TF2 General Chat and Speculation Station V6 - Year of the Guard Dog SURVEY IN OP - Games

Matchmaking bans are manual right? Because [URL="https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/7udv6z/vac_finally_been_updated_with_the_new_hacks_just/"]someone[/URL] just got 4 alerts someone they reported was banned.

hey now, don't throw shade at the frontier justice. if anything it's the most balanced crit storing weapon in the game since it require's the engineer's sentry to be destroyed, leaving him near defenseless, while the diamondback is 100% accurate on the first shot is given to a class that can cloak and disguise themselves, and it gains crits for the spy just doing what he was supposed to do in the first place. while saying this I do have to say the frontier justice should only give half the crits for a mini sentry's kills/assists that it would give for a level 3's

[QUOTE=rolfum;53098314]hey now, don't throw shade at the frontier justice. if anything it's the most balanced crit storing weapon in the game since it require's the engineer's sentry to be destroyed, leaving him near defenseless, while the diamondback is 100% accurate on the first shot is given to a class that can cloak and disguise themselves, and it gains crits for the spy just doing what he was supposed to do in the first place. while saying this I do have to say the frontier justice should only give half the crits for a mini sentry's kills/assists that it would give for a level 3's[/QUOTE] I feel that you can't really address the issue with the diamond back and frontier justice without addressing the other. I would honestly consider the person a hypocrite if they didn't IMO. Both of which function the same for giving perks to the classes what they should already be doing in the first place. I really just wish that both of them had a low cap to the amount of crits stored that the weapon could have... Actually no, I just want the diamond back made into a completely new weapon altogether honestly... I also don't agree with the mini / normal sentries bit either as Mini's are now really situational now in comparison to what normal sentries do. Majority of the time I run gunslinger for the sake of handicaping myself or just using it for the health boost honestly. It'd be pretty dumb to handicap it even further with the frontier justice on top of it.

There is a 4-tiered pyramid of balance offense in TF2 weapons. It goes like this, from the bottom of the pyramid to the top: Crutch > Direct upgrade > Overpowered > Broken Allow me to explain each tier. A crutch is a weapon which is good when bad players use it, but good players DON'T need it to be good. Some historical crutches are the Black Box back when it gave 20 health per rocket regardless of damage, the Loch-n-Load when damage spread existed and it could one-shot light classes, and the Machina, which is still a crutch, but also used to be able to one-shot 175 health classes with damage spread. Crutches are underpowered and needless in the hands of a sufficiently good player. One step up the pyramid is the direct upgrade tier. Just because something is a direct upgrade compared to stock does NOT mean it is overpowered. Some modern-day direct upgrades would be the Third Degree, Tomislav, and the Iron Bomber. These weapons are almost unanimously cited as being better than stock. But this does not mean that they are overpowered or broken. All of these weapons are arguably better than stock, but by a very small margin, leading to them ultimately playing pretty much the same as stock, with no major differences. On the third tier we have overpowered. Some currently overpowered weapons would be the Gunboats, the Crusader's Crossbow, and Degreaser. Overpowered weapons often amplify an existing aspect of the class, and can even be a direct upgrade as well. Though this doesn't always mean they deserve a nerf. The three weapons listed above create interesting playstyles and scenarios, and raise the skill-ceiling of the respective class. They are overpowered, and maybe even direct upgrades, but not broken. Finally, at the top of the pyramid, is the broken tier. All tiers up until now have not necessarily implied that weapons within that tier are deserving of a nerf. But the broken tier almost always does. If a weapon is broken, that means it breaks the flow of the game in a very disruptive and often cheap or easy way. Historically broken weapons would be weapons like the release Tomislav, the release Vitasaw, the release Soda Popper. Take note that all these weapons had upsides which were very easy to achieve, but had massive impact on the flow of the game. The Tomislav allowed Heavy to rev up almost instantly, shutting out ambushers, bombers, and other assailants as fast as the player could react. The Vitasaw gave you a practically free amount of Uber upon death, putting you at a constant advantage. The Soda Popper gave Scout, a class already capable of massive burst damage, minicrits for absolutely free. As you can see, broken weapons are almost always deserving of a nerf, whereas a reasonable case could definitely be made for the other three tiers. You could argue that crutches help newer players perform better, or that direct upgrades often don't have major changes compared to stock, or that overpowered weapons can improve the skill ceiling and abilities of classes.

