I thought Passtime looked kinda gimmicky (in a bad way), but I tried it and it's actually super fun. The only disappointment is that I either have to play on a [I][B]"casual"[/B][/I] matchmaking server where I have to wait several minutes to find a game and dedicate an indefinite amount of time to playing a full match (plus the pre-match countdown), or I have to go to a community server with low population and/or people trying to get the Merasmus TV achievement (not that I mind people trying to get the achievement on community servers, but it just makes it harder to find a legit game).
It feels like one of those game modes where it would be more fun and relaxing if you didn't come in with the mindset of being stuck on the server if you wanted to leave early or switch to another map or something. Lots of TF2's appeal comes from being a pick up and play game in short chunks. Like, I'm not saying that as in I have a short attention span, but rather, it's about the principle of knowing you have the option to leave or change servers if you want. If you get penalized and the [I][B]"casual"[/B][/I] rules make things overly complicated, it makes the game feel more imposing even if you normally would've stuck around and willingly played the full round - and that applies doubly so for modes like Passtime, Mannpower, CTF, Degroot Keep, etc.
I finally got to play some "casual" and comp, I like the idea behind casual but it's not fucking causal, remove the disconnect penalty and add an option to join existing games then call it casual.
comp in release form is fun, sucks the first game I played had a disconnect because it was really good.
[QUOTE=BlindSniper17;50672452]I thought Passtime looked kinda gimmicky (in a bad way), but I tried it and it's actually super fun. The only disappointment is that I either have to play on a [I][B]"casual"[/B][/I] matchmaking server where I have to wait several minutes to find a game and dedicate an indefinite amount of time to playing a full match (plus the pre-match countdown), or I have to go to a community server with low population and/or people trying to get the Merasmus TV achievement (not that I mind people trying to get the achievement on community servers, but it just makes it harder to find a legit game).
It feels like one of those game modes where it would be more fun and relaxing if you didn't come in with the mindset of being stuck on the server if you wanted to leave early or switch to another map or something. Lots of TF2's appeal comes from being a pick up and play game in short chunks. Like, I'm not saying that as in I have a short attention span, but rather, it's about the principle of knowing you have the option to leave or change servers if you want. If you get penalized and the [I][B]"casual"[/B][/I] rules make things overly complicated, it makes the game feel more imposing even if you normally would've stuck around and willingly played the full round - and that applies doubly so for modes like Passtime, Mannpower, CTF, Degroot Keep, etc.[/QUOTE]
My 1st time trying to join a Passtime casual server I waited for 30 minutes before getting put onto a server who's game ended 5 seconds later.
Wow, are the servers still fucking down?
I went to sleep thinking that by the time that I woke up, they'd be fine. Boy was I wrong.
[IMG]https://dl.dropbox.com/s/nszz9qmltv57e38/20160708133426_1.jpg[/IMG]
Heavy is bad at math :v:
I think they could revamp some of the system by having Quickplay and Casual Matchmaking co-exist. Both could tie into your XP by prioritizing matches with similarly ranked players, but Quickplay could abandon the negative penalties for leaving and implement the classic format. Casual Matchmaking can be fun in certain cases, but it feels too formal and drawn out in general for the pick up and play nature of TF2. It's a different beast than CS:GO, but that's ok.
Yeah, things like Autobalance suck and this is a good workaround in concept, but sometimes you just wanna dick around on CTF, play with a gimmicky load out, or go for a quick round without a formal, dedicated match set up. It's great for certain situations, but it's definitely not a one size fits all solution like what Valve is currently trying to set it up as.
Community Servers would be fine if they weren't plagued by Source Engine's security vulnerabilities.
On the bright side of this update; my Australian community server has been full for the first time ever.
Yep, game servers down again, someone pissed on the server.
My initial thoughts/impressions since Casual MM simply isn't finding me games in a reasonable amount of time at the moment:
Even though I'm someone who's campaigned for reworking Valve pubs in a way that there'd be a few basic skill/experience-based tiers for different categories of players, I never imagined that they'd go so far as to flat out remove the old, Quickplay-filled, drop-in and drop-out-at-any-time Valve pubs that DID have the benefit of allowing people to quickly find populated games at pretty much any time of the day, on particular modes or maps that they enjoy. Even half-forgotten stuff like Junction, Egypt, non-Hightower PLR maps and once-dead maps like Hydro, Watergate and Degroot Keep.
The Casual 12v12 MM should have been added [I]alongside [/I] a decreased, but still sufficiently numerous number of old-school Valve servers that would continue housing people that don't mind playing against very different player types, goofing off, trying weird loadouts. Or basically just anybody that wants to find a quick, populated game of TF2, even on a specific favorite map, near-instantly.
But now, Valve have taken the accessibility and laxness of TF2's casual pub matches by[I] completely[/I] removing that option and replacing it with a well-intended Matchmaking form of 12v12 that, while potentially invigorating pubbing for more experienced players like me, demands a lot more commitment and patience waiting for MM to do its thing. Here's a list of issues and downsides I can think of at first glance:
- you have to commit to an entire 12v12 pub match, otherwise you risk much longer wait times
- there's no votekick for griefers or toxic assholes
- you can't freeely choose to play on a specific map, even a specific mode at this point, since you're always forced to search for at least 2 different gamemodes in the current Casual MM
- the wait times appear awfully long atm, and even though they'll likely fix and improve that, it's still gonna be minutes of waiting around in many cases I bet. Especially at times when there's much less player traffic.
