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

gaspass and jetpack need to be useable in medieval

About the phlog. Give it it 75% resistance on taunt (ie the vac uber) with health regen similar to the sandwich, or grant it 50% health to activate the charge. that way you can roam as a pyro but you're still vulnerable to backstabs, headshots, crits and focus fire on taunt. people have whoopin 2 seconds to blast you away before you snap out of the current uber taunt and touch them with a crit flame as you die. if you get knock back by any means during the taunt activation the phlog charge is CANCELED rather than activated earlier. just like the rest of the taunt-based weapons like scout's drinks or heavy's lunchboxes. the sole reason why the uber on taunt was added was basically because idiots would airblast the taunting pyro and have it get an extra second of phlog use. Finally make the pyro UNABLE TO GET UBERED WHILE PHLOG CHARGE IS ACTIVE. also give it some sort of really visual/audio cue to when a pyro activates his phlog charge (something akin to the thunder used by the eureka effect for example) so people knows you're coming and can have some sort of warning that a phlog pyro is on the way "if" they're not paying attention.

thats the thing, they werent made by the same people given valve's work ethic it couldve been the lead designer of CS that made the crit a cola

I would hope devs that are there for like two days wouldn't be able to make such big and permanent additions such as new weapons. Though Robin did say the weapon was conceptualized, made, and shipped in three days.

it already does, but it's not required, all it does now is if someone added your server to their favorites, if the server goes down then you use the same token on a new server with a different ip, that server will be in their favorites as for the rest, not much is confirmed like medals and low priority, it can be abandoned stuff or things added in case they decide to use it.

Anyone else getting lots of people being invisible recently? It's probably related to all the alt-tabbing I do but I don't remember it having any effects this bad.

Either from a Win10 update or (a long shot) they're making enemies behind walls invisible and untargetable like in CSGO to fight cheats, and it's bugged.

Last I checked, uber didn't stop knockback so that couldn't have been the sole reason why the uber was added. I was more under the impression it was added to make it more obvious to idiots that the pyro was activating it in the first place, since it was a more noticable effect then just the weapon and the pyro taunting ( which the taunt is a bit moot since even if it wasn't ready the the pyro still taunted like that ). Most classes couldn't really out damage the pyro before the taunt ended, I believe heavy was the only real note worthy one, but spy's could still stab him before it ended. But on the flip side, the uber effect actually disables the pyro's ability to capture points during the taunt. Meaning it did technically have a downside to it at well. The "you cannot push the pyro while it taunts" was something they did on their own. All that really did was remove the ability to get Premature crits because the taunt got canceled early. In very rare situations it disabled the ability to knock the pyro into an instant death trap as well, which I bursh off as a very minor perk with how rare that actually happens.

Was that what the Jill email before MyM was about or was that something else?

Oh, I always thought It's a small one like Chocolate, nice to know.

devs that are (seemingly?) there for two days are allowed to make their own gamemode

when update bois im speculating that we should have any minor~ update in a month

the update on the comic's last issue you mean.

reduce the mmph to minicrits and make it so only the phlog's damage itself charged mmph (or the mannmelter too as a very situational upside), and in return give it an actul airblast that instead of reflecting projectiles, it just deleted them exactly like the old short curcit's alt-fire that's unable to push players back, maybe have it so the pyro also gets some mmph back for deleting projectiles

Several people have explained why this is a bad idea. A lot of bad players don't care if reflecting projectiles kills someone as long as they themselves don't die. Being able to outright delete sticky traps, grenades, etc. would make this weapon even better for bad players. Activating Mmmph provides a healing effect throughout the duration of the taunt Mmmph provides a temporary minicrit buff which can be extended by dealing damage Airblast costs 10% Mmmph and reflected projectiles do not minicrit (unless the minicrit boost is active) (Activating Mmmph plays a distinct sound effect similar to the Mannpower Revenge powerup) While Mmmph is activated, user cannot receive overheal bonuses and any existing overheal rapidly deteriorates

Not sure if some of this was already said before, but: Playing after the latest patch (which supposedly helps get rid of lagbots) I noticed a couple of things.. -Lagbots are NOT gone, in-fact, instead of making the server lag from now and then, now they make it lag for like 50 seconds or so, resulting in a timeout for all players. (Side note: you can use cl_timeout 60 or higher to avoid getting kicked, but you might aswell just join another match since everybody else will be gone) -Lagbots usually come with a cheater, someone who i assume.. controls them? -There can be mulitple lagbots on one server I recently made of video of this, if you are interested in what exactly happend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=398jAFbNV0A Guess it's time to go back to community servers?

You keep wanting to argue that it's poor balance but all you can ever muster is that you don't personally like it. There is legitimate merit to the balance of generalists, and more specifically, the fact that DH is difficult to fight as a specialist. Those classes are not supposed to be played at all times, and therefore deserve to be punished if used at the wrong time. If you disagree with that, I want to know why. But I want to hear a legitimately objective argument, and not one only framed around your personal experiences.

While that may have been true, valve's recent moves to break down that dichotomy take precedent here. Original intent means squat if the active development is to make competitive and casual into a united experience with the corresponding game changes as a result.

Now that we can see the data, anyone who played during the War update, what side did you pick and how many kills did you get?

Heavy and zero

and all we've seen on that front so far is a lackluster pyro rework that ultimately amounted to nothing and two major spy nerfs in a single update

the war update was demo vs soldier.

