechanics quite close to actual TFL, but of course it can't be a one-for-one mapping.
Several things that stand out from my memory that have not been corrected in vTFL are when a player hits "T" with alric or similar he can not cast his spell on to any units, only enemies. However in TFL he could do so for all units.
The other much more major problem was that unit passability for certain terrains has not been correctly ported, for instance in vTFL pools of iron (and ground zero), the zerks can walk straight up sloped areas that they simply can't in TFL.
Chain lightening and chain kicking are stripped from vTFL, so is an odd quirk in which shift clicking your units on enemies also targets Friendly team players nearby is also absent from vTFL.
vTFL also adds a team attack key combo that should be best left at that to avoid abuse.
There are of course other deviations, but I'd need to break my respective copies of the myth series out the of cryopreservation library and do some more thinking.
One thing I had mentioned a year ago on the testers board was that it would be great to have the ability actually load & play TFL plugins under the Myth:II game engine.
Most of the things you commented as 'missing' cap, are things that can quite clearly and obviously be abused... CL, CK? For real, you think that stuff should be present? Only an elite few could actually perform those things, and when they did it was grossly unfair to the other players. Why should this bug be re-implemented? Same goes for TK shift click etc etc. These are things that _SHOULD_ be removed. And they are. So there's no issue.
Graydon wrote:Most of the things you commented as 'missing' cap, are things that can quite clearly and obviously be abused... CL, CK? For real, you think that stuff should be present? Only an elite few could actually perform those things, and when they did it was grossly unfair to the other players. Why should this bug be re-implemented? Same goes for TK shift click etc etc. These are things that _SHOULD_ be removed. And they are. So there's no issue.
Graydon wrote:These are things that _SHOULD_ be removed. And they are. So there's no issue.
Sorry, but I think you missed the point of my first post. These game play differences are some of things that make TFL what it is. vTFL changes and even breaks things that worked in TFL.
If you want to argue about it, go elsewhere, I am just addressing some outstanding issues, because as was indicated it be good if they are publicly disclosed so in the offchance vTFL will be updated to better reflect TFL game mechanics.
