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

My only complaint about Soldier is solely that his design is a lot slower, both in terms of movespeed and in terms of rocket speed, than quake rocket launcher gameplay, but even then he's still easily one of the most balanced classes in the game, he just needs tuning on some items at best

what could bison do that shotguns can't? my take would make it into a proper laser pistol, quick reload and fast firing speed with quicker projectile speed. maybe even ability to bounce of walls and floors, got some baddies hiding around a corner but your rockets splash cant hit them? just whip out the bison and zap that wall behind where you think they are! after what valve did with the short circuit, anything is possible!

suck

Contradictions? I literally just said above "besides the classes you listed". Why cut that part out and then claim that's a contradiction? 🤔 Does having low mobility and health/staying presence matter in terms of exploitable weaknesses if your class doesnt need it to be effective? Oh man that's a hard one... And finally, helplessness against sniper being said from inexperience... I don't particularly feel the need to fling our medals or playtime at each other to argue, since you're also a competitive player and have played it a lot more seriously than I think anyone here, but answer me this: Can you exploit the positioning of a class designed to take advantage of being positioned in an unassailable spot such as inside a spawn, and still have full effectiveness? Especially with the 8 other classes who do not? I'm guessing that's also no, but invite you to try having a fair fight against another plat sniper you're trying to kill with say, soldier in upward blu starting spawn. I would love to see how many times you kill him before he kills you as proof of concept.

Actually I could see this working very well. And for those that may be saying ""why not just use splash damage to get people behind corners lol" imagine this scenario: You are chasing a fast enemy, a medic or a scout, perhaps a spy. You have gotten the team-mates that were with him and now you have to reload. You manage to reload a single rocket, but the enemy jumps around the corner and get away. A few reflecting shots up and down with the bison could get him, and reach areas were the rocket splash damage can not (mainly the floors). Of course the damage from each individual shot have to be really low.

they should remove every class in the game and then add the civilian

i'd be useless on anything but cp_junction

I'm back to playing TF2 since not having a PC for a year and the absolute madlads at Valve just had to put back auto balancing. Fuck me.

That feel when you unload four Bison shots into a crowded choke and your hitsounds start tripping over themselves trying to get out of your headset and into your ears and you finally get to see that elusive beauty in the killfeed: https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/241798/da364237-189e-46a6-b04e-54da9b2d3db9/image.png

the Bison is like the shove feature on the shortstop, its just... there.

Sniper is a glass cannon; he can do exactly one thing really well, that thing being engage with specific targets from long-range. But put him in a situation that isn't specifically that and he's at a major disadvantage to nearly every other class in the game. If a Sniper catches you unawares at long range, he's probably going to win the engagement. If a Spy or Scout catches that Sniper unawares at close range, they're probably going to win that engagement. The problem with Sniper isn't "he can instakill without close-range risk", since that's what Snipers do. That's the entire point to the character. The issue is more that the way the character's skill ceiling works means that nerfs to the way the character plays can only impact the skill of the player controlling him so much. I wouldn't mind some changes to reload speed or charge rate or whatever, just to help reduce the chances of a particularly skilled Sniper being able to single-handedly shut down an entire push, but I also think that changing-up playstyles to react to what the enemy team is running with is a core part of the game. Like placement, counter-picking is a massive part of TF2. If the enemy team has loads of Pyros, playing Spy might not be the best move. If they've got a ton of Engineers, you'll want at least one Medic running Uber and some Demomen. And if they've got a really good Sniper covering a specific route and preventing you and your team from getting to the front lines, you should either take a different route or actively try to counter the Sniper as you would any other obstacle in your way. There are definitely balance tweaks to be made across the board, but I've also never been in a situation where both teams are playing consciously (communication, good team composition, etc.) and the entire match is completely shut down because "that one guy on the other team is really good". TF2 is a primarily team-based game, so many of the balance issues revolve around team play. Because something that's unbalanced in pubs where people are just dicking around isn't necessarily unbalanced in a comp setting (and vice-versa).

I'm pretty sure Sniper is the most popular off class pick in Sixes. Highlander is effectively Sniper Picks the Medic: the Game Mode. Sniper is hugely important in competitive TF2.