I mean the Soldier/Demo one

interestingly, it only lists the number of deaths you got during the war, not the number of kills War Session Time War Session Duration Deaths as Soldier Deaths as Demoman 2009-12-11 04:42:32 GMT 6203 17 0

I think your memory may be failing you, because I've gone into explicit detail over the eight years I've posted on this forum into why the Generalist/Specialist dichotomy is not in accordance with the very definition of game balance. Balance in games is an exercise in attempting to attain equilibrium, with all of the component parts ideally being on equal footing of utility, otherwise there's little point in including them. Your counterargument will be that specialists inject tactical diversity into the game loop, but the same thing can be accomplished--and executed in a superior fashion--if the component parts (in this case, the classes) are equally useful. Moreover, the evolution of this game has created complications with the Generalist/Specialist dichotomy. I'll begin with player preference: First and foremost, the game is meant to be experienced leisurely. Of course, that doesn't preclude a competitive foundation or focus, but it is a game nonetheless. People aren't inclined to play "what is needed" just to win; rather, they're far more likely to gravitate toward a select few methods of interacting with the game. This player choice is a boon, since it opens up the experience to a wide breadth of different tastes and sensibilities within the scope of what the product offers. Over the years, the addition of an in-game economy centered around cosmetic items specifically geared to each class has caused players to invest. Most people do not have infinite expendable income, and therefore will pour their resources into attaining coveted items for only their most prized classes--their favored modes of play. If their favored modes of play are less valuable and match up unfavorably against other modes, people become indignant. And in truth, there is a fundamental inequity going on that places preference to select classes that not everyone enjoys using, and this creates a rather imposing barrier of entry for people that would like to join competitive leagues. In this sense, the Generalist/Specialist dichotomy that fuels the meta is one of the primary reasons why the "community 6v6" is not being supported by Valve. Dave Riller has gone on record stating that their future design decisions will be based upon the idea that all classes should feel as viable as possible without risking homogenization.

You can still play whatever you want though with a specialist/generalist dichotomy, ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY in pubs/casual. If you enjoy a method of play that's less optimal in certain situations, then you should...just play it, because it still likely covers what you're trying to do in almost every other situation as well. The chaos, low stakes and numbers of casual/community servers means that any actual needs your team has will almost always be fulfilled by someone else at least twice, so you can just do whatever you want and not be dragging down your team. Even if heavy is very situational in 6s, he's hardly situational in pubs and can still be played to an acceptable degree. That doesn't mean he's in a perfect spot, but to act like him being designated as a specialist makes him useless isn't very apt. He excels in a few situations while being less excellent (but still acceptable!) in others. I think having tactically situational items and classes has its merit and doesn't undermine the casual experience at all, because the nature of the casual experience means that as long as you're playing the objective, just about anything will get the job done. I've played in pubs where demos stickyjumped behind the team and did a lot of work with a pipebomb lajuncher from height advantages. Sure it's not the most optimal method of playing, but if he's enjoying it and is still contributing, what is the matter?

I never said Heavy was useless, but Heavy players are going to find, even in pubs, that their limitations will cause frustration precisely because he isn't as generally applicable as a Scout or Soldier. While an increase in numbers decreases the pressure each player will feel to perform, it doesn't magically solve the fact that Spy can be shut down easily by almost anything. Tactically situational items/weapons are sound in concept, since they're operating on a stratum beneath the surface of how the game is balanced at its core. Even then, they should be balanced relative to each other as far as how m2any times they can be counted as useful.

You can't just say balance is made with the sole purpose of making everything equal. There is no global rule for what balance is. That alone crumbles your entire argument.

Let's not downplay valve's progress towards making the game more competitive. It's real fucking slow going but they've made a lot of very good comp-oriented weapon changes, and in game comp is working pretty well now. I also think its pretty silly to say the pyro rework amounted to while also calling nerfs to two situational spy side-grades "major spy nerfs".

I was referring to Valve attempting to rebalance the Generalist/Specialist dichotomy, not making the game more competitively balanced. There were plenty of good balance changes in Jungle Inferno and the recent Blue Moon patch, but none of them changed where any class stands on the Generalist/Specialist scale. Pyro was temporarily boosted to something hella annoying and arguably overpowered thanks to JI flames, but even then that didn't make him a Generalist. It just made him better at killing things he was already good at killing (other specialists sans Engineer, bad players in general). Spy has been bottom-of-the-barrel for a very long time, and I would argue the most specialist of the specialist classes. How can you say Valve is attempting to rebalance the Generalist/Specialist dichotomy when they take the most extreme example of the latter and just straight up make him worse with no kind of counter-buffs to speak of? In the grand scale of things, Valve has not changed anything about fundamental class relationships, only made Pyro flames a bit better to play with and against than they were prior and made Spy worse overall. Also, DR and Ambassador were both a little bit more than "situational". They were both valuable tools in the Spy's arsenal that somewhat expanded his utility in places he otherwise had little or none to speak of. The Ambassador is now straight-up garbage- the Revolver consistently maintains higher DPS and is much easier to use while the Amby has lost all of its ranged pick utility- and the Dead Ringer, while still usable, was over-nerfed when you take into account competitive play, where countering DR was never a problem for those players, even pre-nerf. Making the worst class even worse + revamping one of the worst classes but not actually changing their overall viability + nerfing a number of weapons that were problematic in competitive play ≠ Valve "breaking down that (Generalist/Specialist) dichotomy". Not even fucking close. If anything, it's only reinforcing it.