TF2 General Chat and Speculation Station V14 - The Bargaining Stage
999 replies, posted
TF2 got silver (third tier) of top sellers on Steam again this year.
i wonder if valve just views tf2 as a zero-effort cash cow and so doesn't feel the need to put any more work into it/doesn't think putting more work into it would make more money
thats surprising with jungle inferno n'all and this year having
well
nothing
TF2 dropped from Gold to Silver a while ago. Keep in mind that could mean one of two things, either other games have simply outpaced the average profits made by TF2 in the past, or the lack of major updates and content has severely hampered TF2's profitability.
I have to imagine TF2 has declined at least slightly over the years, thats just natural.
Im praying with the hard as fuck flop that was Artifact valve considers working with the games it already has.
I think it's because of pretty much everything from valve's lack of care, general decline in popularity and other games being more profitable
And it can be improved by a lot if valve put slightly more effort into whatever they count as major update nowadays but meh
Its almost 2019 and I can still make hat jokes.
tf2 is still popular, but now as a cult classic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B-pTFDV5yg
even if you aren't a competitive player, I highly recommend watching this video
it really does highlight how maps change and evolve according to feedback
Now I just wanna look at all the old maps like b4nny and look at all the changes. There's something oddly satisfying about seeing the maps develop and being able to actually play them.
man i really like some of his videos thats been posted on here. They are very informative and interestings. Starting to get confused why people describe b4nny as like a horrendous person. He seems to enjoy educating people on neat aspects of the game, and likes to push the limits of the game's design. dont see an issue with all that
he's had some moments in streams that really can't be summed up as one-offs, but for the most part he's a genuinely cool dude who loves TF2 a lot and wants to see it grow.
he's...really just human, human as anyone else, except his flaws are put under a microscope because of his faux celebrity status and the unfortunate fact that he's usually streaming when it happens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSm0wHJt2Lw&t=0m30s
He takes things too far from time to time, but mostly he's seen as the face of TF2's pro scene and a lot of people have problems with it.
I will say I think he has a good head on him for balance and what direction the game should be going, whenever he makes a video on the state of TF2 whether that be the Pro Meta or just the game as a whole I ususally find myself agreeing with him.
mmm i can understand why ppl dont like him. Hope he's mellowed out some since
i'll never get bored of hearing the huntsman's "click" sound when you try to shoot it at 0 arrow loaded. It's half-life 2's SMG empty clip sound, specifically.
I remain optimistic that we'll be seeing more out of TF2 in 2019 than we did in 2018, seeing as how Valve probably hoovered up TF2's skeleton crew to help shit out Artifact once Jungle Inferno was stabilized.
But once they flat-out call it quits for good, and that day will come, I really hope someone at Valve has the common sense to just say "fuck it, pay some modders". Literally toss a bare-minimum wage paycheck and a Community item at a handful of randos from Facepunch or Polycount or SPUF and shit like Cactus Canyon and Asteroid will be fully-functional, textured, and tested within a weekend. There are people who like TF2 enough that they'll sit around making maps and weapons and shit for it for free. If there comes a time when Valve truly, and I mean truly, doesn't give a fuck about updating TF2 ever again, I hope they just throw their hands up and pull a Sonic Mania. Pay the community to give the community what it wants, it's a concept so simple even Valve could understand it.
They'd just have to be sure to provide a free daycare's worth of general supervision, to avoid another Invasion shitshow.
Not sure why people are bitching about the short circuit the engineer is throwing away half a building to stop a projectile coming from a single direction and your still a squishy Texas robot builder man who dies in two rockets. The only thing it does is force projectile classes to time their shots similar to dealing with pyros except there won't be a minicrit rocket shoved up your ass if you fail.
with the 60 metal cost to fire the thing I'd say its fine. It makes engineer more mobile and more able to help and protect his team in a proactive way much like his minisentry which I am all for.
As a person who uses it extensively I can safely say its not a counter to demos and soldiers, it just adds a layer of complexity unto the matchup.
I"ve personally experienced an Engineer in a nest that made a Demo uber completely irrelevant. I was the Demo. We could literally do nothing.
Give the Demo a hitscan/bullet weapon or change the Short Circuit's altfire AND the Vacinator. It's one thing to have soft counter weapons that nullify part of a kit, but when you literally can't do anything but run away because you didn't predict that the pub Engineer has a weapon that counters you, it is just flat-out annoying and the definition of unfun. If Demo being too powerful is a problem, nerf him too, but change the weapons to make them less unfun.
They tried nerfing demo it didn't go over well.
Secondly whats the difference between the short circuit and wrangler in this situation.
Are you really asking what the difference is between a shield and literally deleting a class's only means of damage?
The Wrangler doesn't stop you from just killing the Engineer, hell the fact the sentry has a down period after practically rewards it.
Is a properly cared for sentry not a shield designed to soak up all of your pills and sticks? I want to stay away from the realm of contrived situations and anecdotes here because those are about how I feel not how things are. Prefiring stickies and killing the engineer with splash isn't all that easy anymore regardless of his secondary choice due to the rescue ranger existing.
An engineer sitting on a dispenser with a short circuit is no different in the result of a wasted uber and an unloaded demo than him sitting 20 meters away wrangling then yoinking his sentry away from you after you've dumped 6 explosives into it.