In 6s, Sniper is still an off-class. he doesn't dominate the game to the extent that facepunch likes to pretend he does in 6s, even in the highest level of play. and you can't blame map design either, because sniper is great on 5CP. this is because Sniper's main counters- high-mobility players with good movement- are in abundance in 6s. HL is Your Sniper and Demo versus Their Sniper and Demo. doesn't matter how good your Sniper is if your team can't push for shit- Sniper isn't the MVP in this format.

Yep, and the only reason (i could assume, I haven't played 6s in forever) he isn't seen as frequently in 6s as the core 6 classes is because the core 6 classes are so mobile, it'd be hard for the Sniper to even stay safe with 2 Scouts that could come from any 5cp flank, and a Soldier divebombing being a very real possibility. And again, it's solely because (in my opinion) he does too much damage on a quickscope headshot, which could either be because he does too much damage in a millisecond or he does too much damage with headshots in general beyond a max charge headshot. I'll try and record some gameplay tonight to post an idea of just what a Sniper quickshotting can kill, because I got some really good ones yesterday - quickscopes are rewarding as hell, but they're also killing anybody at or under 150 health in basically the flick of a mouse, which only the Spy can do otherwise.

The problem with "just counter sniper as you would any other obstacle" is that you have to switch to sniper himself to accomplish this with any kind of effect. It's not just being caught unaware; you can know the sniper is there, but unless you yourself are one, you lack the tools to engage in a fair fight before you get instantly dealt 150 or killed. That's really boring, and reinforces the idea that sniper is a head clicking minigame within tf2, who largely interacts with only the enemy heads and other snipers. If the tools to deal with sniper were expanded to more classes than just him and spy (a weak class to begin with), then you wouldn't need to touch sniper any, and the problem would go away.

Fuck it. Give Heavy a smoke grenade secondary. Something to rival the Sandvich. Sniper has like 84 things that counter the class that's supposed to counter him (Spy). Heavy deserves at least one. Is only fair.

i was gonna say flashbang cause it's funnier

not gonna lie if they couldn't even make the dragons breath not bum peoples frames I don't even wanna see how badly they'd do with smoke

Flash bangs have too much potential for grief, unless it (or smoke, or something) is only visible to the enemy team. You would not believe the amount of times in CSGO that I've been flashed by my own team due to terrible throws, or just general ineptitude.

Engineer aline requires more gamesense than all the other classes combined. He’s a very fragile glass cannon and if he’s not backed up by his team, his sentries are laughably bad against any competent player. This requires him to be very careful with the positioning of his buildings as well as be smart with dealing with pushes and spies. It also takes an intense amount of map knowledge to place buildings optimally since he also needs to take care of teleporters and dispensers as well. You also still need to be able to aim to defend your stuff from spies and other invaders.

one sentence in and you already lost me I'd say medic and heavy are way more gamesense-intensive than engineer. medic especially.

there's already a functional single blob of smoke that works fairly nice. it's used on most payload explosions, sentry buster explosion, tank explosion, "use large smoke explosion" 1

give heavy a ballistic mask that makes headshots not crit from the front melee weapon replacement

