Whit

This is a comprehensive list of TFC bugs that NEED fixing, some of these bugs are over 4 years old and its about time Valve fixed them instead of ignoring TFC.
This list has been created by Whit.


Name: Nail Gren & MIRV Bug.

Explanation: The nail bug is the chief problem. This particular bug is rather nasty and can be achieved by tossing a nail grenade upwards into a ceiling just before the first stage is activated. Upon beginning its routine, the nail grenade moves upwards by a little without checking to determine whether there is a solid surface overhead. As a consequence, it “burrows” into the ceiling or other surface and carries on its routine as normal. However, upon exploding, the detonation gains many times more explosive power than normal, both in terms of range and damage. The resultant bug can destroy level one and two sentries through a massive area of solid geometry. A good example of this bug in action can be seen with the maps well (a nail grenade in the cap point ceiling can destroy the entire flag room defence) and bases_r2 (a nail grenade in the ramp room ceiling can destroy the flag room defence).

The MIRV bug operates in a similar fashion, except it is tougher to reproduce and less effective.


Name: Lift bug.

Explanation: You go up a lift and you just get stuck at the top – you can’t get of the lift. This normally happens towards the end of the map when a lift has been used a lot, the only known way to escape the “lift bug” is to jump-crouch constantly, but this isn’t a sure way to get off the lift as the lift may have descended by the time you have negated this effect.


Name:Ghost Nail grenade bug..

Explanation: The ghost nail grenade bug is a particularly annoying and less than consistent quirk. Sometimes, upon a nail grenade exploding after spinning on the ground as normal, one can tread upon the ground the nail grenade occupied, only to lose health to the long departed grenade’s “ghost”. This can occur over three seconds afterwards. The only noticeable property surrounding this bug is that when multiple nail grenades are thrown in the same spot it is much more likely to occur, but even then it is not a guaranteed occurrence. A double dose of ghost nail grenades can kill a fully stocked medic, it is infuriating at times!


Name: Timeleft doesn’t display when dead.

Explanation: Die, press your timeleft button and it won’t show the timeleft.


Name: Gren entity bug.

Explanation: This is an infuriating bug if I’ve ever witnessed one (particularly for the engineers out there). If a grenade lands under the sentry tripod, it assumes qualities similar to that of the nail grenade bug. The grenade multiplies in power and size causing huge damage. This bug also possesses the capacity to destroy a level three sentry gun with a single grenade. All an engineer can attempt to do is dismantle or detonate the sentry before the grenade detonates. In addition to this bug, grenades can become 'trapped' under other surfaces. For example, if a pillar is located one mapping unit from the floor leaving a miniscule gap (a practice frequently used to lower r_speeds by stopping csg cutting up the map so badly) a grenade can fit under it, despite the grenade's model being much larger. This then creates a very large blast in a similar manner to the sg/nailgren bug. I had to incur higher r_speeds on sm_reloaded because of this bug (since all pillars touch the floor, thus cutting the floor up).


Name: _special

Explanation: Special is a bug that has a great deal of applications and uses. I am not particularly sure about the way in which it works, but I have been informed it is something to do with an overloaded operator. Basically, special abuse allows the player to create scripts that loop indefinitely and without performance penalties (typical looping scripts are unworkable almost solely because wait statements are required, consequently “lagging” the player executing the script). With a special script under one’s control, a multitude of shady applications are available. Some examples of _special in action:
• Perfect bunny hop jump timing whilst holding a key indefinitely
• Switch press script employed mid-air on maps like openfire
• Flag throw scripts to toss the flag on the first instance of touching it (very useful for maps like well if a sentry is operating in the flag room)
• Fast pipe det script for the demoman
• Assault cannon spinning script to help with jumping whilst maintaining the AC in a state of readiness to fire
• Chopping indefinitely

There are many more uses of _special (and no doubt some of which I am currently unaware).


