TF2 General Chat & Speculation Station V15 - Buff Pyro plz - Games

middle sombra about to speak to the manager

another issue I have with Overwatch character designs is that it comes at the cost of gameplay unlike in TF2, where characters are generally composed of semi-blocky shapes (the main bodies of all the characters are rectangular, making them easier to aim at), Overwatch's characters become cartoonishly bulky or cartoonishly thin. some characters are even both at once: the worst case, in my opinion, being D.Va. D.Va, for those unfamiliar, is some Korean gamer girl in a big, round-ish mecha. this mecha is pretty damn easy to hit, and it has a large health pool to go through. pretty standard design for a tank. however, destroying the mecha does not kill the D.Va. the girl just hops out of it, and suddenly you've gone from trying to hit this... https://i.imgur.com/qyZtJOr.png to trying to hit this https://i.imgur.com/MRN4vaH.png while it's usually moving and firing at you. if you're like me, this will throw you off by quite a bit, and if you don't kill her quickly she'll be back in her mech in no time, meaning you effectively accomplished nothing by winning your engagement with her. then there are many heroes in Overwatch who are just this slim right off of the bat, making it even harder to effectively punish them with hitscan/direct explosive damage. particularly egregious is Tracer, who not only has a fast movement speed and slim hitbox, but also the ability to reverse any damage that doesn't outright kill her dealt over the span of roughly 3 seconds, in addition to the world's easiest dodge mechanic. even the slimmest characters in TF2 still have character models with easy-to-read geometry that makes them easily understandable and therefore more easy to hit. realistic shooters, meanwhile, have realistic body proportions on their characters that, while not as friendly for aiming as TF2's, are still much better than attempting to aim at a vaguely-feminine stick figure.

I expected jungle inferno to bring an official version of VS Saxton Hale, seeing how they had the saxton hale model & yeti thing going on. Yet they did not, and it is really sad.

half of your response completely misses the point (also: MOBA design philosophy slapped onto an FPS does introduce problems, and genre is not an excuse for things that make a game less enjoyable to play.) anyway, play some mccree or junkrat w/o minespam and come back to me about how easy it is to hit your targets when they're approximately the width of a kit kat and tilted at a 90 degree angle in either direction

You are correct, and also this problem is made worse by several factors that Overwatch characters move almost without inertia, and many of the weapons are designed around spreadless pinpoint accuracy. In TF2 there's acceleration, so there's no way to instantly change your direction of momentum ...Unless you're the scout, in which case such snappy movement is the one thing that makes him so hard to hit.

I've explained this several times but anything with game sense and 8 seconds of unwelding deathproof power will have the same exact effect. the issue is how fast/easy is to get the crits with the phlog, not the crit power itself - turning it into minicrits and/or preventing the phlog user from being ubered will not solve anything(as it is now). its the same problem with the diamondback: gain crits by literally doing your job or less. what the phlog needs is: A) remove uber on activation, go back to health regen(make it a % of total HP)+damage resistance on activation. B) allow pyros to roam alone but still be vulnerable to backstabs and focus attacks. if the activation is interrumpted, the charge is lost. C) make the taunt activation LOUD AND VISIBLE (like the eureka effect's teleport) D) make it gain crit boost only from direct attacks and no secondaries. E) keep it being unable to use airblast.

I don't think people would ever touch it at that point, at least not outside of memeing. It's already the worst flamethrower Pyro has, and everything you suggest just seems like a direct nerf.

i'd hardly call it the worst when, as it is now, it can vaporizean entire group of people almost with no effort involved other than the split second reaction that can kill the pyro during a charge.

Backburner is easily worse right now. You basically have to be lucky to even get a single flame tic as a crit.

How often does the Phlog ( if allowed ) get used by competitive level pyro's then if you don't mind me asking?

I wasn't (entirely) kidding about the SVF, either. Here's a video a Danish friend of mine did a few years ago, attempting to build mmph with it. Needless to say, things did not go particularly well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-neLs6QR6U

Weapon balance isn't judged purely by competitive performance and if you paid literally any attention to this thread you would know that.

No, it's generally balanced around Facts. Something that competitive players are generally better at providing them anything you could get out of pub level players.

Then I guess we'll have to remove the Bootie Time cosmetic from the game, because that's banned in all 6s competitive leagues. Same with Reserve Shooter. I'm incredibly tired of having this discussion ad nauseam. Competitive TF2 is not the end-all be-all of TF2 balance. If it was, people wouldn't have complaints with Sniper or Heavy, because they aren't played nearly enough in 6s to get any good data out of. If it was, then the most popular maps wouldn't be Attack/Defense, Payload, and CTF.

That's a bit of an over exaggeration. Cosmetic's don't really impact the game enough to warrant changing them just because of competitive. Maps play out different with different circumstances as well, like different player counts and the fact casual doesn't restrict weapons. The most competitive would have an impact on maps is maybe balance changes. Game modes might get changes perhaps. Balancing weapons is a bit finicky though. If you don't do it right you can make the situation significantly worse. This is why having as many actual facts is so important. Other wise we'll start getting more weapons like the Short Circuit we got one Christmas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyWmL3K6j9w

same as balancing around people who play comp - you listen to their complaints and act accordingly

Ok... Pyro is Over Powered Heavy is Over Powered Soldier is Over Powered Demoman is Over Powered Sniper is Over Powered Spy is Over Powered Scout is Over Powered Medic is Over Powered Engineer is Over Powered That's what I see on a pretty regular basis lol...