Engineer is fun because it's like a Tower Defense game in an FPS setting. Until you experience You have to build at spawn to get all your buildings to level 3, because unlike HL, nobody's going to suicide for you to give you ammo and are more likely to steal ammo boxes (this is assuming A/D or Payload on Defense, the only time Engineer without Gunslinger can more than a glorified teleport bot) On 5CP maps, you spend a majority of the time setting up your buildings, and if the enemy caps or your team caps, you have to move everything either back or forward, which takes 5 hours and leaves you completely vulnerable to any Spy with brains and a mouse to click mouse1 behind you with their knife out CTF maps can be fun but only if there's a complete standstill and you're on a map that has viable flanks (Doublecross, maybe Well, maybe Landfall) so you can Ninjaneer or whatever and actually have fun instead of sitting in your intel for 20 minutes Your teleporter is almost impossible to defend adequately against anything other than a Spy, so anybody that gets to your spawn has a field day If you put your buildings too close together, a single Demo or Soldier can easily get rid of all your buildings so long as they know where it is, and if you're in the nest, you just wasted 5 minutes building your nest If you keep your buildings separated, a Spy will ruin your day because if he saps something far away from your gun, either you go to unsap, leaving your sentry vulnerable to any Tom, Dick, or Larry, or you let the building die After even 2 sentry kills, maybe 1 if you're super unlucky, almost everybody on the enemy team will know where your sentry is, so either you reposition it (hopefully not geting picked off by any other class i the meantime) or you pray your teammates can back you up when the inevitable shitstorm of a Demo, 3 Soldiers, 2 Pyros, and an ubered Heavy are ramming your shit in Your secondary is super useless in most situations, Short-Circuit is only useful as a pestering tool or to make an Uber literally irrelevant, Wrangler is useful against somebody that's far away or for hard pushes but a Spy will make you even more useless due to your lack of safety while wrangling and your Sentry's downtime if you die while wrangling, Pistol is the epitome of "why not just go Scout" even if it is more fun and useful a majority of the time Even with your Gunslinger, you're still slow, low on health, and stocky enough that a Demo, Pyro, Scout, or Soldier of any skill level will fuck your day up before you can even go on your shotgun spree, meaning you basically have to resort to using your Mini-sentry, so Shotgun-only isn't an option Engineer can be fun, but he's so reliant on his team and is so boring and underwhelming otherwise that I really only ever play him at the beginning of A/D/Payload rounds on defense, because I like seeing what weird-ass Sentry position can still be viable. He has the same problem as Spy - because his gameplay is so binary in its execution, player general knowledge and skill has gone up enough over time that an Engineer not explicitly relying on his team is more often than not a free kill and 4 points for a Demoman, Soldier, or Spy of any skill level, and people usually have to be outright running into your sentries for you to even get more than 3 kills.

I'd rather not make pub stomping heavy med teams even more unbearable to deal with. Sniper is the best way to shut down overconfident heavies with medics up their ass, it's annoying enough when they run natascha or brass beast and survive a fully charged headshot. Unless you made it replace his primary there's no reason every heavy wouldn't run it.

Give it the Razorback downside of no overheals Honestly i'd use it

I don't really think this is true. The effectiveness of engineer vs the skill required to do it can be really fucking low sometimes, Put dispenser by escape point, put turret by choke but not in area where it can be easily spammed. Engineer also has a plethora of unlocks that make him less punishing to play, remove any risk to yourself with the Rescue ranger, deny almost any push onto your gun with the wrangler, which just brings us to Spy. You're saying this like Engineer is the only class who has to deal with spy, I know he has a scary sapper but spy is a complete pushover vs Engineer's kit. I'd take Engineer's shotgun + basically infinite ammo pistol and stronger melee that can crit over Spy's revolver or weak no crit melee. Vs Heavy who doesnt have the luxury of absolutely forcing the spy to focus on 2 areas at once, and doesnt involve an auto aiming turret. All the while, Engineer can reasonably chase down spy, while Heavy is going to be harrassed and fail to catch him if he doesnt immediately mow down spy. I mean, Engineer can be sorta powerless when he's cornered by a more combat oriented class but thats kinda the entire point isnt it, and I would say Medic actually deals with that way harder than Engineer because Medic actually has to be on the frontlines to function.

Widowmaker, Pistol and Eureka Effect loadout heavily mitigates mostly all of these complaints. People keep using the Rescue Ranger or Wrangler that forces them to be reliant on their team when really most of the time that's not feasible nor fun. You don't need the Gunslinger to be an offensive threat and the extra 25 hp only occasionally comes in handy since most breakpoints in close quarters aren't changed by it.

Auto-balance isn't bad in a sense. The problem is is the fact that it just doesn't cut it by itself. I see people constantly bringing up the fact that auto-balances keeps games from turning into one sided steam rolls when people drop midgame because they are no longer having any fun or being catered too. So it attemps to salvage the game by punishing those who stay instead and forces them to the others. The problem here is that it happens so frequently that people just grow tired of it, and more often then not it ruins their fun and now those people auto-balanced now leave themselves. It happens fairly frequently and servers start bleeding out people faster then they can connect new players to the server. Constantly I see games need several sessions of auto-balance ( which is a clear indication that auto-balance doesn't work well enough alone ) throughout single rounds because of this, and it's not uncommon to see matches drop to 6 players per team or less. The main problem here though is there is absolutely nothing in the system to discourage people from leaving in the first place. Because they are the direct cause of the game becoming lopsided in the first place. As long as Valve avoids doing anything towards those people, then unbalanced and lopsided matches will forever be a problem.