TF2 General Chat and Update Speculation Station - One of Several Edition - Games

[QUOTE=weyu6572;52599538]I don't care what people think of Overwatch but the one thing I'm really puzzled about how some people think that "The Pyro Update is going to kill Overwatch!" or "Overwatch is getting an update,Valve better release it now to kill it!" I mean,do you really think that Valve gives a shit about Overwatch? Do you think Blizzard made Overwatch to kill TF2? Because honestly,I think both corporations could give less of a shit.[/QUOTE] Nobody thinks the pyro update will kill overwatch.

[QUOTE=C. Blades;52599554]Nobody thinks the pyro update will kill overwatch.[/QUOTE] I've seen similar comments on TF2 videos. EDIT:As in comments where people think the Pyro Update must kill Overwatch that is.

The update definitely won't kill OW and it doesn't need to, it just needs to bring more interest and people back into playing TF2. OW has become so huge for a 10 year old game to compete against it's not feasible at this point.

Wait, are we seriously censuring [I]Overwatch[/I] for having balance passes that are [I]too[/I] frequent? We're using that as an argument when one of TF2's greatest irritants is its uncommon balancing? At least when characters in OW are altered for the worse, there's hope for expeditious improvement; in TF2, when characters (Heavy) are altered for the worse, we have to suck it up and barely eke out a smile for [I]five years[/I].

At least in that scenario, the developers will iterate on and refine previous balance decisions at an accelerated rate, so that the customer doesn't have to endure their mistakes for too long. Valve is no stranger to overcooking its balancing, but in our case we're forced to live with it in the lifespan of several hit TV shows.

I'm sure most people would disagree, especially those legitimately upset over the Bison nerf. Why wouldn't they want it fixed two months later? It's better than waiting five years for the Natascha to get buffed, only for it to get nerfed again one year later.

Reasonable? They've been hit or miss for a long time, and I'm hoping, alongside the proposed changes, that this update breaks the cycle.

[QUOTE=Lord Exor;52599711]Wait, are we seriously censuring [I]Overwatch[/I] for having balance passes that are [I]too[/I] frequent? We're using that as an argument when one of TF2's greatest irritants is its uncommon balancing? At least when characters in OW are altered for the worse, there's hope for expeditious improvement; in TF2, when characters (Heavy) are altered for the worse, we have to suck it up and barely eke out a smile for [I]five years[/I].[/QUOTE] To be fair I doubt Overwatch's balance changes will be as frequent in 8 or 9 years as they are today, if it even still gets balance patches and they haven't moved on to Overwatch 2.

