TF2 General Chat and Speculation Station: Whiteboard Blues - Games

[QUOTE=Danzflor;52745990]Unpopular opinion: I like crits. Makes the game more unpredictable and fun. I know a lot of players complain about the zero skill it takes, but c'mon let's be real, TF2 was never made with the intention of being a skill-based competitive game. Valve just gave a fuck about competitive games last year. If you want a Valve skill-based shooter, Counter-Strike has always been the first choice.[/QUOTE] yea man TF2 with tf_weapon_criticals 0 is no different than counter strike :downs:

[QUOTE=Hell-met;52746066]yea man TF2 with tf_weapon_criticals 0 is no different than counter strike :downs:[/QUOTE] All I'm saying is that if Valve really wanted to gave TF2 a competitive edge, it should have done it long time ago.

[QUOTE=Hell-met;52746066]yea man TF2 with tf_weapon_criticals 0 is no different than counter strike :downs:[/QUOTE] Imagine CSGO with random crits

[QUOTE=Blackavar;52746034]You can wait for their match to be over. Honestly, Casual is not the worst system in the world like some of you people suggest. If you live in an area where servers are nowhere near you, sure, it might take a little while to get into a server, but honestly, I notice Casual servers at the very least function much better as actual GAMES than Valve servers previously. I remember the days of people scrambling the teams after every lost point. Things that would fix Casual: - Fill recently-emptied servers faster, ask players waiting for a server to join if they want to join such-and-such map (that isn't in their list of selected maps) instead since it needs filling. - Balance teams based on points after every map change, essentially scrambling based on performance. - Allow ad-hoc connections, but only through friends. - Bring back Stopwatch on Payload and A/D. - Class limit of 2 or 3? (EXTREME CONTROVERSY) - Make the Casual medal on the queue screen wearable - Some kind of drop incentive for playing? (Community servers could have a different set of drops from Casual, so both are played.) - Make votes from a group of friends in the same server only count as one vote. Hackers with catbots can no longer keep themselves from getting kicked out. - Votes can be across teams. - (add spectator mode back somehow so you can figure out if people are actually hacking. dunno how it would work though) - etc[/QUOTE] Pretty good, but #1 should be some method or other of closing down servers that have less than 12 players total. Map votes fracture players again and again as large numbers leave and join new servers. As long as those who don't leave keep playing, they keep these dying servers open and hungry for backfills. There's nothing stopping the number of active servers from exceeding "number of players divided by 24", so slow/non-existent backfills inevitably continue to be a problem.

[QUOTE=Blackavar;52746034]You can wait for their match to be over. Honestly, Casual is not the worst system in the world like some of you people suggest. If you live in an area where servers are nowhere near you, sure, it might take a little while to get into a server, but honestly, I notice Casual servers at the very least function much better as actual GAMES than Valve servers previously. I remember the days of people scrambling the teams after every lost point. Things that would fix Casual: - Fill recently-emptied servers faster, ask players waiting for a server to join if they want to join such-and-such map (that isn't in their list of selected maps) instead since it needs filling. - Balance teams based on points after every map change, essentially scrambling based on performance. - Allow ad-hoc connections, but only through friends. - Bring back Stopwatch on Payload and A/D. - Class limit of 2 or 3? (EXTREME CONTROVERSY) - Make the Casual medal on the queue screen wearable - Some kind of drop incentive for playing? (Community servers could have a different set of drops from Casual, so both are played.) - Make votes from a group of friends in the same server only count as one vote. Hackers with catbots can no longer keep themselves from getting kicked out. - Votes can be across teams. - (add spectator mode back somehow so you can figure out if people are actually hacking. dunno how it would work though) - etc[/QUOTE] TFTeam should REALLY consider making a vote pool for Casual changes. Have all the options you listed added to a votepool, let people vote what would they like to get added / changed in Casual. Like for example, I would not like to see some of the fixes on your list but most of them I can agree on.

[QUOTE=Danzflor;52746050] You know you can choose to not play the games you don't like, right?[/QUOTE] what the fuck kind of non-argument is this you can enjoy games and criticise them at the same time y'know

[QUOTE=Danzflor;52746070]All I'm saying is that if Valve really wanted to gave TF2 a competitive edge, it should have done it long time ago.[/QUOTE] valve's inaction has nothing to do with the game's design. quakeTF and TFC had gigantic skill ceilings and Robin himself was fairly involved in them. TF2 had tons of seasons and leagues throughout the years especially when there was so little content. you just need to understand post-2012 valve is not the "true old" valve. Nobody knows what the hell happened or what are they doing, all their titles equally suffer.