- I've heard many reports that MM keeps sending players to faraway servers with awful ping. In the old QP, you could easily pick a server with acceptable ping
- I doubt that Community servers are featured prominently enough in the new UI, and I believe most of them are too far gone or outright dead in terms of activity to be able to fill the need for drop-in-at-any-time 12v12 pubs that will now arise. Id' love to be wrong, but I don't think things will improve for them much.
- because the decent community servers not infested by bots are only really active for a few hours on evenings at best (often only on certain days), TF2 is at risk of not providing many players that want to play at less busy times of the day (mornings, late nights, before noon etc.) a quick enough method of finding active TF2 pubs that aren't Casual MM. Community servers aren't active for most of the day, the old type of Valve pubs that had constant traffic even at those times is gone, and MM might takes [I]ages[/I] during those times of the day if there aren't enough people playing.
- Getting randomly matched with random individuals (even with the benefit of them hopefully being better skilled opposition or teammates on average) for a single round on a single random map/mode onyl further facilitates the lack of any proper socializing/bonding between players. Not that the old Valve servers had so much of that, but at least you could go through multiple matches and map changes with roughly the same people on a particular server.
All in all, this is super risky and way too bold of a move from the TF2 Team, imo, even for someone who finds basic idea of ''12v12 Casual MM pubs for more demanding pubbers and more even matches/better teammates'' a good one by itself. They should've kept the old-style Valve pubs alongside the Casual and Competitive MM options instead of totally removing them.
Maybe this will lead to a resurgence of good 24-man community pubs with stock or near-stock gameplay, but I feel this would help them more 2-4 years ago when there were still dozens of decent ones around, before they made the QP default changes that pretty much wiped them off. There's hardly any community servers capable of replacing former Valve pubs as the 'jump into a populated game on your beloved map/mode quickly'' option right now, especially outside evenings. Rest of the day, they're simply not active enough.
They had good intentions listening to demands for some form of structure/basic matchmaking being given to 12v12 Valve pubs, but I didn't expect they'd bury the old type of Valve servers entirely. And I didn't expect they'd go with the option of ''you have to wait quite a while for MM to place you into a particular pub server, and you can't choose a specific map/mode, and you have to commit for an entire match''.
If anything, I expected normal ''join and leave at any moment with no penalties'' Valve servers that just had some basic skill tiers assigned to them (Beginner, Experienced, Advanced), and the game sort of suggesting these tiers to you based on a rough evalation of your pub performances.
Question: Do you guys think that removing the Shortstop's Healing Bonus was completely unnecessary?
I expected nothing, but I was still disappointed.
Another thing to consider is that they could add a matchmaking filter similar to what Halo Reach had; they had a filter where you could search for players with a similar mindset of wanting to have a good time versus players who wanted a legit game, on top of having casual and ranked levels.
Something like that could work for TF2. Again, this is a great idea in concept, it's just a bit too heavy handed in its current execution for casual matches.
Casual matchmaking was fun for a bit when it actually worked, then our Engineer started griefing. There's no vote kick.
Then some people left, resulting in an 8v12 match with nobody being able to join. Once someone leaves it can very well be over.
And abandoning penalties. Why.
Just remove ranking in Casual and take out the penalty.
Played a 12-10 of players Gold Rush, each section it was slowly losing players. After the enemy team succesfully get their 7 points, we were 7-6 on players.
Because some of the better players left, my team actually beat their steamroll time but in the end i didn't get any exp because "Game coordinator". It's so pointless to play with a competitive mindset in a freaking "casual" match :v:
[QUOTE=Flubbman;50672500]Casual matchmaking was fun for a bit when it actually worked, then our Engineer started griefing. There's no vote kick.
Then some people left, resulting in an 8v12 match with nobody being able to join. Once someone leaves it can very well be over.
And abandoning penalties. Why.[/QUOTE]
Abandoning penalties is my only major gripe with the new changes.
Also maybe allow people to be replaced if they leave like Overwatch's quickplay.
Another idea that would really help out is the ability to play while matchmaking finds a server, sometimes I don't want to just stare at a matching screen while I wait.
Valve don fucked up this time.
I liked how Quickplay sent me to a server very quickly, now replaced by Casual play, which is 200 times slower.
Couldn't even get into a Comp server.
On the other hand, I found a tr_walkway server with people who think server commands are hacks, so I had a pretty good time making them leave.
I'm pretty sure abandon penalties for casual is a bug. Valve can be dumb, but I don't think they'd be that dumb.
Remember, the same thing happened with MvM for a while, could be the same issue.
[QUOTE=Fortune11709;50672516]I'm pretty sure abandon penalties for casual is a bug. Valve can be dumb, but I don't think they'd be that dumb.
Remember, the same thing happened with MvM for a while, could be the same issue.[/QUOTE]
They made the Duck Journal.
