Final Major Update Speculation V37 - This is the last MUS thread. Speculate in General Chat. - Games

[QUOTE=Drury;52386830] As to what could be done about it... Not sure. Feign death kinda works on the assumption that you don't know you triggered it, making it very difficult to explain in an elegant way in real time. Maybe the act of feigning can be hinted at after uncloak - such as by adding a particle effect connecting the Spy with the fake corpse, I don't know. Or make the Spy look like a ghost a while after uncloaking - goofy, but instantly obvious what happened with him, even to the guy who "killed" him a moment ago and just got backstabbed in return.[/QUOTE] These are some really good ideas. Wouldn't make feigned death less believable, but would tell the player "That Spy can feign death! Be careful!". You should honestly send this to Valve.

Disclaimer: I don't really play this game and haven't for years, but am still somewhat interested in these balance changes. Nothing really to worry about with Ambassador changes, I think. Let me illustrate. [t]http://i.imgur.com/wrqoHTs.png[/t] Imagine a spread pattern looks like this, no range defined. Pretend that you're in close to medium range, and that the box is the head hitbox. The spread will likely look something like this. [t]http://i.imgur.com/yIicuPv.png[/t] Conclusion: You're not penalized for having good aim, the spread is still very tight and you're going to hit your target if you know how to shoot. Pretend that you're at extreme range, sniper ranges. [t]http://i.imgur.com/2cPPsVN.png[/t] Conclusion: The weapon's effective range has been reduced without impacting player skill, you're just not likely to hit your target and you can't put out consistent damage at range as Spy even without headshots. Players are now encouraged to close the distance and play Spy at smaller distance. I don't have exact spread numbers so I can't work out exactly what the ranges will be but the revolver was already pretty accurate to begin with so I figure it will still be very powerful at mid to mid-long ranges in the right hands. I'm surprised to hear that Your Eternal Reward was the least-used spy knife. I always found it to be immensely powerful, I used it practically all the time. Making no noise for backstabbing was critical to me, because the first backstab makes everyone turn around in an instant. Cloak drain makes me hesitant to use it, as I played it with standard invisibility watch. L'Etranger seems required with it now, even though I only used that before as well.

Demonstration of what would be the new Ambassador: [url]http://imgur.com/gallery/WqxKL[/url]

[QUOTE=agrastiOs;52387211]Demonstration of what would be the new Ambassador: [url]http://imgur.com/gallery/WqxKL[/url][/QUOTE] Yeah, this still looks precise enough to be usable even at medium ranges.

[QUOTE=agrastiOs;52387211]Demonstration of what would be the new Ambassador: [url]http://imgur.com/gallery/WqxKL[/url][/QUOTE] Well then, the (purposed) ambassador nerf appears to be perfectly fine.

Unpopular opinion: the razorback and sandman changes didn't go far enough. The razorback was given a buff in casual, and the sandman is still a low-effort debuff spam, which is now even easier to do thanks to a faster recharge rate and a closer distance for maximum grief. Why bother toning down (and then buffing) these types of mechanics that invalidate skill, instead of removing them in favor of something less unanimously hated?

[QUOTE=Kitt Stargaze;52386549]Feigning death has actually been in team fortress games since the original mod for quake 20 years ago and was in Team Fortress Classic as well... It's not really foreign at all lol...[/QUOTE] then the dead ringer should cause the spy to flop to the ground and be killed every time since players now instinctively shoot at corpses.

[QUOTE=C. Blades;52387272]Unpopular opinion: the razorback and sandman changes didn't go far enough. The razorback was given a buff in casual, and the sandman is still a low-effort debuff spam, which is now even easier to do thanks to a faster recharge rate and a closer distance for maximum grief. Why bother toning down (and then buffing) these types of mechanics that invalidate skill, instead of removing them in favor of something less unanimously hated?[/QUOTE] The razorback and sandman are fine with these purposed changes.

[QUOTE=chandlerj333;52387300]then the dead ringer should cause the spy to flop to the ground and be killed every time since players now instinctively shoot at corpses.[/QUOTE] Make it have ragdoll physics to allow someone to flop between floorboards to escape to a lower level and you suddenly have the most entertaining mobility option in the game. [sp]/s[/sp]

[QUOTE=C. Blades;52387272]Unpopular opinion: the razorback and sandman changes didn't go far enough. The razorback was given a buff in casual, and the sandman is still a low-effort debuff spam, which is now even easier to do thanks to a faster recharge rate and a closer distance for maximum grief. Why bother toning down (and then buffing) these types of mechanics that invalidate skill, instead of removing them in favor of something less unanimously hated?[/QUOTE] Yeah, they're making Sandman "less bad," but I guess "not bad" was a bridge too far. Razorback they're just fixing a niche problem in a really hamfisted way, but keeping the passive counter-counter bit and even buffing it marginally. I'm overall very happy with the proposed changes. The only other one I question is the passive cloak penalty on Your Eternal Reward.