[QUOTE=Hell-met;52746118]valve's inaction has nothing to do with the game's design. quakeTF and TFC had gigantic skill ceilings and Robin himself was fairly involved in them. TF2 had tons of seasons and leagues throughout the years especially when there was so little content. you just need to understand post-2012 valve is not the "true old" valve. Nobody knows what the hell happened or what are they doing, all their titles equally suffer.[/QUOTE] Thank you, well said.

[QUOTE=RedDagger;52746093]what the fuck kind of non-argument is this you can enjoy games and criticise them at the same time y'know[/QUOTE] The mindless prattle of random crit apologists. These pro-crits stances became irrelevant once loadout diversity improved, as the game experience was different each time you played.

[t]https://files.catbox.moe/il8xe1.jpg[/t]

Random crits were never meant to be balanced. They were made so that players could go on rampages, with 3-4 kills in rapid succession. With competitive mode, this isn't needed since you don't want players to completely dominate a game. In Casual, it's perfectly fine since it's unlikely you're going to use any teamwork. Random crits allow you to carry a match, good in Casual bad in Competitive.

But players can go on rampages anyway just from skill in casual?

[QUOTE=Cpt. Cakes;52746349]Random crits were never meant to be balanced. They were made so that players could go on rampages, with 3-4 kills in rapid succession. With competitive mode, this isn't needed since you don't want players to completely dominate a game. In Casual, it's perfectly fine since it's unlikely you're going to use any teamwork. Random crits allow you to carry a match, good in Casual bad in Competitive.[/QUOTE] No thanks, I don't like the concept of BAD players getting advantage over GOOD players thanks to an unfair mechanic.

[QUOTE=socks_;52744251]Holy crap. After 5 years of watching Team Fabulous 2 i only just now thought of this. So, if you haven't watched it: "Team Fabulous 2" is a 17 minute GMOD animation created by the late Kitty0706. Its about an Engineer who releases hell upon the world, and must stop it himself. =SPOILERS INCOMING= In this video, it's highlighted multiple times that this Engy sucks at guitar. He can only play a few notes at a time, and his guitar sounds out of tune. At the end of the video, when he an the Imp are about to have a showdown, he suddenly has amazing skill, and is able to summon a guitar out of thin air in order to destroy the moon and kill the Imp. Colin (Kitty0706) was suffering from cancer at the time, and i think i've found a hidden meaning in the video. The Engineer was able to pull a guitar out of thin air because he believed in himself, cause he had the courage to go up against all odds. Because of this, he was able to essentially remove all of the evil from the map. This could be Colins way of saying "If i believe, and if i try hard enough, i'll be able to defeat cancer, and rid my world of the evil that is cancer." There's even some meaning in the final "Guitar Lessons" scene. Here, we see the Engy teaching a Heavy how to play Guitar. Everyone boos the Heavy, but he pulls through and plays a song. This could be Colin demonstrating that he is inadvertently teaching everyone on youtube how to make GMod animations, and that if they believe, they can render even his own work obsolete. This is just a theory, and i'd like to hear your thoughts on it. R.I.P Kitty0706[/QUOTE] Collin was diagnosed of cancer in may of 2012, the video was released earlier in february of that year so

[QUOTE=qubestf2;52746357]No thanks, I don't like the concept of BAD players getting advantage over GOOD players thanks to an unfair mechanic.[/QUOTE] and in top of that, there are like 38 weapons in total (cept reskins) that can deliver crits/minicrits under certain conditions. One can be gained just by simply healing and getting the full charge for 8 seconds of full crits (Kritzkrieg) or give anyone minicrits that are near you once you charge your meter by dealing damage (Buff Banner). If ya ask me, random crits has to leave.