It seems more and more like the TF2 team is pushing more towards having the team push to take the sentry nest down than just a demo and medic and we can see this clearly with the rescue wrangler setup and to be fair with things like the loch 'n load, beggars bazooka, quickie bomber, direct hit, quick fix, Huntsman and airstrike exist so to an extent I can't blame them. It seems like rather than balancing all the weapons perfectly they use power creep to fight power creep.
I'd also like to say that if you were in a competitive setting letting the engineer get to that point where he's built a nice little nest in the first place is the problem. In pubs shit happens and you should come to expect that.
To me the short circuit is a less reliable and fidgety tool for telling ubered demos or soldiers to fuck off than the rescue wrangler loadout and is far better suited towards aggression and deathmatch than point defense and in that case its just timing on the explosive classes part and It's not like engineer is difficult to hit either.
They aren't contrived or anecdotes, even if you say they are. They're cold-hard facts. The Short Circuit's secondary action deletes projectiles from existence. The Wrangler provides the Sentry a shield.
What you just described is an incredibly contrived situation that basically takes every variable away except the one that benefits your pro-SC stance, AKA a contrived situation.
Do you want to actually argue whether or not the Short-Circuit alt fire is an issue, or do you want to just keep throwing out anecdotal situations? I can throw them out too. In a competitive setting an Engineer with a Level 1 sentry and level 3 dispenser can still ruin a Demoman's or Soldier's push solely by existing and pressing mouse2. In a pub once 3 Engineers grouped with with Short-Circuits, made my team of 6 Soldiers and 4 Demomen useless, and then beat me up after the match irl.
You can't just throw out random situation and go "that's an argument! counter that!". Short Circuit alt-fire objectively makes the Demoman and somewhat Soldier irrelevant, in a way that is unfun and uninteractive. The Wrangler shield is a shield. The Engineer gives up his long-ranged harassment tool to give his turret a shield and to control the firing and aim himself. If he's 20 feet away and still shooting at you with his Wrangler, he still has a line of sight, he is susceptible to focus fire. The Short Circuit alt-fire literally deletes projectiles from the game, with a cooldown as short as a Soldier's firing speed, with its only cost being mitigated by a Dispenser or ammo box.
If he uses it on your projectiles, you literally can do nothing, even if you're Ubered. If you QF-Jump with a Medic on top of a Wrangler Engineer and pop QF Uber, then you can focus the Engineer down with your projectiles while he can't do anything because his Sentry doesn't deal enough damage by itself to counter the pop, the knockback is irrelevant because of QF, and you can solely focus the Engineer. If a Medic pops kritz and you're accurate enough, a single crit sticky will make the wrangler irrelevant, because the Engineer will die to it. A single well-placed Pipe can do the same. In the same situations with a Short Circuit Engineer instead of wrangler, there is nothing you as a Demoman or Soldier can do, because he literally deletes your only form of damage before it can damage him.
"but i said you can push with your team!"
I never argued that you couldn't. I'm arguing (I'm not even arguing, at this point I'm just trying to state a fact bluntly enough so you get it) that the short circuit literally makes a Demoman or Soldier irrelevant because of its altfire.
You're making connections where there are none. The only weapon outright designed with the gimmick of "stronger against buildings" is the Loch-n-Load, and that's only its latest rework, wheras before it was just "Direct Hit for Demoman". Beggar's gimmick is having crazy barrage potential at the cost of upfront damage due to priming rockets, Quickie Bomber is a more aggressive but weaker stickybomb launcher, Direct Hit is and was designed as "the gun for the Soldier really good at consistently hitting direct hits", much like its name implies, Quick-Fix was originally designed as a Medigun that gives up a strong uber and overheal for much more potent healing, Vaccinator is "What if you had a Medi-gun that a Medic could actively say Fuck You with to most classes" and is completely irrelevant to Sentry pushing because Sentries have 2 forms fo damage, and Huntsman is just... a bow and arrow. It wasn't implicitly designed to be better at taking sentries, it was implicitly designed to be a bow and arrow, a projectile-based accuracy weapon that is fun and different and unique. In fact, it's worst than the sniper rifle for taking down turrets, because again, surprise surprise, a good SC Engineer can delete your arrows!
you'd be right back when it acted like an airblast. It was extremely risky and difficult to get anything done with it.
exceptright now it shoots a literal aimbot ball that does all the work for you. If you got an inch of game-sense you can shut down any soldier/demo uber or kritz no matter the factors.
I can second this. One of my biggest beef's with Engineer is that he can become a brick wall when played well against a group of enemies all by himself when he's only suppose to really be a deterrent on his own at best. It's mostly due to aspects of several of his unlocks that do this. I'll also add that the removal of grenades from the game is another contributor to this problem as well.
I saw this bit and I gotta say that's nonsense.
"Dodging" a projectile means it would have hit you had you stood still, but you decided to move before it landed and thus you dodged it.
If you launch a projectile into a currently empty space, that you believe an enemy will move into when acknowledging you, and it does hit, that means you lead the projectile successfully. Although it does *somewhat* mean the enemy did half the job for you, the other half is you leading the trajectory which is fairly a demanding task.
(this however should not be confused with brainless play where a player will shoot literally 30 arrows at a wall with zero consciousness of enemy positions, praying for when 1/30 attempts will eventually hit a bloke passing by)