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

so funny u put this, i was just about to ask you for weapon ideas. I was gonna ask you what you also thought of a weapon that makes it so that while a sapper is on a building, your cloak charges. could be a cloak replacement or revolver replacement, maybe even a sapper replacement that doenst damage a sentry at all. idk, your thoughts?

I've seen people talk about how highlander folks are being sort of stubborn sticklers that refuse to move to the version of competitive that's better for viewing and commentating, and that they're hurting the comp community and all that. How can TF2 be an esport that people want to watch with a divided competitive community? I would argue though, that maybe actually being an esport isn't the same thing as being a good competitive game, and is maybe less important. Which is more important: a game that people enjoy watching, or a game that people enjoy playing? I know for my part that I played a lot of competitive overwatch for a good number of months without giving the slightest shit about actually watching competitive overwatch. I also enjoy playing comp matches in TF2, but have no interest in watching comp. I have to wonder how many people are in a similar boat. Is it really helpful to be trying to push people to stop playing a version of the game they enjoy playing more, just because it doesn't make for good viewing? I feel like the most value of a competitive mode in a game is that it provides a fun, high skill gameplay environment, and that making it a spectator sport should take a back seat to that.

I personally have no problems with most of these suggestions, I think they're all pretty good, but the gun should deal at least some damage, or it really wouldn't be useful at all outside of competitive.

I have some critiques. 1 This is at ends with the idea of a pick class. Why would I debuff a player, when I could just kill them? I don't see a reason wherein being able to debuff a player would be a better option than outright picking them off. Sleeper works because you fundamentally lose the ability to pick, in turn creating a sub-class that has merit. If the Sleeper could headshot, they why would you go for jarate bodyshots? The same applies here. All this creates are Spy players who will C&D around, pestering players instead of being useful to their team. Fuck that, that is insidiously annoying to deal with, and I'd argue is less useful to a team than a pick. 2 This is complex, and honestly not useful to most people. I guess being able to imply DR when you aren't is kinda cool, but that isn't really worth it. The sound idea would only really work against players with well honed game sense, and that already is a niche. Not to mention how complex this sounds to operate. How would I know who heard it and who didn't? Wouldn't random, unfounded noises just make players more paranoid, making a Spy's job harder? This is a good idea on paper, but I'm hard pressed to see this work in practice. Overall, the idea doesn't outweigh the opportunity that stock sapper gives. If anything, the Sapper and it's weapon slot should only be based upon sentry/building debuffs. Anything else would be denying your team a useful and powerful tool, and in TEAM Fortress 2; we shouldn't be selfish now. 3 I really like this idea, but I rather see it based as a revolver replacement instead. Same principle, but just shoot where you want magic sonar to go. Trading personal firepower for team based tool is always a health and fair trade, but vice-versa is not. Otherwise, I love this idea. More informed uber pushes, or being able to show your team where a sniper is at; all healthy ideas. Not a sapper replacement though, see above for why. As for the spy buffs: Everything I'm down with, except for the cloak buff. You have 110% movement speed, afterburn is nerfed, etc. It has never been easier to sneak away after a pick. I would understand if it was legitimately hard to do, but through experience as spy and against spies, I disagree. But sapper outlines and knockback? Please holy shit, that would be amazing. overall great post, and I'd love to hear your comments on this

If you could permenantly delete three hats from TF2, what would they be? Banana hat. Magical Mercenary Head Prize or Baloonihoodie.

I like all these core ideas for spy in general, except the gun. Spy is not a cloaking sniper. Spy-is-not-a-cloaking-sniper. No guns effective at range for spy, even if they do no damage.

