Team Fortress 2 Update Topic

Jer9 · Apr 16, 2010

It is a good day to be giant man

At Valve, we like to play games made by other people, mainly because a) we don't have to make them, and b) they're generally more fun than ours anyway. In particular, games made by other people don't have Pyros named Eric Smith, who makes our collective lives miserable on a daily basis in playtests. (If you ever wonder why features like "Pyro now gets assists for airblasting enemies into environmental hazards" keep getting added to the game, thank Eric. Not content with killing us by just holding down W+M1, he persists in finding bold new ways to get points by any means necessary.)

It turns out that not only do we play other games--other game developers play ours. Last year Telltale Games' TF2 Team went head to head with us in the TF2 Studio Rumble tournament, in the process dominating our own Adrian Finol so hard that he made up an excuse about "picking up my kids somewhere" and went and sat in his car for an hour. After the match, we all agreed that one of these days we should do something cool together, because they're big fans of TF2, and we're big fans of getting advance copies of Sam & Max episodes.

Fast forward to now, and doodly-doodly-doot: We're doing something cool together. To celebrate the release of The Penal Zone, the first episode in Sam & Max's new adventure, The Devil's Playhouse, the Telltale team has provided us with some awesome TF2 items. We're going to give them out to everyone who buys The Penal Zone in the next week.

That's right: one week only. It's like the Soldier medal all over again, except this time you have no excuse about being too asleep in bed to download it in time. The items:

Max's Severed Head
* It's not often you're given the gift of a beloved character's decapitated head by the very studio responsible for that character. Still, we're not complaining. It's soft, it wicks away moisture in the heat of battle, it highlights our eyes. It's got us thinking about all the other game characters we could be wearing around as clothes.

Max's Pistol
* Who wouldn't want to squeeze off a couple rounds with the murder weapon of choice of a sociopathic cartoon rabbit? Probably quite a lot of people, when you get right down to it. Luckily, those people are all well-adjusted contributors to society with no police records, spotless credit ratings and few unresolvable moral failings. They also probably have no interest in playing TF2, so that means more murder-rabbit gun shooting for the rest of us.

Sam's Revolver
* This might look like an ordinary revolver, until you realize that it helps a talking dog solve crimes. How many crimes has YOUR dog solved lately? And let's face it, his revolver kind of sucks too. Man, we want to talk about this gun more, but we can't get over how much your dog sucks.

So there's the loot, folks. Get over to Steam and take a look at The Penal Zone. (And to answer your question, no. We asked. It doesn't mean what we thought it meant.)

source: TF2.com
Click to expand...

Morrolan · Apr 16, 2010

Reduced damage for the equalizer - finally.

LuckyLuke · Apr 21, 2010

Today we're shipping some significant changes to the item drop system.

* Previously, we rolled randomly at intervals to see if you got an item drop. Now we roll to determine when your next item drop will occur. So you're guaranteed to find items at fairly regular intervals. The bulk of drop complaints we've received in the past have been from players having unlucky streaks, where they didn't find any items for weeks. That won't be possible now.
* We've significantly increased the rate at which item drops occur, compared to the previous average interval.
* There's now a maximum amount of playtime per week in which you get item drops. Playing beyond that amount won't find any more items. The amount varies, but if you play an hour or so a day you're good. Some of your unused time will rollover to the following week, so if you're an intermittent player you'll also be fine.

What are the net effects of these changes? Here's the quick summary:

* If you're an idler, you're going to find fewer items than you were prior to this change. Sorry. On the bright side, there's less reason to idle, because it won't earn more than players who are playing regularly.
* Everyone else will find items more frequently, and with greater regularity.

We're still thinking about how to allow you to influence your drops. When we see discussions on the forums, people often ask why we don't tie it to some in-game performance (like your scoreboard position, or number of kills, etc). Many players understand that if we did this, idle servers would simply change into servers running plugins that generate those in-game events frequently (as we saw in the Soldier & Demoman WAR!).

There's another side of it that we care about just as much, which is the message it would send to all the players who don't want to idle. Any in-game performance metric we chose would result in there being specific maps, classes, tactics, and so on that resulted in more drops. We really don't want that to happen. When it's simply playtime, you're free to play the game however you like. If you love Payload, you can play Payload maps without worrying about whether you're earning less drops than the guys playing Arena maps. Community mapmakers don't have to worry about whether their maps earn item drops fast enough. Similarly, server operators can configure their servers however they like, without worrying about reducing the rate at which their players are earning drops. In short, while it's far from perfect, not tying to in-game performance is a lot less poisonous to your minute-to-minute game experience.
Click to expand...

