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Team Fortress 2 - The Official Discussion Thread

Holy shit, minicrits for a team if your doing well.... Man this is gonna give the competitive community some new toys.

And the new Pipe launcher is pretty interesting too
 
Two claims to fame: I removed the "Great" from "The Great Equalizer" and I came up with the achievement Mutually Assured Destruction.

I'm sorry about this, but I have to brag.

As for the unlocks, The Direct Hit and The Equalizer are awesome, The Buff Banner is useful, The Targe is cute, and I keep changing my mind about the SR and the Eyelander.
 
Okay, the equalizer is just about the funnest weapon ever. I've been delighted to walk up to soldiers, take a rocket, and nail them with the pick axe. On top of that, It's got the coolest taunt kill in the game.

"Scotland is not a country! You are an English man in a dress!"
 
I just spent about an hour playing cp_gorge on several random pub servers, and I've got to say that I like the map a lot. Everything is nice and open, without a lot of narrow choke points, and there is also a vertical component to the map that makes it fun to play projectile classes. It reminds me a lot of cp_obscure in that respect.

As for the new weapons, I've only unlocked the targe and the boots, and both are rather underwhelming. The boots sounded awesome at first, but apparently the 75% damage reduction only applies to rocket jumps that are almost vertical, not horizontal rocket jumps used to traverse the map more rapidly. You could angle these jumps such that you do get the benefit of the damage reduction, but chances are that doing so would take you to heights where you'd take fall damage, defeating the purpose of the damage reduction in the first place. The targe is nice, mainly because it gives you a passive buff versus explosives, but there's no way that this thing is anywhere near as good as stickies. I got quite a bit of use out of it just because 80% of the people on the server I was playing were explosive classes (and the damage reduction was quite nice), but I doubt that I'll be using it most of the time.

One of my favorite parts of this update was the new advanced multiplayer option that displays the damage you deal as a numeral above the person you shot. I found it very helpful when using the shotgun, as sometimes it's hard to tell how much damage a shot did if you didn't place it very well, and it's also quite nice when juggling foes (since the splash damage you can deal is variable). I just hope there's a way to change the font color, because the red is a little hard to read on some backgrounds. Something more yellow or orange-ish would probably be easier to read.

As for the new crafting system, it seems like combining three of the same item gives you one scrap metal (this doesn't work with spy watches for some reason), three scraps makes a reclaimed, and three reclaimed makes a refined. From there, you can either combine three refined to get a random hat, or four refined plus a class token to try for a specific class. (Class tokens are obtained by combining four weapons for that respective class.) This works out to 81 weapons for a random hat, or 112 weapons for a hat for a specific class. You can also swap to hats for a random hat. I think you can also combine a class token, a slot token, and one scrap metal to get a specific weapon, although doing this for the soldier/demo unlocks at this point would be impractical since it would require having four of their weapons so you could create a class token. On the offchance that you happen to have four extra soldier weapons without getting one of the ones that you want, however, it could work.
 
The boots are smelly. Because they're boots and because they're replacing the shotgun. Bleh. Shotgun is way too good and Soldiers should use it more.

Fastposted, they only reduce the fall damage? That's lame, better Soldiers know how to jump to not take fall damage.
 
hot my first piece as a radom drop, the new rocket launcher, what a great weapon it is. only thing i hate is the new demoman equipment, trying to get my unlocks myself, most of the achievemnts need the unlocks though.
the new shield is rather annoying and takes the whole skill of the direct hit out of the game having been killed by a dumb charge after hitting said demoman with TWO crits from a direct hit.
crafting system, its a shooting game not a hat factory, have to say i'm pleased having the direct hit, as my fortee was the huntsman sniper defence, and this is as close as i'm going to get without the annoying charge up.
my first achivements from the new ones was He Who Celt It :D probably one of the most obscure ones to get lol
Use the Sticky Launcher to kill an enemy player via environmental damage.
 
Fastposted, they only reduce the fall damage? That's lame, better Soldiers know how to jump to not take fall damage.
No, they DON'T reduce fall damage, which is part of the problem. They reduce the damage from the rocket explosion...but only if the jump is above a certain angle. Most wall-jumps will still make you take full damage, which is disappointing.

I think they might have modified the random drop system so that it's biased toward giving out the new weapons, because out of about six random drops I've gotten so far, four of them have been demo/soldier weapons. If they did do this, it's a pretty smart move on their part, since I'm guessing that most people are just trying to get the new weapons. I'm still a bit disappointed that I still don't have pickaxe despite having gotten the achievement milestone for it. (I got the weapon for milestone two, but not for milestone one, presumably because the server was down when I got the first one.) I did submit a support ticket so hopefully I should get it soon. Aside from the pickaxe, I already have everything that I want, except for maybe the bugle, which looks like it could be useful on servers with 24 or more players.
 
After playing a bit, I don't like the new CP map, but the new CTF map is nice. Bit weird, but the CP map reminds me of a larger and more plain dustbowl (and I hate dustbowl), and the ctf map is quite a bit open, but doesn't take forever to get to their intel room.

Shame about the boots. Apparently they didn't want it to reduce "shoot self get kill" damage, but still, that's pretty stupid. I also got the milestone 1 but no item glitch, which is a shame.

Also, apparently, if you're at 1 HP, you run the speed of a scout with the pickaxe, so I hear.
 