Name: Chopping

Explanation: Chopping, as I’ve put it in the past, is bunnyhopping’s less intelligent, uglier and less entertaining cousin. Chopping is a name given to the act of repeatedly ducking and then releasing the duck to stand up once more. Because the valve solution to the bunnyhopping cap was to check whether the player is above the cap upon pressing the jump button (or similar), the chop hopping exploit works because there is no jump involved. The legs are pulled up into the body whilst crouching, so by looping the action multiple times in a second, the ground is not “touched” so to speak. Chopping is useful in places, but is not nearly as effective as bunnyhopping due to the fact that, when performing the action, one cannot turn much at all. Chopping also looks eminently stupid.


Name: Fullupdate – Anti-Conc

Explanation: The fullupdate anti-conc hack is something which can be explained better by someone in possession of the technical facts regarding it. My guess is that the client polls the server repeatedly using the fullupdate command, causing some kind of a processing request overrule the conc effect being called. It is easy to spot in first person demos due to entities flickering when the cheat is activated. Cheaters have also been known to use this hack in CS to avoid the white-out flashbang effect. (I can get hold of the script that enables this to happen if a member of valve wants to see it).


Name: Death bug.

Explanation: The death bug is a long-standing and highly amusing problem that presents itself at the most inopportune of times. Upon reaching a low value of health close to zero, the client seems to decide that the player has died and pushes the view down to the death style camera (parallel to the ground rather than perpendicular as normal). The server, however, knows better. As a result, the player can wander around with a tipped view and even “resurrect” themselves using a health pack or friendly medic. It is a rarity but a bug nonetheless.


Name: Disappearing grenades.

Explanation: The disappearing grenades bug is another old school remnant that really should have been taking care of three to four years ago. Still, it remains. One used to lose grenades when picking up the flag with a primed primary or secondary grenade; this was fixed. However, it is still very common to lose a grenade whilst priming and throwing the flag, especially if said grenade is the player’s last remaining grenade of that type (i.e. if one was to prime a frag grenade and throw the flag, it (the grenade) would be likely to disappear). Some players have also reported that capping with a grenade primed on many maps (well included) causes the primed grenade to disappear in a similar manner. I have not been able to reproduce this, though.


Name: Respawn grenades.

Explanation: This is another strange and rather inconsistent bug. The respawn grenade bug occurs when an unfortunate player has a grenade primed upon dying. When the respawn occurs, the grenade appears to travel with the player into the respawn and explodes causing damage to the player and his or her team mates.


Name: Dud Concussion grenade.

Explanation: It’s quite hard to reproduce this bug, but the faulty concussion grenade can be chiefly witnessed on maps like shutdown2. I repeatedly get this problem when defending the plank and an enemy offence player concussion jumps from below. The affected (conced) player must be on the very edge of the blast, because they are thrown high into the air, yet no concussion effect is administered.


Name: Client Concussed Animation Anomalies.

Explanation: This is a slightly confusing problem for those that do not fully understand the concussion effect and client decal system whilst concussed. When shocked, the player’s client decals appear under the crosshair every time a shot is fired. However, these decals are not real but can still trigger certain events. An example of this happens on the map well. A concussed player can shoot the well front door button causing it to light up and emanate the activated sound. However, no action is forthcoming as both of these properties were just triggered client-side, not server-side.

Whit

Name: Passing Through Door Heals Caltrop Wounds.

Explanation: Another strange bug. When wounded by a scout’s caltrop, a player with reduced mobility can simply pass through a door entity and have their injuries magically healed. This may extend to sniper leg shot victims but I haven’t tested the theory.


Name: Phantom sniper charge.

Explanation: he phantom sniper charge is another common bug with which people should mostly be familiar. This bug occurs when one charges the sniper rifle as movement begins. By doing so in certain circumstances, it is possible to project a red dot as if the rifle were charging up a shot. It is not presently clear whether this is a client-side effect, or whether other players can see the dot, too. This bug is largely harmless, seeing as the charge time whilst moving is not added to the charge when one stops moving and begins to charge the rifle correctly (i.e. from a standstill). In effect, the bug is more of a problem for the sniper it affects rather than the other players.


Name: No Damage When Next to Exploding Grenade.