[QUOTE=agrastiOs;52387211]Demonstration of what would be the new Ambassador: [url]http://imgur.com/gallery/WqxKL[/url][/QUOTE] I'm okay with this. Valve pls implement

[QUOTE=Contra132;52386940]No. The Revolver's cone may be tight in comparison to other spread patterns, but even a 50% reduction in that spread becomes dramatic at a long enough range. It's delusional to think that inaccuracy and randomness "rewards skill" in any way. It's a balancing mechanic, not a skill-index. They explicitly changed the weapon so that long-distance headshots are much less likely to actually connect. I've hit heads that are smaller than my damn dot crosshair with the Ambassador before, and the spread is [I]not[/I] that tight. Just set a fucking range limit on crit headshots. Otherwise, I'm going to be missing shots that I deserved to hit after spending quite a lot of time developing the aim to pull that off, and that's gonna fuckin suck. I don't need infinite range 102 headshots but I do want to actually hit the shots I know I should be hitting.[/QUOTE] then once your range is just edging on that boundary it becomes a 50/50 on whether you'll headshot or not

In 2014, the update (Love And War, June 18), was 13 days after the preceding blog post (June 5). Im expecting the update in a week or two, and my hopes are high!

[QUOTE=Jboby1;52387890]In 2014, the update (Love And War, June 18), was 13 days after the preceding blog post (June 5). Im expecting the update in a week or two, and my hopes are high![/QUOTE] Since they said they're still working on balance changes for other classes, i'm wondering if we'll get another post like this, or if the next thing will just be a straight up reveal of the update itself. Either way, i'm actually expecting the update to release on the 29th, and if not then, the first week of July guaranteed(pls)

Revolver accuracy is good news. I like the weapon but fucking hate how I can fire 6 rounds and only hit the target twice...especially if I'm not too far from a stationary dispenser -_-

So here's the question I kinda want to see your guy's answers to: What class' mains will whine enough to get the changes [B]reverted?[/B] (like whenever. It could be the week afterward, christmas or whenever) I'm betting on the Scout mains.

Nah, definitely the Spy mains. What would the Scout mains repine over? They don't have their overpowered weapons anymore? Either way, hopefully Valve will have thicker skin this time around.

[QUOTE=Stroheim;52388015]So here's the question I kinda want to see your guy's answers to: What class' mains will whine enough to get the changes [B]reverted?[/B] (like whenever. It could be the week afterward, christmas or whenever) I'm betting on the Scout mains.[/QUOTE] the "real" scout mains use scattergun and secondary/melee don't matter. they are completely unaffected by this update so no, not really.

Yeah, I've seen quite a few (not-douchey) scout mains say the changes were pretty warranted the changes to scout only make his unlocks more balanced. stock scout had no changes and is still one of the most powerful loadouts in the game. scouts have pretty much 0 reason to complain. maybe spy as a class will be buffed in a way that he can be viable competitively and the spy main(s) can stop freaking out

[QUOTE=Stroheim;52388015]So here's the question I kinda want to see your guy's answers to: What class' mains will whine enough to get the changes [B]reverted?[/B] (like whenever. It could be the week afterward, christmas or whenever) I'm betting on the Scout mains.[/QUOTE] Most of the Scout changes seem to focus on underused weapons or the stun 'n cleaver combo. Scout mains focus more on Scattergun, Pistol/Milk and utility gun. So I don't see them whinning. Spy, on the other hand, was hit hard by the TF2 Team. The DR nerf seems good in theory, but the Ambassador change is the most controversial due to the reliance of said gun in normal gameplay. I can see them reverting the 50% penalty and adding a "reduced damage by distance" or "weapon cannot crit after x hammer units"

I hope they address all the other banned 6v6 weapons in the update, including: soda popper mad milk disciplinary action reserve shooter buffalo steak sandvich wrangler short circuit quick fix vaccinator solemn vow sydney sleeper jarate Though for quite a few of these I'm not sure what you'd do. Discuss it here I guess Thankfully, none of them have such an amazing level of usage that a big change would be super controversial, besides maybe jarate ("it's never been changed, why now?") and reserve shooter (i think most people will be happy to see this gun put in its place though) Some of these are still weak in some ways, though. For instance, Buffalo Steak Sandvich is a terrible thing to use for fighting. It's banned in 6v6 for allowing Heavy to rollout to mid with no real downsides. So I think it needs to be changed to something more... offensive. For instance, just make it a straight up crit-a-cola for Heavy. Give/take minicrits. Let him use the Minigun with it for all I care. The important thing is the removal of the speed boost.