To begin with, keep in mind that I believe both games are relatively well balanced with decent patches. Frequent balance changes with the occasional rework help keep the game alive. They are some form of content for the players to consume and for the content creators to make content from. I believe the extremely slow update cycle TF2 has had during the last few years is the reason its popularity is perceived as significantly decreased. Look at maybe three of the biggest TF2 YouTubers, STAR, Jerma and Muselk. All three of them cut their teeth in TF2 as content creators and have drifted away from it during these last years, with at least STAR straight up stating on his last TF2 video that he has nothing new to do. Not just to look so far in the past, FUNKe pretty much stated the same thing in his latest video a couple of days ago. Ok, that's how the frequent update cycles of Overwatch help the game. I also have an opinion on how it hinders it. Metas are really important for Overwatch. They encompass all the strategies and skill the game has and showcases them in action. Someone above mentioned "suffocating metas" which I believe to be the result of these frequent Updates. During the Triple/Quadraple Tank Meta there were two heros you needed for it to function. Roadhog, who was the only source of decent damage and combined with focus fire from his teammates could kill any character with a single hook. Ana, the only support with a powerful enough burst heal to sustain any Tank and burst them from near death to full HP in less than 4". So after this Meta dominated for a couple of months Blizzard stepped in, nerfed Ana's damage a bit and burst healing a lot, nerfed Hog's hook and hook+shoot combo and as a result killed this team comp. Did they have to? Maybe not, because as this was happening, some of the pros where running high mobility comps and were having decent results against 3tank. The Meta might have been on the brink of evolution and then Blizzard shattered it. This is happening again with the Dive Meta, a mobility and single target burst-down comp. DVa is on of the two key characters as she can eat up any amount of damage in a specific timeframe and is one of the most mobile characters. Thus she is used to isolate targets, enemies to make them ineffective as the rest of her team chews them up, or high value allies that you can't afford losing. She can always be where she's needed. And now DVa's defensive ability is being nerfed, possibly throwing her out of the Meta. However we once more are on a possible Meta tipping point, as HP and DamageBurst heavy comps are being run against Dive quite effectively. There are characters who completely ignore DVa's defensive ability and others who force her to either drain it on them or get destroyed. I strongly believe the toxicity and negativity of the Overwatch community stems from how spoiled it is, expecting all the solutions to their problems to be fed to them by Blizzard, ignoring how many solutions might already exist in the game. Overwatch's "suffocating" metas problem is a perceived one, not an existing one. The pros can't spend their time trying out new comps, they're putting their living on the line and even a few big losses can be the end of a player's career. The rest of the community is just copying them, which is not bad on its own, as the best way to play the game should trickle from the pros down to the worst of players over time, but even the best of the non-pro playerbase doesn't experiment to find new comps and counters to the existing ones. These are things that should trickle UP towards the pros, tried and tested a level or two bellow and then put to the test by pros. Yet the community spends more time complaining on reddit and twitch rather than theory crafting and testing said theories in game. And that's my long two cents. I strongly prefer Overwatch's Update cycles (the massive amount of communication also helps) to TF2's stagnation, but neither is perfect. Also the TF2 community has a healthier understanding of the "gitgudscrub" as it's not left with other options (like praying to papa Jeff to kill the ghastly dive comp, even though we already have tools to fight it but are to blind to use them)

This might have been done before but I've restored the old lighting on the class select screen by editing the RES file (resource/ui/classselection.res). [T]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/195243349878374401/349508229551620097/unknown.png[/T] Here's a mod with the file: [url]http://www120.zippyshare.com/v/yplM17KT/file.html[/url]

[QUOTE=Nicknine;52599898]This might have been done before but I've restored the old lighting on the class select screen by editing the RES file (resource/ui/classselection.res). [T]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/195243349878374401/349508229551620097/unknown.png[/T] Here's a mod with the file: [url]http://www120.zippyshare.com/v/yplM17KT/file.html[/url][/QUOTE] Some before and after shots ?

[QUOTE=Doodle966;52600016]Some before and after shots ?[/QUOTE] Before: [img_thumb]https://puu.sh/xgymu/70d87d789a.png[/img_thumb] After: [img_thumb]https://puu.sh/xgysJ/f97af70375.png[/img_thumb]

[QUOTE=fancy990;52600095]Before: [img_thumb]https://puu.sh/xgymu/70d87d789a.png[/img_thumb] After: [img_thumb]https://puu.sh/xgysJ/f97af70375.png[/img_thumb][/QUOTE] Yeah that face is muuch better

[QUOTE=Chuggoth;52599724]It's not only about frequency. Afaik Blizzard doesn't do a quality job at it , every so often overnerfing or overbuffing characters. With how often they change certain characters I guess it can be pretty annoying .[/QUOTE] The game has more than double the character count of tf2 and only features one toolkit per character (as opposed to unlockable weapons). Your point is empty when you realize TF2 is even worse at balance because of how many items are worthless next to stock or objectively better than stock. The only annoying part of their balance is when characters are necessary picks (doomfist and old road) or when they are absolutely unusable (old rein and new road). Even then they stay fully aware and vocal about their stance on balance and awareness. If you're going to try and knock overwatch down a peg, you're going to need a more grounded argument.