IMO Crits as a whole have been and are a huge outlier, random, stored, or otherwise, for proper game balance. The only time they've been relatively balanced is in the Kritzkrieg, which serves as a fair and combatable counter to the often used Medigun's ubers - it charges faster and can kill in one swift motion, meaning stock Medigun users have to play very carefully to avoid not being beaten. Otherwise, it's just been a divisive, out of whack balance decision. Random crits have been a clear debacle ever since the game released, Diamondback, FJ, and any other crit-storing weapons are huge problem because the power they give is so obscene, either they're too weak to use normally or they risk becoming too powerful in general. The very notion that "no random crits" has to be a commonly used downside for many weapons should speak volumes about just how fucking stupid the system can be. It's not just that they're random, it's that they deal 3x the damage in a game where the only class that can't either put out a consistent 50 DPS or a quick burst of 300+ damage in a matter of seconds is the Medic, when 300 health is already enough to kill literally every class in the game barring an overhealed Heavy. The fact that a mechanic in the game allows an instant, swift death, means a lot of the game's strategy goes out the window whenever the mechanic comes into play. If the game worked more like Overwatch where each class has more than enough health to survive a crit and crits only did twice the damage, then maybe it'd be an okay mechanic, but it's so unforgiving, unpredictable, with so little counterplay that any hope for coordinated fighting in a situation where crits exist goes out the window, and what was once a "If I play this right I'll get the kill, if not I got outplayed" context becomes "either I run away fearful for my life because one shot will literally kill me without any way to counter it, or pray whoever has the crit has awful aim". It's anti-fun. All I can say is mini-crits are a much healthier and more balanced mechanic, and in the long run, they should've replaced crits on everything except the Kritzkrieg a long time ago, and we can only hope it eventually will.

I still think crits should be handled like the trick or treat pumpkins during Halloween, just floating collectibles you grab so you know exactly when you have crits.

[QUOTE=Rajikaru;53098349]IMO Crits as a whole have been and are a huge outlier, random, stored, or otherwise, for proper game balance. The only time they've been relatively balanced is in the Kritzkrieg, which serves as a fair and combatable counter to the often used Medigun's ubers - it charges faster and can kill in one swift motion, meaning stock Medigun users have to play very carefully to avoid not being beaten. Otherwise, it's just been a divisive, out of whack balance decision. Random crits have been a clear debacle ever since the game released, Diamondback, FJ, and any other crit-storing weapons are huge problem because the power they give is so obscene, either they're too weak to use normally or they risk becoming too powerful in general. The very notion that "no random crits" has to be a commonly used downside for many weapons should speak volumes about just how fucking stupid the system can be. It's not just that they're random, it's that they deal 3x the damage in a game where the only class that can't either put out a consistent 50 DPS or a quick burst of 300+ damage in a matter of seconds is the Medic, when 300 health is already enough to kill literally every class in the game barring an overhealed Heavy. The fact that a mechanic in the game allows an instant, swift death, means a lot of the game's strategy goes out the window whenever the mechanic comes into play. If the game worked more like Overwatch where each class has more than enough health to survive a crit and crits only did twice the damage, then maybe it'd be an okay mechanic, but it's so unforgiving, unpredictable, with so little counterplay that any hope for coordinated fighting in a situation where crits exist goes out the window, and what was once a "If I play this right I'll get the kill, if not I got outplayed" context becomes "either I run away fearful for my life because one shot will literally kill me without any way to counter it, or pray whoever has the crit has awful aim". It's anti-fun. All I can say is mini-crits are a much healthier and more balanced mechanic, and in the long run, they should've replaced crits on everything except the Kritzkrieg a long time ago, and we can only hope it eventually will.[/QUOTE] KGB are v1 Carbine are perfectly fine. when it's difficult to obtain the crits it isn't nearly as problematic.

[QUOTE=Hell-met;53098366]KGB are v1 Carbine are perfectly fine. when it's difficult to obtain the crits it isn't nearly as problematic.[/QUOTE] I guess, but at the same time they're fine in that they're literally rarely used if ever. GRU and FOS beat out KGB in every mode except Medieval, and Jarate and Razorback both still have a pretty hefty grip on Sniper secondary meta.