That's a little too niche- the main point of a cloak is to get where you need to be undetected. Enemy buildings are usually placed deeper into enemy territory, so getting there in the first place with limited cloak or no cloak (which I assume would be the downside of a tool like this) would be difficult. Additionally, the crux of my sapper replacement ideas is that they don't have anything to do with the enemy Engineer's buildings: there's not much more you can do with the sapping buildings concept aside from, well...sapping buildings. Whatever downside this has to balance out what it's doing would probably defeat whatever fringe benefit you might receive from it. I'm sorry, Mort. The slow status probably isn't necessary, but it does have precedent in other versions of TF. I wouldn't want it to be quite as egregious as, say, the Natascha. Perhaps to make it more tolerable the slow status will only activate at or past max range? Of course. Going with the crossbow's reverse-falloff mechanic, I think 30 up close to 60 at range would be acceptable. The marked for death status effect will also cause subsequent shots to deal more damage- minicrits are a 35% damage boost, so at close range this would make the weapon deal 40 damage. At the longest range, this would make the weapon deal 81 damage. Also, honestly, I'd just be having fun with a high-skill projectile. Hmm. I appreciate how civil you're being, but I gotta disagree with most of the things you've said. I'll explain why as civilly and clearly as possible, I know I have a tendency to speak too harshly when I don't intend to. This isn't an Appeal To Authority, but do know that these suggestions are coming from a competitive Spy main and are centered around Spy in competitive play. 1 - Limiting Spy's pick utility to melee-only simply isn't working at high levels of play. It's a sad fact of life for the Spy class right now, and why GunSpy was so prominent in EU HL prior to the Ambassador nerf. Against a coordinated team, there are times where you straight-up can't get a backstab, and in most of the situations where you do, you'll die immediately after. Having to consistently trade your life at high level play- and often not even getting the pick before you die- makes Spy a poor pick in any non-HL format. This is why Sniper is so strongly preferred in 6s: ranged pick utility is just better, all-around, than melee-only pick utility. Additionally, a common job of Spy in competitive is to coordinate picks with his teammates, either the flank (Soldier/Scout) or his team at large (generally the combo). This is excellent for that purpose, and also serves additional utility in teamfights, allowing Spy to mark players and more effectively focus them down with the help of his teammates. Where Spy cannot kill someone, it's best that he has an option to enable the kill- this is how most saps work in Highlander, since you generally need a coordinated sap-and-push or an uber to kill them. 2 - Situational awareness is not a niche. While it's true that these weapons would really only be useful in competitive play/in pubs where a lot of skilled players are present, it gives Spy the ability to forcibly divert attention without doing so at the cost of his own life. This gives him more pick utility if well-timed, but can also mask actual decloak noises, serve as a decoy versus where he actually is, and terrify the shit out of the team being subjected to it if it activates while they're pushing and can't see it. That's the value of this- fear and distraction, both key parts of Spy. Also, it's really not as complicated as I made it sound. A tldr version of The Sound and Fury: + Creates distracting noises when activated + Activate by throwing against a surface and pressing M1 + Cycle through distracting noises with M2 - Limited ammo - Can't sap Engineer buildings - Can be destroyed by all players on enemy team It's no more complicated than the disguise kit, really. 2 and 3 - Additionally, the Sapper has a fundamental problem: it is useless when there are no Engineers in play. What other classes have entire weapon slots dedicated entirely to another class? These sapper replacement ideas are intentional trade-offs in utility for the Spy, providing him other ways to be useful to his team. Additionally, sappers aren't even that good anyways- in most competitive games, you straight-up just need an uber to push on a well-fortified sentry nest, regardless of how skilled your Spy is. Engineers don't play alone in comp the way that they do in pubs, so it makes nest-breaking a much more difficult affair for the Spy alone. Cloak buff - In competitive or against high-coordination teams, Spy generally dies immediately after a pick. You stabbed their Medic? Great, you just aggro'd the entire combo. You stab literally anyone else? Your position has been called, and chances are someone is in hot pursuit. Spy dying so frequently after single-target eliminations is why he's so marginalized in 6s and HL. Sniper outshines him in both formats because he's simply safer and more reliable all-around. Since even the DR can be chased and on-activation DR is better than this anyways, I firmly believe that this idea isn't overpowered but gives Spy more of a fighting chance, and could be especially effective with the Cloak and Dagger.

