Major Update Speculation V35 - A Distinctive Lack of Communication - Games

[QUOTE=ikes;51579932]elite = gimmick items the reason the banana hat and the cardboard pirate are elite is because if those were common every server would be littered with bananas and pirates theyre goofy, artstyle-tampering items that shouldnt often be seen and are funny in moderation[/QUOTE] But what about the Batman promos, and low-tiered Graylien and Spooktacles? They're all quirky, goofy, and don't really fit the style, but super common.

[QUOTE=GuntMyFries;51579980]But what about the Batman promos, and low-tiered Graylien and Spooktacles? They're all quirky, goofy, and don't really fit the style, but super common.[/QUOTE] It's not like being wildly inconsistent is foreign to Valve.

[QUOTE=GuntMyFries;51579980]But what about the Batman promos, and low-tiered Graylien and Spooktacles? They're all quirky, goofy, and don't really fit the style, but super common.[/QUOTE] promotional items literally dont follow valve logic ever the graylien is small and not very prominent the spooktacles are really tame

[QUOTE=ikes;51579917]they put things that might obscure game mechanics or break the art style as elite grade so that theyre not often seen but a keen collector might buy one for themselves[/QUOTE] and this is why i hate tiered crates. things like the potassium bonnet or captain cardbeard wouldn't have been added at all if it weren't for the elite tier. it gives valve an excuse to ruin the artstyle for money. i know a lot of people say "the artstyle has already been dead for ages!!!!" but it really hasn't. up until about 2014 most new hats fit the game's theme and only a few were unfitting, but that ratio is slowly reversing

the amount of moonman spies and pinknana medics ive seen makes me think "elite" tier isnt high enough. [editline]24th December 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=EwanLan;51578508][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/SPGHZqZ.png[/IMG] This is his idiotic mindset that ruins tf2 for the entire playerbase. "I showed people this exploit,now everybody is doing it. valve has to fix it now." [/QUOTE] I infer what he's saying as "half the servers were already doing this before I made the video" Im pretty sure I did see someone mention it either on here or reddit the other day.

[QUOTE=EwanLan;51578508][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/SPGHZqZ.png[/IMG] This is his idiotic mindset that ruins tf2 for the entire playerbase. "I showed people this exploit,now everybody is doing it. valve has to fix it now." edit: To top this shitstorm off he filled it with ads as always, 4 of which are pre-roll. [T]http://i.imgur.com/bq62XJk.png[/T][/QUOTE] infinite 2forts/hightower and now the resurrection of the old teamkill bind from eons past (ye this bug existed before) good update valve anyways merry kringle fp

I really would like to know how much Valve accomplishes in a day.

Almost the end of the year Mr. Pinkerton Where's the goddamn comic

[QUOTE=Johnny Joe;51580808]Almost the end of the year Mr. Pinkerton Where's the goddamn comic[/QUOTE] Ok this shit pisses me off, this company makes millions of dollars and they can't figure out how to have a fucking management structure?! Fucking Work on the comic valve!

I've been watching the [URL="https://youtu.be/4FKB4eKo7Z0?t=34m54s"]Steam Dev days video on Game Server Hosting[/URL] and the Valve employee says that they were working on deploying game servers in 3 new regions by the end of the year (which of course may not be finished on time) - Chicago, South Africa and Warsaw. As someone living in Iowa I would love to see TF2 servers in Chicago for some very low ping times. Interestingly enough he also says that they're working on letting non Valve games run on Valve servers which would be pretty cool for smaller developers and publishers.

Just to gather some intel: How are everyone's experiences with the Casual Servers? Every second Server I join is half full, and already started - Playerslot refills only appear to be happening at the start of matches. However a few mericans say that it's working fine for them.