Explanation: This is another long-standing grievance that appears usually in the most irritating of circumstances. When one is juxtaposed with another player and holding a frag grenade, it is possible for either player (usually the player without the grenade) to take absolutely zero damage from the grenade blast. I am fairly certain this can occur for either player. It is not particularly clear as to what causes this phenomenon or how a fix could be administered


Name: Phantom infection.

Explanation: This bug occurs when a discrepancy between the sounds and actions of a player conspire to make one think one has infected the enemy, yet the enemy remains unaffected. This typically happens when the medic attacks an enemy with his or her medikit. Upon coming within close enough range, the medikit “hits” the soldier and the infection sound can be heard, either solely by the client of the infecting medic or by both players. After a few seconds, it becomes plainly obvious to the apparently infected player that no such infection has taken place. The attacking medic can usually not even tell whether the infection has been successful unless the enemy makes an audible pain noise a few seconds after the infection was administered. On the flip side, it is possible for a medic to infect a soldier from what looks to be a great distance from the affected player’s perspective. This is usually down to the Half-Life netcode and players’ rates, pings and so forth.


Name: Looping assault cannon sound.

Explanation: There is not a great deal to state about this bug. Upon firing the assault cannon, one can sometimes initiate a looping of sound. This can be repeated several times over (infuriating and LOUD) to the point where one must stop to type “stopsound” into the console. Valve supposedly fixed this bug with two patches (one specific TFC patch [which does little more than halt the existing assault cannon .wav file when the weapon is fired again – a rather ineffective and not always successful solution in many situations] and general Half-Life engine patch [which still did not solve the problem entirely]). In short, it has been reduced in frequency but still occurs at times.


Name: Tracer Commands For Concussed Aiming.

Explanation: When concussed and firing the assault cannon, it is possible to exploit tracer commands to ensure concussed aiming is significantly simpler to grasp and perform. This is partly due to the tracer_ set of commands and partly due to the way in which the assault cannon projects two tracers whilst the user is concussed. The crux of the tracer issue is that there are various tracer_ commands (such as alpha, offset, red, green, blue and so forth) that can be used to make the faint secondary “true aim” tracer very bright. This consequently makes finding one’s true aim whilst concussed very easy. As a result, it can make the weapon very overpowered.


Name: +Use Command Stopping Motion

Explanation: When activating the +use command (traditionally employed to press switches and so forth) the player (if touching the ground) comes to a halt. Many heavies use this command, combined with a counter-directional press of the moment keys, to stop far more abruptly whilst concussed. The +use key is probably given the stopping effect to stop players being able to script the pressing of buttons and so forth.


Name: Telefragged by spectator.

Explanation: If one is occupying the space also shared by the info_player_start within a map, if a spectator should join the server at that exact moment, then one becomes a victim of a spectator telefrag. That is, it is possible to be killed by a non-existent player! It should be simple to fix this problem, either by strategically placed vantage points using the info_player_start or due to a rewrite of the entity code.


Name: Fickle Concussion Jumping

Explanation: When playing a fortress modification, concussion jumping is one of the staple skills that are extremely important. Unfortunately, TFC’s concussion jumping system is very dependent on ping, frame-rate and network settings (amongst other things, including server quality). Should one have access to a frame-rate of 60 that is consistent, a decent connection that provides latency of 100 or under and adequate rates, it is usually simple to perform a high percentage of concussion jumps. As frame-rates, connections and rates deteriorate, the finesse and success rate of concussion jumps suffer sharp decline. Trying to concussion jump using a 56k modem on a pIII-666 is almost impossible at a high level of play. Using a poor connection, one cannot set the correct rates to achieve quality gameplay. Even if a broadband connection is available for gaming, the frame-rate of the computer is extremely important when concussion jumping. A poor or inconsistent frame-rate typically results in poor concussion jumping.

Valve should attempt to reduce this problem through any number of techniques without adversely affecting the other facets of gameplay. A good example of ways around this problem can be witnessed in the “no lag” TFC grenade timer. Instead of utilising the default grenade timer, the no lag timer works by triggering the custom speak timer immediately after the grenade has “clicked” to signify a successful prime. The default timer starts as soon as you push the prime key, meaning the concussion grenade detonates by (roughly) one’s ping in timing differences (though this does deviate slightly according to rates).