The Unusual Cap and the Finder's Fee. They're both lazy and stupid. The Unusual Cap is just the 10th re-colored version of the Mann Co. Cap and the Finders Fee is just another cap. Let people choose a hat of their own damn it. No clue about a third, but damn sure it wouldn't be any of those three.

Ranged utility is a necessity in FPS games. Right now, there are a ton of classes who are better at range than the Spy, not just the Sniper. The Medic's crossbow is a big example that comes to mind, but sentries also have a very large active radius (one that exceeds max falloff, making ambysniping engineers impossible), Pyros have flares, which can crit or many crit at any distance, Demoman has no-falloff projectiles, and even Soldier has the Direct Hit. Why should Spy exclusively not have any ranged utility to speak of? It's a first-person shooter, not For Honor or something.

Spy is designed to be used at close quarters. He has no problem keeping a good distance thanks to cloak, so his toolset revolves around sticking as close to the enemy team as possible to balance that out. Old amby was low risk high reward due to this, and this sleeper gun would be low risk low reward, as would any unlock that would have Spy keeping his distance.

Spy being CQC-only is why he's in such a bad place right now, though. Just because this is the design we started with doesn't mean that it shouldn't be built upon or subverted, especially not when it marginalizes Spy to such a severe extent. Heavy may be ass on 5CP due to limited mobility, but at least he makes for a great combo member who can shut down flankers and jumpers. What does Spy have to offer at this time that isn't overshadowed by the offerings of other classes? Anyways, if the sleepergun is low-reward...what's the problem with it, exactly? It helps Spy coordinate picks and helps his team focus-fire certain enemies...like a stealth-support would in any other game. It isn't hitscan and it doesn't deal much damage, so it's not like it becomes an Amby 2.0 either. The Spy needs some form of ranged utility to be viable when Sniper exists and can deal instant 150 damage headshots. A status effect dart that's an actual projectile seems like a good idea in this scenario. Spy is a support class. He should have more options that enable him to support his team, not just get a pick (or fail to) and die. Going 1-for-1 is Spy in a good scenario, but that's absymal for literally any other class.

Don't you think a shitty low-risk low-reward gun marginalizes Spy even more? You become nothing more than a jarate dispenser, and the other team isn't going to be able to do shit against you. If there's anything worse than a mechanic that's uninteresting to play against, it's one that's also not very effective at all.

The ability to mark targets in team fights or to mark targets to coordinate picks with my flank is a very good one. I could tag a Medic with this before my Soldier jumps in, I could tag a Heavy with this during a mid-fight on KOTH and call a focus...this is at least moderate-reward, it just relies on my team to follow up. If they aren't able to follow up or I want to play more independently, that's what the other guns are for. Anyways, falloff range is 1024 HU- roughly 2Fort bridge range. The reverse falloff on the crossbow works under that same range, so it's not like the dart gun will be in play from across the map in the way that the Ambassador was. It would still be most useful and practical in that 1024 HU range, same as most other weapons in the game, especially since it's a projectile that I would hope requires a lot of skill to aim. Also, what with all the rocket jumping, existence of scouts and snipers and focus fire that Spy is already subject to in competitive play...trust me, a Spy marks someone and he will be chased and punished for it, same way he's chased and punished for daring to show his face at all or using his gun. Anyways, the existence of this as an option doesn't marginalize Spy. I imagine it would work excellently on KOTH maps but be a little less practical on larger maps (5CP and Payload). It's simply trading off the self-defense of the gun in favor of a more teamwork/support-oriented weapon, which, again, is something that I think fits the Spy class very well. Stealth characters in other multiplayer games don't all have instakills, but they at least have the ability to give debuffs of some kind to their enemies. TFC had a tranquilizer that slowed enemies, even! There is plenty of precedent for this kind of design, and I would say that it's a good thing.