[QUOTE=Fluury;51581324]Just to gather some intel: How are everyone's experiences with the Casual Servers? Every second Server I join is half full, and already started - Playerslot refills only appear to be happening at the start of matches. However a few mericans say that it's working fine for them.[/QUOTE] I haven't played too many as of late due to the Holidays and other stuff I'm trying to work on, Hell I just finished a requested drawing recently and working on another request now lol. The ones I have joined have all ended up not getting back fill, at least not fast enough to counter the amount of people jumping ship when they show signs that they're going to lose. Most matches end up with few players on both teams. People seem to be swapping more then I'm expecting with the new manual balance though at least. But if the game doesn't fill up it's not as exciting as it could be with lots going on. I can't say anything about the whole ping adjustment when it comes to jumping into servers though. As I almost always got into VA servers, which I live near and usually nets me a ping 50 or less. Everything else, speed on joining servers and what not is fine. Happy as I mentioned before that the map voting process doesn't break because of my custom hud either.

[QUOTE=EwanLan;51578508] To top this shitstorm off he filled it with ads as always, 4 of which are pre-roll. [T]http://i.imgur.com/bq62XJk.png[/T][/QUOTE] That Overwatch ad, lol.

Here's the Comic Release dates, Not going to mean anything but at least they should bring some form of context: Ring of Fired [B]August 28, 2013[/B] Unhappy Returns [B]December 4, 2013[/B] A Cold Day in Hell [B]April 2, 2014[/B] Catch-Up Comic [B]May 2, 2014 [/B] Blood in the Water [B]October 2, 2014[/B] Old Wounds [B]August 31, 2015[/B]

[QUOTE=G=4//\/\3!2;51581906]Here's the Comic Release dates, Not going to mean anything but at least they should bring some form of context: Ring of Fired [B]August 28, 2013[/B] Unhappy Returns [B]December 4, 2013[/B] A Cold Day in Hell [B]April 2, 2014[/B] Catch-Up Comic [B]May 2, 2014 [/B] Blood in the Water [B]October 2, 2014[/B] Old Wounds [B]August 31, 2015[/B][/QUOTE] I wish this year was like 2014 where we got 2 main series comics.

[QUOTE=Fluury;51581324]Just to gather some intel: How are everyone's experiences with the Casual Servers? Every second Server I join is half full, and already started - Playerslot refills only appear to be happening at the start of matches. However a few mericans say that it's working fine for them.[/QUOTE] My first experience with smissmas casual was being matched into a match that already ended. (Really Valve? Casual still does this?) Thankfully the map vote works much better than the non existant re-match vote. Usually half the server leaves but its better than never being re-matched. The server still kicks you and makes you re-connect even if the same map won the vote which is really unnecessary. The new autobalance thing is a lot better than having none but unbalanced matches are still far too common. It works but is much slower and slightly less effective than the old system. Even though players can stay connected to the same server indefinitely its not very good compared to Quickplay. Quickplay did a better job keeping servers populated. A map transition on Quickplay usually kept the majority of players while Casual tends to lose half the server and doesn't even try to re-populate it. (Which could be a bug.) This leads to matches eventually bleeding players which requires you to re-queue. Unfortunately we might need to wait for the summer 2017 update for this to be improved/fixed. In my personal opinion all of these features Casual recently got it should have had on launch. (Or added quickly post release.) Despite being a Quickplay "upgrade" Casual still lacks basic features and has been getting basic functionality only during a "major" update. The system generally still does a worse job than Quickplay and, in my opinion, is still extremely infuriating to use. (Albeit far less now.) Sadly its still not in a state that makes me want to play TF2.

The game is essentially unplayable right now with all the spoilsports abusing the team killing glitch. Thanks a lot Valve--we'd probably have been better off with nothing, because that's all this update basically amounted to anyway.

all they need to do is make the system more strict on how it matches players on skill level, the game isn't fun when over half the players on your team are rank 1-5 and haven't even been on steam long enough to get profile pics while the enemy team is full of fucking pubstars

There's nothing wrong with a good trial by fire; that's how I learned to play and everyone else should follow suit. There's no use in coddling new players--the weak will perish and the strong will endure.

they only need to change one thing, make the GC prefer to refill matches rather than start new ones. the thing about the server kicking you when a new map is starting even when it's the same map is necessary, you're not being sent to another server, it's just resetting the map and starting setup time again, which is best done by resetting the map to avoid potential problems, this is engine limitation and it won't change, the same happens with CSGO casual as well.