What about weapons like Buff Banner? For the most part I haven't really heard of any issues with that particular weapon... IT gives off mini crits, but it is a crits mechanic none the less and it buffs the people around him as well...

[QUOTE=Rajikaru;53098396]I guess, but at the same time they're fine in that they're literally rarely used if ever. GRU and FOS beat out KGB in every mode except Medieval, and Jarate and Razorback both still have a pretty hefty grip on Sniper secondary meta.[/QUOTE] what does that have to do with your point about crits

[QUOTE=Ace of Butts;53098352]I still think crits should be handled like the trick or treat pumpkins during Halloween, just floating collectibles you grab so you know exactly when you have crits.[/QUOTE] Maybe more like the mann up powerup where it's a stationary pickup similar to a health kit or ammo kit, except a lot more rare and spawns much slower. Except make it work for only one person.

[QUOTE=Kitt Stargaze;53098403]What about weapons like Buff Banner? For the most part I haven't really heard of any issues with that particular weapon... IT gives off mini crits, but it is a crits mechanic none the less and it buffs the people around him as well...[/QUOTE] I said at the end of my post that mini-crits are much healthier and easier to balance. That's a blanket statement. if I feel invested enough (which i don't) i'd make a separate rant about mini-crits, but in general (except for Jarate and other regenerative tossable weapons that are their own problem) they're much better for balancing. [QUOTE=Hell-met;53098405]what does that have to do with your point about crits[/QUOTE] It has to do with the idea that they're irrelevant in balancing? Meaning they're also outliers in a completely different sense? What does you bringing that up have to do with me talking about crits in the first place? I even outright said in my first post "weapons that involve crits or storing crits either have to be too weak to use normally or they're too strong and overwhelming". Unless you didn't read that part when you replied! Also v1 Carbine clearly wasn't fine or it wouldn't have been changed to give only mini-crits.

[QUOTE=Kitt Stargaze;53098403]What about weapons like Buff Banner? For the most part I haven't really heard of any issues with that particular weapon... IT gives off mini crits, but it is a crits mechanic none the less and it buffs the people around him as well...[/QUOTE] It takes effort and a hefty sum of damage to earn it, on a class which is almost always positioned near the dangerous front lines. It also has a very audible and visible audio and visual cue, respectively.

Holy shit I'm so horrible with the sticky launcher. I'm still not used to the reload time or the explosive radious. Most of my time as Demoman is playing the grenade + shield combo, but I gotta improve with the vanilla loadout for a more effective playstyle/trying to clean the 4 Engineer nest on last point.

Well crap I unboxed another one... [t]https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/919167172007972010/BAB09F311165AE93D8C04D103DE29E304271679B/[/t]

[QUOTE=FalconHBFS;53098464]Holy shit I'm so horrible with the sticky launcher. I'm still not used to the reload time or the explosive radious. Most of my time as Demoman is playing the grenade + shield combo, but I gotta improve with the vanilla loadout for a more effective playstyle/trying to clean the 4 Engineer nest on last point.[/QUOTE] Stickybomb + Grenade launcher combo makes you invincible if you can use it right