Good bye idle servers.

Q-Ball · Apr 21, 2010

Finally!
Tremble You - idlers! That day has come! :badgrin:

LuckyLuke said:

* Everyone else will find items more frequently, and with greater regularity.
Click to expand...

Mmmm sandvich

Morrolan · Apr 21, 2010

Today we're shipping some significant changes to the item drop system.

* There's now a maximum amount of playtime per week in which you get item drops. Playing beyond that amount won't find any more items. The amount varies, but if you play an hour or so a day you're good.
Click to expand...

One hour a day isn't that much. :/ (perhaps I'm just gaming too much )
Anyway, for getting away all those idlers it's worth it.

DataStorm · Apr 22, 2010

http://tf2stats.net/forums/index.php/to ... msg24.html

LuckyLuke · Apr 29, 2010

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Dedicated Server
- Linux optimizations.
- Fixed Linux servers not relisting correctly after a master server restart
- Fixed a case where servers could have "ghost" players consuming player slots

Engine
Marked the "snd_show" convar as a cheat

Gameplay Changes

Pyro changes
Flamethrower direct damage reduced 20%.
Burn duration reduced (10 -> 6 seconds).
Airblast re-fire delay reduced by 25%.
Airblast ammo usage reduced by 20%.
All reflected rockets/grenades/arrows now mini-crit.
Airblasting enemies into environmental deaths now awards the death credit to the Pyro.

Heavy changes
Minigun spin-up/down time reduced by 25%
Minigun firing movement speed increased to just under half-normal (from 80 to 110).
Throwing a sandvich to a teammate now earns a full bonus point (was half a point).

Bonk! changes
Post-use movement penalty removed.
Now has a re-use cooldown time, like The Sandman.
The Chargin' Target changes
Direct charge hit now does 50 damage + 10 per head (up to 5 heads).
Capped the turn rate from +left and +right while charging.

The Huntsman changes
Removed restriction that arrows need to be aimed before they can be lit by a Pyro.
Bow can now be lowered without losing the lit arrow.
Changed bow so you can start charging it while you're jumping, but you can't fire until you're on the ground.
Fixed bug where flame effect would get stuck on if you change weapons with a lit arrow.

Backpack changes
Moved Crafting button out to the root class/backpack selection panel.
Dragging and dropping items in your backpack now makes appropriate sounds.

Bot changes
Bots don't retreat to gather health as readily if they are in combat.
Bots no longer retreat when moving to block a point capture.
Bots should now equip an appropriate combat weapon and fight while moving to collect health.
Bots who are roaming the map and hunting now chase down their victims, following them around corners.
Bots That fire projectiles (ie: rockets/grenades/etc) don't hold down their fire button for a minimum time. This was causing Soldier bots to fire rockets into nearby walls as they strafed, killing themselves.
Soldiers bots now switch to their shotgun after firing all four rockets when engaging an enemy.
Added a few more bot names from community suggestions.
Fixed a behavior loop with Engineer metal gathering.

The Sandman change
Added a slight speed reduction to stunned players.

Community requests
Added ConVars log_verbose_enable and log_verbose_interval to report player positions in the server log at regular intervals
log_verbose_enable default: 0
log_verbose_interval default: 3 secs
"Last-weapon" initialization on respawn now sets itself to be the melee weapon if you donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t have a selectable secondary weapon (like The Razorback).

Bug Fixes
Fixed an case where The Gunboats didnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t apply their damage reduction properly.
The amount count in the HUD now flashes red when youÃ¢â‚¬â„¢re low on ammo.
Extinguishing a burning teammate now earns a full bonus point (was half a point).
Fixed a permanent overheal exploit involving dispensers.
Fixed a bug in spectator mode where the user aborted out of freezecam, setup a spec mode (like IN_EYE), and would then have the setting stomped after the freezecam timer expired.
Fixed bug with disguised spy sometimes seeing his own name in the disguise status HUD.
Fixed a client crash that could result from players with arrows embedded in them.
Fixed items that can be worn by any class having the wrong model when worn by a disguised Spy.
Added missing map prefixes to server browser game types.
Killing yourself with your own sentry no longer increments the sentry's kill counter.
Fixed dropped hats sometimes having the wrong team color.
Fixed crit-boosted players not getting critical hits if their weapon has custom no-crit behavior.
Fixed the achievement dialog taking a long time to pop up, and completed achievements now sort to the bottom of the list.
Fixed Spies disguised as Medics hearing the autocaller sound.
Click to expand...