After playing a bit, I don't like the new CP map, but the new CTF map is nice. Bit weird, but the CP map reminds me of a larger and more plain dustbowl (and I hate dustbowl)
cp_gorge is like the antithesis of cp_dustbowl. cp_dustbowl is a long map where a single A/D cycle can take over an hour, with lots of narrow hallways and narrow chokepoint, with most combat taking place on the control points themselves or in narrow chokes. cp_gorge is ridiculously short for an A/D map, everything is wide and open, even the indoor portions of the map, and there are lots of yard areas where the defending team can put up a fight, rather than just turtling it up at the control point. It's probably my favorite A/D map.

Also, apparently, if you're at 1 HP, you run the speed of a scout with the pickaxe, so I hear.
Everything you ever wanted to know about The Equalizer but were afraid to ask. There are HP thresholds every 40 HP, so your running speed at 1 HP and 40 HP are the same. You do more damage with 1 HP, though. You need to have 57 or fewer health to one-shot 125 HP classes (without damage spread) and 19 or less HP lets you one-shot medics. The Equalizer starts being more effective than the shovel at <150 HP (if you have >150 HP it is less effective than the shovel).
stupid steam servers, been playing most of the day, hit three milestones, and still have nothing new :(
I got the first two soldier milestones and got my direct hit (about five minutes after getting one as a random drop) but not my pickaxe. Looks like the entire backpack system is offline at the moment.
 
there is a bug with the achievemnts not giving stuff out, valve will be fixing it and giving out the missing items.. i want my targe now :(
i do like the direct hit very much, as i played huntsman sniper a fair bit, its practially the same weapon, which makes me wonder, have valve got a bit carried away with these new weapons, direct hit outclasses huntsman (except against targe demoman), yet there is very little worth using from the side grades of the older weapons.
 
cp_gorge is like the antithesis of cp_dustbowl. cp_dustbowl is a long map where a single A/D cycle can take over an hour, with lots of narrow hallways and narrow chokepoint, with most combat taking place on the control points themselves or in narrow chokes. cp_gorge is ridiculously short for an A/D map, everything is wide and open, even the indoor portions of the map, and there are lots of yard areas where the defending team can put up a fight, rather than just turtling it up at the control point. It's probably my favorite A/D map.

I probably had a pretty bad experience with it, since nearly everyone was a Soldier or Demo. Still, it needs a little more terrain, not enough jump areas and such.

First point -> Building seems brutal.
 
i agree with you about gorge, super, mostly because all of the fighting takes place in a single room (the one connecting onto the final cp) , and my experience so far has been endless rocket/nade spam in that room. not fun.

doublecross, on the other hand, is much more thoughtfully designed, and there's some really great opputunities for rocket/sticky jumping there.
 
I've gotten Solider Milestone 3 and Demoman Milestone 2 and have yet to receive anything but the pick axe and the shield. I can't wait for this to be actually fixed, I'm dieing to test out the Direct Hit and the Scottish Resistance.

I've yet to play on gorge, but I've enjoyed doublecross so far. It feels really simple and free flowing like Turbine without the endless tracks of land in Sawmill or Well.
 
im really liking all the unlocks so far, though i've yet to unlock the targe and sword after the servers crashed.

the soldier unlocks, i feel, do a really good job of making him less of a spam class in pub games and more adaptable to different situations. i think these unlocks will have a greater impact on competitive play than any before them, since not only is there a high skill ceiling for using them, but they also open up alot of new strategies and tactics.
i've heard some calling for an equalizer nerf, but i think anyone using it primarily for anything except escaping is at too much risk for it to be considered nerf worthy, but we'll see i guess.

although i haven't used them yet, i can safely say the sword and targe need some work. demo becomes a fucking tank when charging at you, and it's pretty ridiculous. earlier today as a soldier i was playing some nucleus, and rounded a corner to see a demoman at the other end of one of the lower tunnels. he had his sword out so i could guess what he was going to do, but 3 direct hits to the face (thats direct hits from the direct hit not direct hits from the rocket launcher) wasnt enough to stop him from one shot critting me with the eyelander, and to still have white health when i saw his freezecam. in a one on one situation with a targe demo, almost every class except the scout (and pyro maybe the with flame + airblast) will lose 9 out of 10 times. you cant run away easily, and once he's close enough there's no way to escape the range of that sword. maybe it's just ebcause i've been playing mostly soldier and demo this week, and i dont want to be the guy who whines because waaa he killed me, but most classes just don't have an answer to it, and it needs some rethinking.
 
it takes 4 direct hits, i'm loving the targe, was stuck with it last night.. loadout errors AGAIN.. and was just lauging at soldiers and demomen trying to use stickys, just walked over them with 55 hp to get a healthpack lol, i think the sword does need some balance, its even impossible to melee them as they seem to have isnae reach.
and try heavy, i gave one of those a spin for a while and got a 14 kill streak, silly targe+sword demomen die before sword can kill
 
The gunboats got buffed last night and they have officially become my favorite unlock. Crouch-RJs inside spawn during freeze time hurt you for <20 damage (instead of killing you if you try to do more than two of them), and rocket jumps and wall jumps do ~10 damage each, making it possible to do things like RJ into a double wall-jump that still leaves you with >150 HP. A lot of the moves shown in trick videos like this are now actually viable.

Only real problems with using the gunboats are the loss of ability to help your medic grind for uber (which is consequential if you are playing pocket) and of course the loss of your shotgun (which makes killing targe demos a bit more difficult). I can see myself using these quite a lot without them completely replacing my shotgun. I think the gunboats are the best sidegrade since the Kritzkrieg.
 
The jumps in that video are sick, too bad I have shit control over the rocket jumps :(

And I also thought the gunboats go in the second miscellaneous slot or am I mistaken...?
 
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