I have an even less grounded argument: I was sitting in a discord vc for an Overwatch team, a somewhat legit one with everyone's skill rating being over 4k (at least I think that's good?) and they were all complaining about how "Overwatch is dead", how the balancing is way too far skewed to the casual side even though Blizzard keeps pushing to make the "ultimate competitive game" and that the nerfs and buffs either don't change the meta at all or make another one that no one enjoys. One guy that had never played TF2 even brought up the classic argument, "I wanna see people outplay each other, rather than 'oh he beat him pressing q by pressing right click' like what the fuck" I know this contains no facts and is entirely opinions, but if those opinions are from a team that's gotten far enough in tournaments for their matches to be casted, I think it's funny they share some of those opinions with "contrarian Overwatch haters" on a TF2 thread.

The thing that confuses me about overwatch is the fact that you have an extremely wild variety of DPS characters which are over 10 and 3 main healers Kinda reminds me of the "Soldier has 8 rocket launchers but the engie has no pistol alternative" argument but this time it actually matters

I miss when the tf2 characters would make blog posts Like look at this: Why can't we have more stuff like this? [t]http://i.imgur.com/4lmSFBr.png[/t]

[QUOTE=Darth_Toast;52600441]I have an even less grounded argument: I was sitting in a discord vc for an Overwatch team, a somewhat legit one with everyone's skill rating being over 4k (at least I think that's good?) and they were all complaining about how "Overwatch is dead", how the balancing is way too far skewed to the casual side even though Blizzard keeps pushing to make the "ultimate competitive game" and that the nerfs and buffs either don't change the meta at all or make another one that no one enjoys. [/QUOTE] From a CompOverwatch reddit thread (I know, boooo reddit). "Seems this is the formula around here: Check change, Decide if you like change, If you like the change, move on OR If you don't like the change, claim it's for casuals". Their own comp community recognizes the hypocrisy they show regarding changes. They bitched about Road Hog being OP and dominating in tank meta. Then RH got nerfed and they claimed it was the casuals fault. Recently they complained that D.Va was to strong in the dive meta. She is being reworked internally and they are crying casual on that. They also complain when the meta gets stale, then turn around and complain when it changes. [QUOTE]"I wanna see people outplay each other, rather than 'oh he beat him pressing q by pressing right click' like what the fuck"[/QUOTE] Yes, because if they had left clicked it would have been so much more skilled. If they killed you using an ability they still outplayed you. They were in the right place with shit ready to go. Maybe you weren't aware they were flanking and pulse bombed you (a q ability). Maybe you did a shit job of keeping track of their ults or misjudged what they had on cool down. Maybe they baited you into a rat trap and mined your dumb ass. How is that their fault? That just feels like an argument from someone who did get outplayed and was sour about it. It's so easy to blame the abilities.

As an aside, can anyone name a competitive game/"esport" that is apparently balanced well? I mean, not to be rude but even Dota 2 has its moments of "yeah this is just straight up broken" for long periods of time.

[QUOTE=Jetamo;52600641]As an aside, can anyone name a competitive game/"esport" that is apparently balanced well? I mean, not to be rude but even Dota 2 has its moments of "yeah this is just straight up broken" for long periods of time.[/QUOTE] CS:GO?

[QUOTE=Fluury;52600646]CS:GO?[/QUOTE] Hell no.

[QUOTE=Fluury;52600646]CS:GO?[/QUOTE] CS:GO is one of those games that valve can't even touch the meta to add another gun or else the community will rip them a new one. It's homogenized shit.

[QUOTE=Fluury;52600646]CS:GO?[/QUOTE] CS:GO isn't, I've often heard reports of how they wish Valve would A: update more frequently and B: not do stupid things like the R8 Revolver IIRC. Rainbow Six Siege isn't, Destiny isn't, Starcraft 2 isn't, Quake Champions certainly isn't, Heroes of the Storm isn't, Hearthstone certainly isn't, League of Legends suffers from "newest hero added is OP for the first few weeks" from what I recall and Smite is probably the same. I realize of course this is veering off course of topic of discussion, but I don't think there's a "perfectly" balanced competitive game out there. There's always going to be winners and losers as far as balance goes.

