Matewis: Love that game! The problem though is that your enjoyment depends a great deal on the other players. The times when the two teams were more or less evenly matches made for the most fun I've ever had with an online game. However, if it's overly one-sided then it's no fun at all.
I recall that sometimes being a problem in TFC (albeit I also got pleasure if I was able to help turning the tide against a more powerful team, at least preventing them from capping), but in TF2, at least nowadays that problem seems mostly non-existant.
There are three ways TF2 seems to tackle this problem (probably these can be enabled or disabled by server admins):
- While playing, if the game detects the teams are lopsided, it will automatically transfer some players to the other team on the fly. Of course that can also be a bit annoying if you have just set up a defense position as an engineer and then lose it all when you are suddenly transferred to the other team...
- If one team wins several rounds in succession, it usually seems to trigger an "auto-scramble" for the next round, ie. the teams are scrambled.
- On top of that, there is a voting option to scramble the teams on the fly during the round. If it gets enough Yes votes, the teams are scrambled right away.
The only issue with those scrambling options is that I don't quite understand how it re-distributes the team cap points, after it has scrambled the teams. Maybe there is some logic in there.
Also one thing that is different in TF2 compared to the earlier versions of Team Fortress is that in the beginning of each round, the whole level is cleared. Everyone must start from a scratch. I think this is good if one team has been able to establish a defense position that seems pretty much impenetrable, with lots of sentry guns and supporting forces. They have to build them all over for the next round, which is good IMHO. Makes the gameplay more dynamic, a bit less camping.