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

Looking forward to play pyro again

Great stuff tbh, will require some getting used to, but looks really good.

Anonymous · Apr 29, 2010

yey pyro is reduces to a more pro-class instead if a low class "w+m1" noob thingy +1

Anonymous · Apr 29, 2010

Wow, this looks real good.

Jer9 · Apr 29, 2010

ah, the jigglebones are back with the Sam & Max hat, gonna check it out!

looks like a great update^^

That crit-a-cola is pretty interesting, it's for the scout which works just like bonk but instead of recieving an uber you can shoot crits, but enemies can do crits to you as well.
how do I know that? youtube

Killvion · Apr 29, 2010

Jer9 said:

That crit-a-cola is pretty interesting, it's for the scout which works just like bonk but instead of recieving an uber you can shoot crits, but enemies can do crits to you as well.
how do I know that? youtube
Click to expand...

that could actually make the scout good for ubering! a critting, ubered scout is really devastating.

update the servers please

Q-Ball · Apr 29, 2010

Wow that seriously awesome!
Love new scout's BONK! YEAH!

But actually they will be more annoying when I'll play sniper

Oh and cant wait to play as Pyro...mmm Battle Pyro

Knightmare · Apr 29, 2010

Direct charge hit now does 50 damage + 10 per head (up to 5 heads).
Click to expand...

So thats 100 damage per hit when you have 5 heads. I can see people complaining about this.

Killvion · Apr 29, 2010

KÃ±Ã¯6hâ€ mÃ¥rÃª said:

Direct charge hit now does 50 damage + 10 per head (up to 5 heads).
Click to expand...

So thats 100 damage per hit when you have 5 heads. I can see people complaining about this.
Click to expand...

there are always people complaining

just like me now... why are the servers still not rebooted?

Anonymous · Apr 29, 2010

Retarded update. Pyro is now cannon fodder for anybody who can aim and isn't a Demo, unnecessary Targe nerf (40% explosive damage reduction) and a lot of other minor gripes.

Anonymous · Apr 29, 2010

Buffalo Bill said:

Pyro is now cannon fodder for anybody who can aim.
Click to expand...

So pyro's have to actually use ambushes now? And it finally isn't that easy anymore to W+M1?

Anonymous · Apr 29, 2010

Pim de Pinguin said:

Buffalo Bill said:

Pyro is now cannon fodder for anybody who can aim.
Click to expand...

So pyro's have to actually use ambushes now? And it finally isn't that easy anymore to W+M1?
Click to expand...

1. Pyro can't ambush due to lack of movement needed to ambush.
2. Pyro ambushes aren't as effective as Soldier/Scout/Demo ambushes due to lack of damage output, worsened by the update
3. W+M1 was never a problem. Only against terrible players.

Keltsu · Apr 29, 2010

Update summed up in words:

"Ooohhhh, run, run, I'm coming for you! Waaaaaaaahhh, uwaaaaaaaaaaahhh! AHAHAHAHAHAHA! Cry some more!"

LuckyLuke said:

Heavy changes
Minigun spin-up/down time reduced by 25%
Minigun firing movement speed increased to just under half-normal (from 80 to 110).
Throwing a sandvich to a teammate now earns a full bonus point (was half a point).
Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Thank you so much Valve! <3

Anonymous · Apr 29, 2010

Buffalo Bill said:

1. Pyro can't ambush due to lack of movement needed to ambush.
2. Pyro ambushes aren't as effective as Soldier/Scout/Demo ambushes due to lack of damage output, worsened by the update.
Click to expand...

Pyro attacks cause more distraction though, or at least that should be the idea. Also the backburner and axethinguiser have better damage output's, if used right.

Buffalo Bill said:

3. W+M1 was never a problem. Only against terrible players.
Click to expand...

True, however if one class has an advantage over if used against players of the same skill level, (bad class x vs bad pyro), that's a design flaw in my eyes. However the pyro should get more options, since you can't advance as much as the other classes, skillwise.

I rarely see skillfull pyro's depending on the afterburn. Don't forget, the airblast has been buffed, I think you are able to reflect all the rockets if fired in quick succession now, plus it gives you mini-crits.

LuckyLuke · Apr 29, 2010

Protip: learn to play pyro. I killed an overhealed heavy within 5 seconds before the update. :badgrin:

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