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

Fair enough, I had misread what the person you were replying to was saying.

writer left the team, promises that it will still be finished, otherwise he'll release the story

still think that the experimental gamemode the new casual strings talked about is asteroid and well see it this year alongside with the last comic

i can the limited gamemodes being tied to updates so we would end up with a limited gamemode for 8 months.

Still would like to see "Seasonal" mode, which revives "Operation" maps. Play on Seasonal based maps to get more XP or special drops. Would be a cool feature If It's not gonna be behind a paywall. If you don't understand what I mean by "Seasonal maps", It's like Valve picks random maps, let's say maps not alot of people play on, and they make them give more Casual XP/More drops on them for playing those maps. In that way, there's a chance we could revive those maps, for a little atleast.

sounds like a good idea til valve selects dustbowl

That feels really weird to me in a thematic sense.

but at the same time it would make pyro fun or even useful

Wouldn't be a problem if it's just maps that don't get played a lot meanwhile hydro's always a part of my queue but I never get put on it :c

Maybe have Gas passer in a pint of beer or something you'd see in Medieval times

COUNTER FORTRESS: TEAM OFFENSIVE "Payload has been planted"

A seasonal map event sounds pretty coolio. They could use it to gather information about old - awful - unplayed maps and ask players information about them to see if they can change something about them.

For the early maps they released heat maps of where people died most, maybe other stats. They should release more

I would love to see heat maps for more popular maps like Badwater, Upward, etc for things like most frequent death areas, longest stalemate areas, etc so the community could actually have solid statistics and improve the maps around that.

sounds like a good idea till you realize why said maps arent played a bunch boy I cant wait for 24/7 junction!

These new stats are great, so much info. Nice insight into the workings of the matchmaking system. I hear Americans can't see the new stats page?

We can see it just fine. I tested it yesterday, though I only can get detailed stats for TF2.

Balance in games is meant to justify the existence of its component parts so that both all of the intended features are appealing/viable, and that no development time was wasted. The developers worked hard to ensure that every class is unique, offering something different to appeal to multiple tastes. That's the sole reason a class like Sniper was even added, because the developers felt a sharpshooter was an FPS staple that had broad allure. Generally, in cases where certain mechanics aren't meant to be equal, there's another balancing factor involved, such as CS:GO's gun purchasing system. Higher tier weapons are locked behind higher price tags, and money is contingent on player performance. This isn't something at play here, and classes are made and offered evenly throughout the course of play. The classes are not categorized as Generalists and Specialists on the class selection screen, and even if this philosophy played a role in how the game was initially developed, I doubt even then they wanted to see the classes used as infrequently as they are in competitive play. Robin Walker, the person most often quoted here in defense of this dichotomy, is also the man responsible for such hated and controversial decisions as random crits, and went on record complaining about lack of weapon diversity and strategy in competitive many years ago. The whole point of a weapon like the Thermal Thruster was to open the gates and allow the Pyro to operate in spaces he wasn't previously capable of acting in. Whether their efforts led to success or not isn't up for debate--they haven't. However, it's incontrovertible that they attempted it. I fully realize that a generalization of classes is required, and I do not mind it so long as gameplay diversity and class uniqueness is maintained.

You need to take into consideration the idea that classes can be fun without being wholly viable. Heavy may not be viable in any sense of the word, but he's still enjoyed by a lot of people, including myself and Exor. He's not a great example because even right now he has issues with balance on a grand scale (the stupid bullet spread nerf he got years ago), but classes like Heavy and Engineer can still be fun in their current state. There have been games where the characters were exactly equal, and they were mirrors of eachother. Games where characters could be considered generalists, they all had equal skills. Gameslike the original Street Fighter. It was boring. There are fighting games that have dozens of characters, all unique skills. People that play those games aren't crying for dev outreach just because some characters aren't as viable. There are entire divisions in Pokemon competitive dedicated to playing with teams that are objectively weaker than the top tier teams that feature Legendaries. What I'm saying is Exor isn't saying what he's saying because he wants the epitome of balance. He wants the game to stay fun. Let people like him and me enjoy Heavy as the big tank that's not exactly viable in competitive 6s or a generalist. Does this mean we don't want Heavy buffs or new items that let him explore new avenues of gameplay? Absolutely not. I stand by the idea that giving Heavy a tank shield that makes his Shotgun secondary more viable is a great idea. We just don't want Heavy turned into "Scout/Soldier but slower and harder to kill". He's got his minigun, he's got his sandvich. He doesn't need to be as mobile as Soldier/Scout to be fun. Heavy mains aren't craving Heavy becoming the top pick in 6s.

https://i.imgur.com/vtQeN9y.png I have good news

Here's one heatmap of Dustbowl, from a Valve presentation on playtesting, I think there were more on Steam but can't find them. http://i.imgur.com/mHCg7.jpg s

well, good-ish

man that pic makes me miss oldpunch way too much

There is a site for tf2 heatmaps. Home | Heatmaps.tf

It'd be neat if Valve picked bunch of workshop maps every now and then and put them into a special casual playlist

Maps look so fucking weird from eagle's eye view.

I'd still like to see maps made for every map with a birds eye view of each map ( maybe some indoor ones for indoor sections ) that names area's and locations. This in an attempt to make it easier for everyone to know what to say when making call outs. Without it, everyone just comes up with their own names, but having one that people can access will help keep everyone on the same page.

what theme?

kinda odd that more people die on the road from main spawn to battlements on blu than on red,

This sounds like an extremely good idea. I haven't played competitive ever, but I think players name places with short and memorable words, like café on a 5CP map,. Maybe if the comp community set some sort of guideline to name places it could go very far. Hell, a little map on the loading screen telling players the name of those sites could do wonders (if you don't use an SSD)