It's a simple strategy devs employ: listen to the people with reasoning behind their statements. Outrageous comments such as "x class is overpowered because they killed me", or "competitive 6s is the epitome of TF2 balance" (cough cough), are ignored, and rightfully so. Nobody has the one perfect belief towards a game's entire balance, and that's why getting feedback from the entire community is so important.

thats why game developers come equipped with brains and take feedback as something to take into account, not as advice and what should have more of a weight when making balance decisions - feedback from 99% of the playerbase, or the remaining 1%? can't do both, not when comp tf2 and casual tf2 are two entirely different games

phlog just needs a rework, i find it fine, but i know a lot of ya'll as well as others just find it frustrating. They should remove the crit mechanic and find a new one. I was thinking of alt fire shooting a smaller beam but vaporizes any projectiles. Would be more easy to destroy projectiles, but doesnt have the luxury of deflecting them and using them as a weapon. Just a thought that im not convicted on, but overall i'ld say we should work towards thinking of different mechanics to rework the phlog; balancing it around it's current form isnt going to work, as its underpowered outside of very incompetent pubs; It's just irritating for most people in its idea right now.

Honestly, I really like the idea of it being a Lightning Gun lite. Lightning gun is probably one of my favorite Quake weapons and I think it could work for the Phlog well. Give Pyro a ranged option that requires a lot of accuracy and tracking.

They've done that in the past as well. Several weapons have had multiple reworks because of it as well to my knowledge. How many times does a weapon need to change before we can get an acceptable out come out of it?

i think its better to just rework something if its just not gonna work instead of trying to hold to your guns. Some things are just not very salvageable, and you just just gut it and advance. I dont know why so many ppl hate the changes overwatch did with it, it's taken boring game mechanics or just overly situational characters and made them versatile, i dont see the problem with that mentality

The first ever rework they did was Roadhog. I remember it vividly, for it was a sign of the bad to come. Roadhog was one of the most popular characters in the game at the time, and was incredibly strong as well. He was the top of the new 3v3 meta, and a very popular 6v6 (which is normal gameplay) pick. He was strong because he could hook an enemy and pull them into himself and his teammates, with a very strong gun that at close range, could easily 2-shot most other Heroes. He was a fun and unique blend of Tank and damage, a pick-machine that could hold his own in fights. So, instead of nerfing his hooks downtime, or changing his ult gain so that he gained it from hitting hooks instead of literally just taking damage, they nerfed his damage into the ground and turned him into a generic tank that heals instead of shields. They completely misunderstood why he was/is strong and fun and turned him into a boring milquetoast "hold down lmb and press q during a teamfight" hero. They also took months to nerf Mercy after reworking her from one of the strongest Heroes in the game into... the strongest Hero in the game. And she's still incredibly bland and unfun.

keep the "lightning gun" business as an overall change for all flames. Don't waste it upon something as undeserving as the phlog.

i think the mentality of oh i got hit by this one attack "the hook" and now die no matter what was a bad mechanic. A lot of people liked it because it was fun to use, not to go against. I think the tf2 equilvilant would be the old puff and sting tactic, but imagine you could do it long range, not very fun :P As such i think the mentality of whats fair to play against should be applied with tf2. Phlog people dont like to play against; its fun for the user and is underbalanced if anything, but overall should be reworked to just make it enjoyable for both parties

https://i.imgur.com/gacgret.jpg Feels fucking GOOD man. I was just on a Valve server, and getting spawn camped by 3 cheaters. Worse, they were supported by a number of non-cheaters who were helping them, spamming intel etc. I encouraged the hapless squeakers on my team to enable mouse in the scoreboard (which is off by default, because Valve) and to right click on the cheater's names and select "report." Sadly, only one of the 3 got a ban. That's to /coplay/ working for once, I can name and shame: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198809250754 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198409962750 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198414601484

Can't compare it to the Puff n' sting when there was so much mobility and counterplay. Also doesn't work as an argument because the only difference is that the hook being a guaranteed kill depends entirely on whether the Hog can combo you fast enough.

as soon as ur hooked, there is no mobility or counter play, it was just cheese ease to get a kill once you were hooked, and as many people on the side of that playstyle state, that was his gimmic; i just feel ur entire play against a class being if they connect a single shot equals if you die or not kinda frustrating. Dont get me wrong, it was fun doin it, but its not the greatest, just like puff sting and reserve shooter wif puff, or countless other mechanics. One could argue that it requires same amount of mobility cuz you can always keep ur distance from the pyro to avoid puff

At this point all I really want balance-wise is for the Short Circuit to always give self-damage on impact with a solid object, rather than "if it damages someone else and you're within radius, you take damage + knockback" because Engineer having his own Detonator jump would be incredible.