If there's something i can't stand is the fact that currently the only way to play a 6v6 (or any other type of match that is not a complete shitstorm 12v12) is to spend at least 200 hours (because that's the limit in TF2 Center. There's also Faceit with 50 hours limit but it seems empty here in EU currently) idling/playing 12v12/ playing any other completely different mode I really wish there will be some sort of "unranked 6s mode" in MM with the new update. That's all what i need in order to play TF2 again: a fast, light (a little bit more pressure than casual 12v12, less pressure than comp/tf2center while playing) and accessible way to play 6v6. There were a lot of my friends that wanted to play 6s because they totally hated 12v12 so i had to teach them the basics and let them use my account/idle their account in order to get at least into FaceIT. That's not how it should be imho

If random crits were to go away, I would like to see more weapons that reward playstyles with guaranteed crits; at least one per class. Weapons like the frontier justice - if you see the weapon glowing, you know that they will be a significant threat until they use up what they've earned. Rather than some random lone soldier who you know you can outplay gets blessed by RNG gods and poops out a glowing rocket that kills you instantly.

[QUOTE=cidra;52746519]If there's something i can't stand is the fact that currently the only way to play a 6v6 (or any other type of match that is not a complete shitstorm 12v12) is to spend at least 200 hours (because that's the limit in TF2 Center. There's also Faceit with 50 hours limit but it seems empty here in EU currently) idling/playing 12v12/ playing any other completely different mode I really wish there will be some sort of "unranked 6s mode" in MM with the new update. That's all what i need in order to play TF2 again: a fast, light (a little bit more pressure than casual 12v12, less pressure than comp/tf2center while playing) and accessible way to play 6v6. There were a lot of my friends that wanted to play 6s because they totally hated 12v12 so i had to teach them the basics and let them use my account/idle their account in order to get at least into FaceIT. That's not how it should be imho[/QUOTE] If you done your research you would know there's a thing called Newbie Mixes.

[QUOTE=gigazelle;52746520]If random crits were to go away, I would like to see more weapons that reward playstyles with guaranteed crits; at least one per class. Weapons like the frontier justice - if you see the weapon glowing, you know that they will be a significant threat until they use up what they've earned. Rather than some random lone soldier who you know you can outplay gets blessed by RNG gods and poops out a glowing rocket that kills you instantly.[/QUOTE] Most activated crits, while better than random crits, are still pretty bad. Frontier Justice is an excellent example: an engineer can oneshot me because a teammate walked into a blender. That's not great.

[QUOTE=Mockingbird;52746529]Most activated crits, while better than random crits, are still pretty bad. Frontier Justice is an excellent example: an engineer can oneshot me because a teammate walked into a blender. That's not great.[/QUOTE] You can use the "Team-mate did something silly and I suffer for it? Pah!" argument for a bunch of weapons in the game - You want them to remove the Ubersaw, Eyelander, Airstrike, all Banners, Sandvich etc. too?

[QUOTE=qubestf2;52746523]If you done your research you would know there's a thing called Newbie Mixes.[/QUOTE] That's not a fast way. Here in Italy we did a lot of Newbie Mixes (Now.. well.. not so many) I mean, something like "click-and-go". Hell, even Quake Live has a faster way to play a decent game: 2 clicks and i'm in a Clan Arena, CTF, Duel or TDM: the exact same games that everyone in Quake plays. I'm a lazy guy.

[QUOTE=gigazelle;52746520]If random crits were to go away, I would like to see more weapons that reward playstyles with guaranteed crits; at least one per class. Weapons like the frontier justice - if you see the weapon glowing, you know that they will be a significant threat until they use up what they've earned. Rather than some random lone soldier who you know you can outplay gets blessed by RNG gods and poops out a glowing rocket that kills you instantly.[/QUOTE] Sure is fun instantly dying because someone else fucked up 30 seconds ago on the opposite side of the map. Stored crit weapons should get retooled to be more in-the-moment. Hell, I'd even argue that snowballing weapons like Eyelander, Bazaar Bargain, and Air Strike need some sort of retooling despite being a lot more acceptable in terms of their overall impact.

Yeah it always kind of feels like when you're playing against the air strike or something, the enemy effectiveness is dependent on stuff that's basically random from your perspective, like how many people the enemy has killed previously in the match.With the eyelander it's better because it's kind of a gimmicky loadout in general and pretty easy to counter, and there's a clear indication of how powerful they are at the moment. And with the Frontier Justice you can see the critglow and if you have enough gamesense you should be able to know when a sentry that's actually getting kills has gone down. FJ could probably do with a way to keep people from storing crits forever and just dumping them on you at some random point in the game though. A more active use of crits right after your sentry gets busted is usually more effective anyway, so it would be encouraging a better playstyle while also getting rid of crit encounters that just feel like you randomly got crit without being able to predict it. The worst offender of stored crits is the diamondback imo, when you run into a spy it's a total crapshoot on whether or not he has crits, you can't just stare at the killfeed watching for every single backstab.