My only criticism of the revolver idea is kinda how underpowered it is. This is a problem because its entire design is based around supporting your team, but how do you go about buffing it without making Spy insanely annoying. My whole design philosophy is keeping most combat engaging or at the very least, fair. Following a handful of easy rules: -Can this weapon shut down a match when used by 3+ of the same class? -Does this weapon have a class counter? -Is this weapon fun to use but still fair? -Does this weapon have a high learning-curve? -Do the advatages out-weigh the disadvantages? Stuff like that, when I use these rules for said revolver the one thing that sticks out to me is "Is this weapon fun but still fair" From the Spy's perspective, perhaps it is fun to find a spot where you're safe to take a long-range shot at a medic and hit the projectile with good prediction aim. The reward coming from making the Medic vulnerable for say a roaming Soldier to take out in one well-placed rocket. But from the Medic and their team's perspective not so much, suddenly one or two teammates have to disengage to focus said spy, otherwise they will run the risk of being vulnerable. This I compare to stuff like Natascha, suddenly something that can be dealt with rather easily is a big fucking problem and an annoyance for literally every class. My only question though is this, what's stopping a Spy from sitting behind his teammates spamming down a sightline? It rewards his team by basically fucking over the enemy for something the enemy can't really do much about. You can't just suicide rush past his team to kill the Spy, because his team will kill you if you attempted to. In a way something like this I'd recommend doing a Mad Milk shtick, allow for one shot to be taken and then the weapon must be put away to recharge. This prevents most of which I've mentioned.

How about having this gun be a re-chargable one? Like you fire a dart (that has a trace btw, so you don't spam it) and 10 seconds (subject to change) later you get another dart.

re: the underpowered angle, the entire point of the weapon is that it's almost totally team support and not a weapon to be used for the spy to get his own kills or defend himself. mind that everything you say concerning long-distance spamming from the team's side also applies to the sydney sleeper, which is generally considered one of the worst sniper rifles. jarate truly doesn't offer that much value on sniper, since he's best played far from the enemy and getting ranged instakills. this weapon is a much better fit for a spy who is behind the enemy and actively calling out to and coordinating with his team. anyways, in the case where a spy is behind the enemy and pestering them with his gun...this actually doesn't change much. whenever I do this in HL with the revolver or ambassador, I usually get a Scout, Soldier or Pyro chasing me down in response, depending on whoever is closest. this would simply incentivize that response a little bit more. to prevent spammability, I think it should have a fairly limited ammo pool. 5 to 10 shots, with a slow reload between each one. this also means that even if a spy is in a good position, he can't afford to miss a ton of shots, and the weapon at its most effective range will be hardest to use. as far as physics go, I think something like a syringe needle would be ideal for this. maybe a little heavier.

Damn today's also the eighth anniversary of the 119th Update

a demoman just stole my waifu objector, proceeded to get a 11 killstreak while first-hit-critting me every single time I tried to kill him I don't wanna make cuck jokes but FUCK

When were the first recorded instances of friendlies?

Speaking of objectors, does the fully colored glitch thing still work?

But when you choose to equip it, you're dooming yourself to that exact playstyle. You're not going to equip it when you aim to go for picks. Also don't try to tell me this playstyle is more high skill high reward than backstabs, i.e. what Spy uniquely brings to the table that no other class can do. This gun just turns you into a cloaking sleeper sniper.

Am I the only one who's enjoying a lot the new pyro flamethrower? It's so damn satisfying.

err as of March 28th it's the same handling as before JI.

I should have clarified, "new" as a concept for a guy who hasn't played tf2 since like 2014-2015 maybe. I find it really good that you can overpower w+m1 pyros with the right positioning.

that's nothing new even for your circumstance but whatever

Yes, Just did it about 2 weeks ago.

The fact that you have to lead your flamethrower is a new thing. You can't just W+M1 all willy nilly anymore.

yeah during the awful 3-4 months of JI it was definitely a different behavior but now... welcome to tf2 pyro between 2007-2017?

I meant this Dragon's Fury I really like it's mechanics, single fire weapons are the best.

You've always had to lead your flames sans the few months post-JI, it's just that the visuals now actually match the hitboxes. Pre-JI pyro vs pyro was piss-easy if the enemy pyro didn't know what the flame hitboxes were doing.