[QUOTE=Nebrassy;51582464]they only need to change one thing, make the GC prefer to refill matches rather than start new ones. the thing about the server kicking you when a new map is starting even when it's the same map is necessary, you're not being sent to another server, it's just resetting the map and starting setup time again, which is best done by resetting the map to avoid potential problems, this is engine limitation and it won't change, the same happens with CSGO casual as well.[/QUOTE] What was the problem with the way the old quickplay, or community servers worked? The maps did not have to reload between each match back then. Or with mp_restartgame 1, mp, waitingforplayers_restart 1?

[QUOTE=LZoleee;51582501]What was the problem with the way the old quickplay, or community servers worked? The maps did not have to reload between each match back then. Or with mp_restartgame 1, mp, waitingforplayers_restart 1?[/QUOTE] Quickplay never restarted a game, scores were never reset, only when a vote scramble passes it would start a new round, and extended map time when a vote extend passes, community servers uses plugins so the vote becomes change map to this or this or extend current map time, if it was actually voting for the current map it would reset for sure. The map needs to reset to start new trackings, especially with casual since you need to wipe team wins, scores and all individual tracks for each player, map reset is the quick, easy and safe way to do it.

[QUOTE=Dreamscape;51582264]My first experience with smissmas casual was being matched into a match that already ended. (Really Valve? Casual still does this?) .[/QUOTE] This is always occasionally going to happen since the game has no way if knowing exactly when a game is going to end unless you're running out of time on the last point.

[QUOTE=Lord Exor;51582430]There's nothing wrong with a good trial by fire; that's how I learned to play and everyone else should follow suit. There's no use in coddling new players--the weak will perish and the strong will endure.[/QUOTE] That's some meta Hunger Games shit - except the weak ones are the game's hope for growth now. Sure, LoL that doesn't cater to newbs still has a big playerbase so making it easy isn't required - but if you wanna compete with a "noob-friendly game" like OW then it becomes a necessity - and before you whip out your keyboards and rage at me for calling OW noob friendly - there is little difference between someone new to FPSes and FPS veteran in that game from the looks of it. It's designed to be like this. LoL doesn't have a "easy to pick up" competitor as far as I remember (maybe DotA, idk tho), so it doesn't have to worry about new player influx - TF2 [B]DOES[/B] have a "casual" competitor and it should make itself easier to learn. [QUOTE=Nebrassy;51582464]they only need to change one thing, make the GC prefer to refill matches rather than start new ones. the thing about the server kicking you when a new map is starting even when it's the same map is necessary, you're not being sent to another server, it's just resetting the map and starting setup time again, which is best done by resetting the map to avoid potential problems, this is engine limitation and it won't change, the same happens with CSGO casual as well.[/QUOTE] Resetting the map not only avoids most problems with values in the memory not being cleaned up, but also gives a very clear indication "Hey, new match is starting"

[QUOTE=quake84;51582811]That's some meta Hunger Games shit - except the weak ones are the game's hope for growth now. Sure, LoL that doesn't cater to newbs still has a big playerbase so making it easy isn't required - but if you wanna compete with a "noob-friendly game" like OW then it becomes a necessity - and before you whip out your keyboards and rage at me for calling OW noob friendly - there is little difference between someone new to FPSes and FPS veteran in that game from the looks of it. It's designed to be like this. LoL doesn't have a "easy to pick up" competitor as far as I remember (maybe DotA, idk tho), so it doesn't have to worry about new player influx - TF2 [B]DOES[/B] have a "casual" competitor and it should make itself easier to learn. Resetting the map not only avoids most problems with values in the memory not being cleaned up, but also gives a very clear indication "Hey, new match is starting"[/QUOTE] I'm not opposed to a broadened tutorial system, I'm simply of the mindset that players should be matched with anyone, regardless of skill level. Improvement comes faster when faced with superior opponents after all.