[QUOTE=cidra;52746573]That's not a fast way. Here in Italy we did a lot of Newbie Mixes (Now.. well.. not so many) I mean, something like "click-and-go". Hell, even Quake Live has a faster way to play a decent game: 2 clicks and i'm in a Clan Arena, CTF, Duel or TDM: the exact same games that everyone in Quake plays. I'm a lazy guy.[/QUOTE] Your best bet is to find alot of friends who like 6's and play scrims or mixes. Or just pray that Valve fixes matchmaking.

[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;52746612]The worst offender of stored crits is the diamondback imo, when you run into a spy it's a total crapshoot on whether or not he has crits, you can't just stare at the killfeed watching for every single backstab.[/QUOTE] What makes it even worse is that even if you come face to face with a Spy, you don't even know what weapon he has out in the first place, let alone if it's going to crit you for free. Spy has no business storing crits and it's already bullshit how he can effortlessly farm crits without even killing anyone by just spamming sappers on teleporters, for instance. If it were a temporary critboost following a successful backstab it'd be more acceptable, but that's still easymode Ambassador that carries a negligible downside compared with the likes of the Revolver.

[QUOTE=Fluury;52746570]You can use the "Team-mate did something silly and I suffer for it? Pah!" argument for a bunch of weapons in the game - You want them to remove the Ubersaw, Eyelander, Airstrike, all Banners, Sandvich etc. too?[/QUOTE] The ubersaw and banners have real costs to use. I don't see how the sandvich fits in the list at all. Airstrike and Eyelander should for sure be changed, imo. Your overall argument of "well a bunch of other stuff is also bad" doesn't make much of a case for not changing anything. I thought we were talking about activated crits/minicrits though.

[QUOTE=Mockingbird;52746684]The ubersaw and banners have real costs to use. I don't see how the sandvich fits in the list at all. Airstrike and Eyelander should for sure be changed, imo. Your overall argument of "well a bunch of other stuff is also bad" doesn't make much of a case for not changing anything. I thought we were talking about activated crits/minicrits though.[/QUOTE] The downsides of the Eyelander and Airstrike arent costs to use? The Sandvich was more of a stretch, but still fits the list. Killing a heavy that's eating a Sandvich drops a Sandvich that can heal an enemy. I'm just amazed that you view the Frontier Justice as more of an issue than the Ubersaw, a weapon that gives the medic game-changing stats for a single clueless scout walking in.

Stored crit weapons that don't have substantial costs to use are bad. And the diamondback is the worst offender. I've used the thing to brawl head on with overhealed soldiers and demos, and all you need to to is play passive and stab gibuses/sap minis. That doesn't seem like a very fair trade off. The only reason it's not the most hated weapon in TF2 is because most casual spies underestimate gunplay or don't own/equip the thing. For an opinion from someone who's actually good at the class: ~Paging contra the resident facepunch spy main for an article on the diamondback~

[QUOTE=Mockingbird;52745695]What would you think if horses opted to walk around on their hind legs for one day each month? Just think of all the advantages of this deeply implausible scenario.[/QUOTE] :thinking: [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPClAUGj4S4[/media]

[QUOTE=Fluury;52746709]The downsides of the Eyelander and Airstrike arent costs to use? The Sandvich was more of a stretch, but still fits the list. Killing a heavy that's eating a Sandvich drops a Sandvich that can heal an enemy. I'm just amazed that you view the Frontier Justice as more of an issue than the Ubersaw, a weapon that gives the medic game-changing stats for a single clueless scout walking in.[/QUOTE] The downsides of the eyelander are obviated by its bonuses, so no, on that one. Airstrike is more of a mixed bag, but it's hard to call a soldier with 8 rockets loaded balanced. I guess I can see how the sandvich is like an inverted example of what we were talking about, but even if your foe gains full health from a dropped sandvich, even if they do that mid-fight after you've damaged them, it's nothing compared to having a bunch of one hit kills stocked up by an aimbot machine. Using the ubersaw is always a risk. Even if it's a bad scout, they could pull a meatshot off. Either way, it's time spent not healing. To truly not inconvenience or endanger the medic takes a lot more effort than getting killed/assist killed by a fresh mini sentry.