[QUOTE=Jetamo;52600641]As an aside, can anyone name a competitive game/"esport" that is apparently balanced well? I mean, not to be rude but even Dota 2 has its moments of "yeah this is just straight up broken" for long periods of time.[/QUOTE] Project M. At least compared to the game it's a mod of and the game it's mimicking.

[QUOTE=Jetamo;52600641]As an aside, can anyone name a competitive game/"esport" that is apparently balanced well? I mean, not to be rude but even Dota 2 has its moments of "yeah this is just straight up broken" for long periods of time.[/QUOTE] Virtual Chess

I've been thinking about the new Pyro weapons that are going to be coming with the update. Assuming they don't theme them as jungle items, and assuming they don't make their own, I'd really like to see this in game. It's so damn good. [t]https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/428196799418157110/5559D97583367C3F6C5EEFC06CA9B9062C8E4167/[/t] [url]https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=524459309[/url] EDIT: [QUOTE=Chuggoth;52600735]Quake 3.[/QUOTE] I'm going to agree. Partly because of my hideous bias and partly because no one has an edge. Everyone has the same character (no classes, abilities, differing health pools) and access to the same weapons. It all comes down to your mastery of movement, aim, map knowledge and overall game sense.

Balance depending on the moment can be rather foggy to pinpoint if it's a genuine issue or common casual complaining. Common complaints in a casual format I see is [I]"I can't play [X] because the enemy is using [Y], and [X] is my favourite thing to use so I'm not changing! It's unfair!"[/I] And this can go for classes, weapons, etc. And that tends to be the main cause of aggravation, when 3 scouts refuse to change when the enemy has 4 engineers. But ignorant players isn't something that can be avoided, at best TFTeam could add a warning for over-saturation of a class or upon dying give a hint about the weapon/class you just died to and how you could better against it.

I'm just thinking about the update. I had problems sleeping a week or two back because a lot of people were yelling "Today's the day!" but the update never did. Now I have sort of given up on all hype (not hope) and wish it will come soon because if not, it will and already is losing profit on the side of Valve and hope of people. For example all schools in Finland have already started and I bet in most other European countries too. (I have no clue about other parts of the world, but I've understood that USA has its schools starting soon as well) I don't really care what the update will be, but for goodness sake, I want one good reason for them not to talk a word about it. And no, I don't count "We don't have a release date yet" as talking about the update. It would build up so much hype if they made a blog post of just like, a picture of the weapon skins? Pictures of cases? Some strange looking screwed up pictures of the new weapons that would have to be edited to be seen correctly? Anything?

[QUOTE=Lord Exor;52599737]At least in that scenario, the developers will iterate on and refine previous balance decisions at an accelerated rate, so that the customer doesn't have to endure their mistakes for too long. Valve is no stranger to overcooking its balancing, but in our case we're forced to live with it in the lifespan of several hit TV shows.[/QUOTE] At least that would be the case if the Overwatch Team gave any shits. Don't be fooled by their bling, the only difference between current TF2 development and current Overwatch development is the amount of money and work being put into it, the quality's just about the same. [editline]22nd August 2017[/editline] Like Roadhog is literally having the Heavy treatment right now where every single patch they nerf him for no reason

[QUOTE=Annoyed Grunt;52600911]At least that would be the case if the Overwatch Team gave any shits. Don't be fooled by their bling, the only difference between current TF2 development and current Overwatch development is the amount of money and work being put into it, the quality's just about the same. [editline]22nd August 2017[/editline] Like Roadhog is literally having the Heavy treatment right now where every single patch they nerf him for no reason[/QUOTE] His new buff is pretty awesome though. Makes him less of an ult battery and lets you heal while staying mobile. You can be pretty aggressive with him now and punish out of place enemies again. Hopefully Heavy gets the love he needs sooner rather than later. Some of the proposed balance changes on that blog post were promising if I'm remembering right.