Whit

Name: Lip bug.

Explanation: On maps where players swim whilst fighting (the "well" pipe being a typical example) it is possible to exploit the discrepancy between the player's pov and the world model positions to basically allow an attacking player to give one way fire. For example, a HW swimming in the main flag room water (water area with the bridge) can shoot into the water pipe leading into the base whilst being almost impervious to damage if the HW sticks close to the bottom of the floor. The HW can fire into the pipe from their perspective without problem, but the enemy in the pipe cannot see the HW, only their fire. This is due to the swimming animations and the positioning of the player's gun on the world model AFAIK. When upright, the player's gun is halfway down their body. When swimming, the gun is almost parallel with their head (while their first person POV remains the same for both, causing a discrepancy). It basically makes a HW in this position unstoppable. (A demo may be needed to illustrate this one clearly.)


Name: Weapon switching.

Explanation: Switching quickly between weapons and firing instantly doesn't actually fire a shot. But the model animates and sound is produced.


Name: Dodgy Gas / Gas suits.

Explanation: Taking a suit to be protected from the gas on a map like rock2, but it randomly not protecting you, this also happens in the gas chamber where you trigger the gas release. Sometimes you are also unable to pick suits up. Also sometimes the gas does not actually do anything.



Name: Detpack – Spectator bug.

Explanation: If a demoman tries to a lay a detpack whilst a spectator is watching this particular player, the detpack cannot be layed until the spectator changes view mode or player.


Name: Hitscan / Hitbox bug.

Explanation: This is a bug that's occurring frequently on most servers. When in effect, the hitbox bug results in 'afflicted' players being extremely tough to hit successfully with hitscan weapons. The effect appears to move the hitboxes ahead of the player (in that the player is always behind their hitbox). As a consequence, it is like a reverse of the old interp effect, and a return to the days of leading targets. Unfortunately, the faster the class, the more pronounced the effect. A scout with the hitbox bug is so fast and the hitboxes so seperated from the player that using grenades and projectile weapons (like the RPG) is the only way to kill them. No one has ever figured out for sure what causes this bug. It can affect players usiing the rates and configs they've always used. Their game does not suffer as a result, everything appears normal to them. Some players seem to experience this bug more than others, but in general, it can potentially affect anyone. Reconnecting to the server usually has little or no effect (for either the person experiencing the bug, or the players faced with the problem of dealing with the aforementioned player). In general, on an 18 person clanserver, you can expect one or two to be experiencing the bug. Curiously, some people appear to only be partially unhittable (in that a full on shot will do half damage) whilst others are just totally unhittable unless one leads them with the shot by half to one bodylength (sometimes more, if they are a scout).


Name: Hitbox Distortion When Crouching.

Explanation: If an enemy crouches, it becomes very difficult to snipe them at times. A good example of this is when an enemy sniper slowly 'crawls' out from behind the sniper deck sides on the map "well". An enemy sniper can take aim and fire, but the shot will appear to pass right through their enemy if areas around the shoulders, upper chest or head are targetted. Very annoying.


Name: Hitscan Weapons Penetrate Lifts.

Explanation: If a player heads up a lift (such as the shutdown 2 FR lift, or the well FR lifts) and an enemy player stands under the lift, shooting up, with a hitscan weapon (such as the super shotgun) the buckshot will still do damage to the enemy at times. This is easily reproduced, most people don't even notice they are being shot through a solid surface purely because of the netcode -- they just assume they are being shot by someone in their line of sight and the server lag makes it look strange.


Name: HLTV “bug”

Explanation: Not a bug exactly, but when you're watching HLTV or in spectator mode the announcements about the flag being moved/touched/capped/returned etc. say "the enemy flag" and it's not clear which flag it is. Would be kind of nice if it said "red flag" or "blue flag" when spectating.


Name: Detpack score bug.