So sky's the limit.
It's really hard to stay positive about this...
All they really need to do is rework casual a bit, revert some balance changes and figure out a way forward, perhaps starting an active conversation with the community about where they went wrong and what they can do instead. With any other company I'd be confident it would be dealt with in a couple of days (or next week in this case), but I'm reluctantly expecting nothing from them for at least a couple of months, or whenever the war ends and the next big update hits.
I don't know why they don't just reach out to the community for suggestions. They keep all quiet about it and just end up with a gamble on how the update is received. They could just make a thread on reddit and use the top voted posts for ideas.
Looks like "something" might be happening...
[IMG]http://puu.sh/pUrp1/bba2e3e51f.png[/IMG]
I finally got some points the game in casual, none for the comp game I played but I guess that was due to a disconnection.
I may or may not come up with a Phtoshopped mockup for this later, but for now, you only get me brainstorming this via text because I'm tired and I stayed up late following the news elsewhere.
Introducing BlindSniper17's revised and (not) patented [B]Casual TF2 System:[/B]
[B][U]Upon selecting Casual gameplay in the menu, the player is presented with these options:[/U][/B]
Option 1: [B][U]Choose your casual game type:[/U][/B]
Play to win! (Current Casual Matchmaking system)
Play for fun! (Classic Quickplay)
[B][U][IF PLAYER SELECTS "Play for fun!"][/U][/B]
Option 1.5: Opt in to prioritizing players with a similar XP level
Yes (default)
No
[B][U][IF PLAYER SELECTS "Play to Win!"][/U][/B]
Players are forced to play with others who have similar experience level
Option 2: [U][B]Opt into one of multiple skill levels:[/B][/U]
Normal: (Default)
Intermediate: (Unlock with X Criteria)
Advanced: (Unlock with Y Criteria)
[If players win a notably large amount of games in a short amount of time - even in "Play for fun" - and they have a certain XP level that a new player would not have, they automatically get forced into "Intermediate" at bare minimum instead of "normal" to prevent Pub-stomping. However, players with high XP can still otherwise remain in "normal" level games if they don't win lots of games and/or score high, so that they can have the freedom to mess around or try gimmicky load outs if they please, instead of frustrating other players at a lower skill set]
First game of casual versus a full team of heavy/medic combo and two snipers called "hacking in matchmaking is fun". Top it all off with a loss, no exp and now I've been disconnected from the game coordinator. Again. Great start.
Kind of feel like the disco taunt for Spy is very unfitting for just him, maybe if it was all class id feel better about it.
OK, on the controversial Heavy adjustments...
The -20% damage reduction while spun up on Brass Beast and Natascha, in retrospect, was problematic in a few ways:
- The Sniper, an intended hard counter, could not one-shot an overhealed Heavy with a full charge headshot. This is made even worse if there's a Vaccinator Medic present with the correct resistance up, or really any Medic at all.
- Engineer has had some adjustments to their sentry guns, making it where Heavies became better at dealing with them (less protection versus minigun damage, I think?).
In the former, it greatly upset some intended fundamental counterplay. The damage reduction, in the latter case, easily swung it so that sentries became maybe too easy for Heavies with Brass Beast.
I think a better solution, in regards to the former problem the trait presented, would be to make it that a full-charge headshot gets the same damage properties as a backstab - to make it always a one-shot kill to any class, no matter what. This would allow more design space on damage reduction boosts for Heavy right then and there.
For the latter, maybe I'd have just had it so that there's a small damage penalty versus sentries to make it so that taking on a sentry with stock Minigun or Brass Beast is largely the same DPS-wise for Heavy.
I can't speak for Natascha, as I don't use it. For Brass Beast, I love that it's supposed to reward you for precision in deciding when to spin up and when not to, and would like to see that element maintained in any future adjustments.
I can see why the adjustments there were made to the damage reduction! I just think they could've been handled a little better to simply handle these edge case problems... and not just pull the rug out underneath.
Haven't been able to play a single game of MM or casual so far
[QUOTE=Fortune11709;50672516]I'm pretty sure abandon penalties for casual is a bug. Valve can be dumb, but I don't think they'd be that dumb.
Remember, the same thing happened with MvM for a while, could be the same issue.[/QUOTE]
I sincearly hope it is a bug.
but then again, I have more issues with Casual than just the abandon penalty...
[QUOTE=Fortune11709;50672525]I don't know why they don't just reach out to the community for suggestions. They keep all quiet about it and just end up with a gamble on how the update is received. They could just make a thread on reddit and use the top voted posts for ideas.[/QUOTE]An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:
- Fixed a bug where there was a single surface in a single map that hadn't been retextured with image macros about ducks, beans, bananas and so on
- Fixed a bug where the Heavy wasn't getting his +600% damage multiplier when within six feet of a spawn room door (thanks Lord Exor!)
- Fixed a bug where players crouching with the Sandvich equipped could be damaged by enemy players
- Removed spawn timers and freezecam, in line with community server standards
- Added a new community map: cp_orange
I remember seeing all those "Valve is stepping their game up to fight Blizzard" comments on the update trailer.
THEY WERE SO WRONG.
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