[QUOTE=Kincaid1;53098347]There is a 4-tiered pyramid of balance offense in TF2 weapons. It goes like this, from the bottom of the pyramid to the top: Crutch > Direct upgrade > Overpowered > Broken Allow me to explain each tier. A crutch is a weapon which is good when bad players use it, but good players DON'T need it to be good. Some historical crutches are the Black Box back when it gave 20 health per rocket regardless of damage, the Loch-n-Load when damage spread existed and it could one-shot light classes, and the Machina, which is still a crutch, but also used to be able to one-shot 175 health classes with damage spread. Crutches are underpowered and needless in the hands of a sufficiently good player. One step up the pyramid is the direct upgrade tier. Just because something is a direct upgrade compared to stock does NOT mean it is overpowered. Some modern-day direct upgrades would be the Third Degree, Tomislav, and the Iron Bomber. These weapons are almost unanimously cited as being better than stock. But this does not mean that they are overpowered or broken. All of these weapons are arguably better than stock, but by a very small margin, leading to them ultimately playing pretty much the same as stock, with no major differences. On the third tier we have overpowered. Some currently overpowered weapons would be the Gunboats, the Crusader's Crossbow, and Degreaser. Overpowered weapons often amplify an existing aspect of the class, and can even be a direct upgrade as well. Though this doesn't always mean they deserve a nerf. The three weapons listed above create interesting playstyles and scenarios, and raise the skill-ceiling of the respective class. They are overpowered, and maybe even direct upgrades, but not broken. Finally, at the top of the pyramid, is the broken tier. All tiers up until now have not necessarily implied that weapons within that tier are deserving of a nerf. But the broken tier almost always does. If a weapon is broken, that means it breaks the flow of the game in a very disruptive and often cheap or easy way. Historically broken weapons would be weapons like the release Tomislav, the release Vitasaw, the release Soda Popper. Take note that all these weapons had upsides which were very easy to achieve, but had massive impact on the flow of the game. The Tomislav allowed Heavy to rev up almost instantly, shutting out ambushers, bombers, and other assailants as fast as the player could react. The Vitasaw gave you a practically free amount of Uber upon death, putting you at a constant advantage. The Soda Popper gave Scout, a class already capable of massive burst damage, minicrits for absolutely free. As you can see, broken weapons are almost always deserving of a nerf, whereas a reasonable case could definitely be made for the other three tiers. You could argue that crutches help newer players perform better, or that direct upgrades often don't have major changes compared to stock, or that overpowered weapons can improve the skill ceiling and abilities of classes.[/QUOTE] let me have a go at this. a [B]crutch[/B] is basically a tool in wich the rewards outweights the risks needed to earn them, eventually making a bad player perform good and a good player perform better than good. (degreaser, machinima, huntsman, sandman, v1 black box) a stock is the most basic tool in your arsenal, from wich all other tools are measured in terms. these aren't necesarily a balanced nor better/worse as a whole, these just work in the most basic, straight fashion they can to get the job done. then there is a side grade, wich allows players to confront a situation in a different way than you would normally do and directly reward your good performance instead of your inherent use of the tool itself(direct hit, loose cannon, kritzkrieg, sandwich, mad milk, dragon fury, rescue ranger) a direct upgrade is just a tool whose impact in your performace outweights the same performance if you were using a a stock in any and every regard, mostly because they grant benefits that stock's raw stats can't compete. (anything but the bonesaw) then there's underpowered, wich are basically every tool that, due to the poor/negible nature of its risk/reward stats will make you underperform when and only when compared to other tools of the same nature (sun on a stick, baby face blaster, liberty launcher, natasha) finally, overpowered is whatever will make you outperform everything and everyone with little to no regard of your own performance/input as a player. (v1 tomislav, v2 short circuit, v1 minisentry, v2 flamethrower)

[QUOTE=qubestf2;53098484]Stickybomb + Grenade launcher combo makes you invincible if you can use it right[/QUOTE] Wholeheartedly agree. Demoman and his weapons can be a gamechanger if used properly, or you can be a complete fool if you cannot land any of your pipes or stickies. At least Demoknight gives you a little training with grenades.

[QUOTE=Metaru;53098499]a [B]crutch[/B] is basically a tool in wich the rewards outweights the risks needed to earn them, eventually making a bad player perform good and a good player perform better than good. (degreaser, machinima, huntsman, sandman, v1 black box)[/QUOTE] Crutches generally don't benefit good players. The Liberty Launcher's earlier days were a good defition of the term crutch as good players could land most rockets easily as is, so all they were getting hit by were the LL's downsides... Crutch was picked as a term because of how real life crutches work in real life. They help people who are crippled walk, but are nothing more then dead weight to those who can walk perfectly fine. crippled people are suppose to represent newer players, while people who walk fine are people who have played enough to be at least decent, but go all the way up to high end players.

[IMG]https://puu.sh/zdYIg/d9855b25f5.PNG[/IMG] Noice Also that steamed hams map I made got featured in PC Gamer: [url]http://www.pcgamer.com/steamed-hams-tf2-map/#comment-jump[/url]

[QUOTE=Kitt Stargaze;53098403]What about weapons like Buff Banner? For the most part I haven't really heard of any issues with that particular weapon... IT gives off mini crits, but it is a crits mechanic none the less and it buffs the people around him as well...[/QUOTE] Speaking of the Buff Banner, does anyone else think it needs a buff? Battalion's Backup gives you +20 HP and the Concheror only takes 480 damage to fully charge plus you get +1-4 HP per second, but the Buff Banner doesn't have any extra bonus attribute and takes the full 600 damage to charge. Maybe something like -15% self blast damage?