Explanation: This has only appeared in Steam. Basically, when trying to activate a team scoring thing with a detpack, like detting the computer on bases or the control room on cz2, the demo must be alive for it to work. If the demo is killed by the detpack itself, it won't work either, making cz2 much harder to det.


Name: Prematch with control maps.

Explanation: Adding prematch breaks the map, with the gates failing to open. (E.g. Dustbowl, Avanti & Warpath).


Name: The Climbing out of water and getting stuck bug.

Explanation: When climbing out of water and something blocks your path directly above you become stuck and cannot move apart from a very slow sinking for a few seconds. Most easily reproducable on Well under the bridges outside the bases. Doesn't seem to even be a random occurance - it happens every time and always when its likely to be irritating and get you killed.


Name: Water bug.

Explanation: When firing out of the water to someone moving on land blood sprites do not show and sounds can not be heard making it very hard to know if your shots are registering.


Name: Spy feigning death bug.

Explanation: This allows a spy to feign death and fall into a wall and be nearly completely invisible (you can normally just see their feet sticking out).


Many thanks go to the F2C community (which can be found here: http://forums.far2cool.com/forum.aspx?FID=2) for helping me to compile this list. A special thanks goes to “Defrag” as he put a lot of thought and effort into describing a lot of these bugs.
Please Valve fix these bugs and make TFC even better. If you need any demo’s or AVIs of these bugs, I would be happy to re-create them with some of my clan mates and send them to you.
A Word document of this list can be found here: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/whitmor...20List%202.doc
By
Whit

KoncreteAngel

who cares about tfc anymore? only about 100 people play it

GingerNinja

How about those 100 players.

And its considerably more than 100 players btw.

Noliving

Over 2k people still play it on won buddy once won shuts down tfc community is going to skyrocket back up. Its still important to remember that tfc2 is still on its way so don't just rule out tfc out just yet.

erERERE

Nice Whit, suck my knob koncrete angel.

GerMaN eLiTe

I have recently wondered this.... i know there is some cs 1.5 mod for steam, and i was wondering if someone is going to make a tfc 1.5 for steam as well. Because they shouldnt. If they did, it would basically be like they are still on won, and tfc 1.6 wont get as much attention, like as it is now.

FourStroke

Whit, you forgot the golden rule

ALWAYS WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT CS/CZ IN YOUR THREAD

Otherwise they will move it from the General section

Ripm2shreds

Whit you're hired!

I hope you continue to edit your very professional list. More, I do hope it is received and implemented.


Other thoughts:

- sprite limitations so that clear explosions etc dont unbalance the game.

- A WONID = steamID conversion chart or something. Otherwise folks like us still running 1.5 have to suddenly let undesirables back into our servers.

rebo

You can now add blurry xhairs to that list

oh and this ::

http://www.apat67.dsl.pipex.com/hwgclear.jpg

nagolxela

I take it you tried playing TFC but your skill fell a little short???

Try it again, you might do better this time!


If your a current TFC player, be positive. The server population has increased since Steam has been released.

CS watch out!

chryosis

If you don't care about TFC, then don't bother browsing OUR forum posting useless comments such as this. Go play your Counter-Strike or Day of Defeat and keep worrying about how "realistic" the game is.

Who cares about TFC? I care. The person who made this post cares. The people who play TFC care.

If the country was ruled with your logic, we wouldn't have freedom of speech or religion.

Just because there are alot less muslims/bhudists/etc.. in America doesn't mean we should deny them they're freedom to worship as they please. Christians don't have to agree with bhudists, and bhudists don't have to agree with christians, but both are guaranteed they're freedom of worship.

Just because you are ignorant, and there are very few people as ignorant as you, doesn't mean we must take you to the back of our shed and beat the living hell out of you. Being ignorant is half the fun of learning. This is not an insult or flame, btw.

chryosis

Another trend noted: Anything posted in the TFC forums about TFC gets stupidified by people way across the lake in the CS forums.

Hampster

*sigh* Did this get moved from General again?


...and I must say; that's an EXCELLENT list, Whit. Props to you and your compilation.