Most Scouts agree those weapons are overpowered as fuck. Scout doesn't need them however to be the strongest class in the game.

I had an idea about weapon balancing changes in general. Typically, the changes are released all at once, and then, a flood of suggestions and complaints comes in for multiple weapons, which slows down further tweaks to improve the weapons. I suggest that the first part of the year could be divided into segments of about 2 weeks to a month where a few changes are made, feedback and user data is received, and the team decides to keep, edit, or revert the changes and a new set of tweaks is added.

[QUOTE=Blackavar;52388071]Yeah, I've seen quite a few (not-douchey) scout mains say the changes were pretty warranted the changes to scout only make his unlocks more balanced. stock scout had no changes and is still one of the most powerful loadouts in the game. scouts have pretty much 0 reason to complain. maybe spy as a class will be buffed in a way that he can be viable competitively and the spy main(s) can stop freaking out[/QUOTE] thats not going to work, I have yet to see an fps where a character designed around stealth was both viable and fun to fight, spy in tf2, phantom in dirty bomb, sombra in overwatch are all considered bottom of the barrel for there respective games outside of casual play. If you make them good enough to kill even aware communicating players, they ruin the game for people playing casually, if you design them to have enough counter play where you can deal with them casually they become garbage with actual awareness and coordination. In order for spy to be both viable and fun to fight against in all levels you would have to rework him so much that he wouldn't really be the spy anymore.

[QUOTE=poptart TF2;52388198]thats not going to work, I have yet to see an fps where a character designed around stealth was both viable and fun to fight, spy in tf2, phantom in dirty bomb, sombra in overwatch are all considered bottom of the barrel for there respective games outside of casual play. If you make them good enough to kill even aware communicating players, they ruin the game for people playing casually, if you design them to have enough counter play where you can deal with them casually they become garbage with actual awareness and coordination. In order for spy to be both viable and fun to fight against in all levels you would have to rework him so much that he wouldn't really be the spy anymore.[/QUOTE] get rid of spy then, since he's about as fun to fight as current sandman and crit-a-cola even though he's shit edit: kind of like pyro, except pyro can be fixed. spy just oneshots everything and forces you to do 180s every few seconds and move more unpredictably than normal after the spy respawns to not die

[QUOTE=Blackavar;52388218]get rid of spy then, since he's about as fun to fight as current sandman and crit-a-cola even though he's shit edit: kind of like pyro, except pyro can be fixed. spy just oneshots everything and forces you to do 180s every few seconds and move more unpredictably than normal after the spy respawns to not die[/QUOTE] People say that about all classes though, "they're not fun to fight against" at that. So should we remove all 9 classes altogether because of it? I can't count the number of times I've seen people complain about soldier or demomen at least... Hell, even Medic, who is more of a support class gets these complaints. Then again, we might as well just call it Quake at that point if we only kept one general character lol...

Pyro mains are going to be up there with the spy mains for how [U]loud[/U] they're going to whine/humblebrag about their part in the update. I'm calling this now, the big piece will either be about the degreaser or the flare gun.

I'm gonna be honest- I find myself questioning why I bother to argue balance with people who legitimately believe, among other things, that classes they don't like should simply be removed from the game or that anything that counters their main of choice shouldn't exist. Not only is it tiring on my end, but it displays a clear disregard for the bigger picture of balancing and what other players happen to experience. My ideal TF2 experience would be something like silent decloaks, no Pyros or Heavies and Scout-speed on Spy among other things. [B]But I'd never push for or argue that,[/B] because that'd be fuckawful for literally everyone that isn't a Spy main and, in the long term, having no real counters would just make the game monotonous and lose any drive to keep improving and trying new things. It seems like for every bit of genuinely valuable game insight and discussion that I see here, I see two more repetitive, vapid complaints about why Maintaining Situational Awareness Is Too Hard and My Class Shouldn't Have Any Counters. Not only is it inconsiderate to the wider population of people playing who Aren't You, it's in blatant disregard to the game's balancing as a whole, competitive or otherwise.

[QUOTE=Stroheim;52388403]Pyro mains are going to be up there with the spy mains for how loud their going to whine/humblebrag about their part in the update. I'm calling this now, the big piece will either be about the degreaser or the flare gun.[/QUOTE] This makes me glad I decided not to pick a main at all. Makes it easier to not show any bias towards my class when comparing to others. Also fun to be able to run all 9 classes reasonably well as well and with different set ups. If they fix a lot of the core issues with Pyro though, I don't feel it will get bother a lot of Pyro mains out there though. I'm hoping they'll rework the class into a more functioning class even if they have to apply some nerfs to a few aspects of it.

As far as Spy goes I'm just sorta sad Spy didn't really see any positive changes. I just want Kunai buffs.