[QUOTE=ComodoreBluth;53098556]Speaking of the Buff Banner, does anyone else think it needs a buff? Battalion's Backup gives you +20 HP and the Concheror only takes 480 damage to fully charge plus you get +1-4 HP per second, but the Buff Banner doesn't have any extra bonus attribute and takes the full 600 damage to charge. Maybe something like -15% self blast damage?[/QUOTE] Apparently one of Heavy's weapon's had a 5% resistance to critical damage at one point. Wouldn't know myself. Wasn't there. Let's give that to the Buff Banner. It'd fit thematically, but we might need to increase the resistance.

[QUOTE=ComodoreBluth;53098556]Speaking of the Buff Banner, does anyone else think it needs a buff? Battalion's Backup gives you +20 HP and the Concheror only takes 480 damage to fully charge plus you get +1-4 HP per second, but the Buff Banner doesn't have any extra bonus attribute and takes the full 600 damage to charge. Maybe something like -15% self blast damage?[/QUOTE] Would +20% Max Primary Ammo on Wearer work? Four extra rockets in the reserve and more ammo from ammo packs. Though it'll do nothing for the Cow Mangler however.

[QUOTE=ComodoreBluth;53098556]Speaking of the Buff Banner, does anyone else think it needs a buff? Battalion's Backup gives you +20 HP and the Concheror only takes 480 damage to fully charge plus you get +1-4 HP per second, but the Buff Banner doesn't have any extra bonus attribute and takes the full 600 damage to charge. Maybe something like -15% self blast damage?[/QUOTE] Conc IMO needs to be toned down a bit... I don't see Battalion's Backup enough though to note how it preforms alongside the other banners though. I heard it had it's own problems here... Buff IMO I feel is fine as it stands though, I only asked above to see if I can get other peoples input since the topic of items that grant crits was currently popular.

So, in the TF2 Facepunch Discord, me and a few other people were having a massive conversation about map design, what is and isn't satisfying (under said context), non-linearity vs. linearity in maps, etc. And biggest of all, the problems with 5cp. So I decided to create a map layout (missing: props, in-room walls, balconies, a difference between open doors and shutter doors, etc) that attempted to fix some of the problems with 5cp. [t]https://i.imgur.com/RkLhLz1.png[/t] Notes: Black spots are doors. Basically, the idea is that you can basically go from your second to enemy last, but you'll get spammed out because you're in way low ground. But the option is there. This would allow a team to theoretically go back to their spawn and uber into the enemy second, or an attacking team to uber into last from their second. Blue and red boxes are spawn/forward spawn. Elevation is made in such a way that the standard 5cp flow still occurs for cautious teams that don't like getting spammed out, but for the brave teams, powerful flank potential exists (Getting your second pushed? Go through the enemy second and flank from mid! etc).

If you're having difficulty with the Mossrock contract, here's two hiding areas you can use to ambush. Crouchjump to the bridge to quickly get to the first point. [t]https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/933803870801347515/F6DF95BCCAF66FC1C7B105AD7884EFF49CA98F5E/[/t] But I've had more success with crouching below this staircase near last and running up to last when blu is capping. [t]https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/933803870801347820/F838B6F0A079BD91655C79B98262AB06CAD14DA5/[/t]

Anyone else remember that period of a few days when the Buffalo Steak gave minicrits to all weapons? I think it was after Gun Mettle. Minicrit Brass Beast was too much fun.

[QUOTE=Kitt Stargaze;53098610]Conc IMO needs to be toned down a bit...[/QUOTE] Make the health regen apply 2.5s after taking damage. I shouldn't need to directly hit someone with 200 max health 3 times with pipes that deal 100 damage when he has no resistances applied to him.

[QUOTE=ComodoreBluth;53098556]Speaking of the Buff Banner, does anyone else think it needs a buff? Battalion's Backup gives you +20 HP and the Concheror only takes 480 damage to fully charge plus you get +1-4 HP per second, but the Buff Banner doesn't have any extra bonus attribute and takes the full 600 damage to charge. Maybe something like -15% self blast damage?[/QUOTE] no. you remove regen and max hp off the others. and then you make conch need 600

whaaaat no, conch paired with rushing pyros/heavies [I]is totally balanced[/I] why would you have that way less frequently.