The teamkill exploit is back? How they hell did they manage that?

One of the reasons OW is doing well is because Jimmy - 12 years old, lost one hand in an accident - first time touching a keyboard in his entire life - isnt matched up against b4nny, but instead against fellow Jimmies - which boosts the enjoyment a lot, since you arent getting stomped. Improvement isn't the main focus of the game, it's to have fun, and you certainly have more of that if you play with people around your skill level.

[QUOTE=Lord Exor;51583042]I'm not opposed to a broadened tutorial system, I'm simply of the mindset that players should be matched with anyone, regardless of skill level. Improvement comes faster when faced with superior opponents after all.[/QUOTE] I do agree with this. Part of the learning process I went through over the years of gaming is observing how other peoples play and adapting to it, and eventually improving upon it. Other people can help give you new perspectives on how you can approach situations, which can have a big impact on how you play and preform. The problem I see now a days is that people don't pay enough attention to others enough to grasp what other people do. A lot of people feel like mindless robots who don't learn anything from what they do or see and thus, fail to improve upon it. Also, if the larger the gap is between a newer player and a more experienced player, the more difficult it can be to actually understand what and how they did things. More so if you get obliterated before you can really see what happened in the first place. Not to mention it'd be nice is people communicated more to work with one another in games, but I'm not sure how you can fix that sadly... Most people don't seem to respond to text or vocal chat anymore in games. =/ I really fleshed out tutorial would be a good starting point though into understanding a class, and hopefully get them a good idea on how to start off before using more experienced players for incite on how to improve though. [QUOTE=Fluury;51583052]One of the reasons OW is doing well is because Jimmy - 12 years old, lost one hand in an accident - first time touching a keyboard in his entire life - isnt matched up against b4nny, but instead against fellow Jimmies - which boosts the enjoyment a lot, since you arent getting stomped. Improvement isn't the main focus of the game, it's to have fun, and you certainly have more of that if you play with people around your skill level.[/QUOTE] Depends, back in QWTF people did actively help out newer players learn how to play the game during matches, even if on opposite teams. The community was fairly good about it too, and people did gradually get better in matches, which improved the over all experience of the match. Not sure how your going to get people to communicate better in matches though now a days, hard enough to get any communication at all. Not to mention that people were more laid back then and didn't try to stomp people into the dirt as well regularly. I do occasional get a response from people I try to pass on advice too from time to time so I guess there are a few exceptions. Also, I don't know about that about overwatch. I constantly hear about people bickering about some Elo Hell, and getting stuck with brain deads in competitive matchmaking when they solo queue up. Then again, I'd be caught dead doing competitive matchmaking solo queuing in the first place. If I do comp I'll find people I can enjoy playing with and play with them regularly instead of gambling with randoms.

[QUOTE=Fluury;51583052]One of the reasons OW is doing well is because Jimmy - 12 years old, lost one hand in an accident - first time touching a keyboard in his entire life - isnt matched up against b4nny, but instead against fellow Jimmies - which boosts the enjoyment a lot, since you arent getting stomped. Improvement isn't the main focus of the game, it's to have fun, and you certainly have more of that if you play with people around your skill level.[/QUOTE] Overwatch is a success primarily due to a monumental marketing campaign, and not necessarily because it's baby's first shooter.

I have to disagree, playing with pros won't help you in any way except hate the game when you just installed it, however, when you level up to a good amount, say level 100, you'll be matched by other people of the same or higher level, even if they're not pros, atleast they're not completely clueless, it just gives you a higher quality game. if I had the matches I'm having now (around level 100) when I first got the game, I probably wouldn't have kept playing.