Jab
2741
The demo man changes sound great, and I’ve been wanting a way for the spy to recharge his cloak faster. I’ll be up for some TF2 tomorrow if you guys want to play.
Scout update next! I think I have about ten minutes of total Scout gameplay, but still pretty interested in what they’re going to do with him.
You said it. It was a little depressing to see my entire friends list pop up with Left 4 Dead. I feel like I’m the only one that doesn’t own it.
Jab
2745
For those playing tonight, what do they mean that shooting the sticky bombs now break them? Do they explode or just stop working?
They basically just break. No boom, just crack and gone.
Sticky bombs can be destroyed, teleporters recharge in just a few seconds, and overhealed cloaked spies are visible. It’s a crazy world out there.
I wonder if they did that part on purpose. I bet that spy was wondering how I saw him…
Woooooooooooot! Kill tonight!
Ninyu
2750
Team Fortress 2 is $10 on Steam today.
I ran into a very weird issue and I’m hoping there is a fix for it that doesn’t involve reinstalling TF2 or Steam.
My wife bought TF2 during the $10 and tonight she decided to try it out. I was going to host the server and she would join. When I loaded up the level, two things happened. First, commentary started playing. This is confusing enough and tells me that the game didn’t load properly. Second, a bunch of bots(?) suddenly appeared and then vanished.
I went out of the spawn and there were commentary nodes everywhere, just as if I had loaded the commentary instead of hosting a server. She also couldn’t see me in the server list. I cannot host a game regardless of the number of max players I set. It always does this.
I submitted an in-game bug report if only because it is so damn bizarre. Does anyone know of a way to fix this or reset all the TF2 settings to default? I can provide more details if needed.
BlakeD
2752
I just got back into playing TF2 again. Forgot how much fun it is, particularly with friends.
Anyone have any thoughts what they think the Scout Update might include? What do you think would be a good addition? I heard a rumor going round that it’s supposed to drop sometime this month, but I’m not sure how anyone could know that (apart from Valve).
Etelmik
2753
I wouldn’t be surprised if they slow him down while giving him an hp boost or something, either; he’s very rarely used anymore on the payload maps.
Another idea I heard that seems pretty awesome is a baseball that distracts the sentry. It would be difficult to balance, but it would certainly be a good option for payload.
As an Engineer, I DO NOT need yet another class that can easily destroy my sentries. I already have to baby sit the gun like it’s a two year old with ADD.
sluggo
2755
The Scout is extremely useful on Badwater, from speeding the cart through the initial tunnel as well as pushing the cart from the 2nd to 3rd point. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve singlehandedly capped that third point simply by crouching behind the cart to avoid fire from defenders rounding that corner. Why doesn’t everyone do this? The only answer I can come up with is that most players are either too damned stupid or just don’t care about moving the cart.
And really, that’s the biggest problem with Payload. At times half the players don’t seem to grasp the concept of (or show interest in) the cart. Teams will often have 3-4 snipers on offense, who won’t change class no matter how bad they are and refuse to charge the cart even with 15 seconds to go. They might as well be AFKs. People play Scout and don’t charge the cart – they just scamper around like morons, usually getting picked off by demos or heavies or pyros. Heavies will spend 45 seconds running to the final bomb pit on Goldrush when there aren’t any teleporters, instead of growing a brain and building teles themselves.
So what Payload usually comes down to is, does my team have more or less idiots than yours? A typical 12v12 match realistically ends up being 10v8 or 8v5 once you factor out the clueless players, which is OK on a map like Dustbowl, because the game more or less pushes everyone to the action. In Payload, it’s too easy for players to get distracted away from the cart, and once one team starts getting rolled, that’s when people start quitting and I inevitably get teambalanced to Team Dumbass. Very frustrating.
I have a hard time imagining what they’ll do for the scout update. Maybe special shoes that let him jump extra high, at the cost of some speed? Maybe they’ll bring back the old scattergun? I can’t even begin to guess what they’d do for melee.
The only thing worse then having too much snipers on your team is having too much snipers on your team who also suck at it.
You’re not playing with the right group, Sluggo. Crouching behind the cart on that turn is suicide where I play. Scouts are also well-represented.
sluggo
2758
I’ve found that there’s no such thing as a team that has more than 2 snipers and none of them suck. Maybe 1 out of 5 snipers is actually “good” – meaning that he racks up enough kills to be a deterrence to the other team – and the others will just sit there, getting a handful of kills when they could be more useful as a medic or building some teles.
I’ve come to accept that there’s just this group of people who really doesn’t care about the team aspect of TF2 – they just enjoy sniping as a mini-game unto itself. So they don’t care who wins, they don’t care about flags, they don’t care about touching a cart, they don’t care about changing classes to help their team, it’s just about sniping. I just don’t get it.
On the scout thing: I’m not playing with any particular group, Mike. I’m playing pickup games on a few dozen servers, and I see the same things constantly. A lot of the time, trying to push the cart at that third point IS suicide – it moves 2 feet and then I get blown to bits. I’ll make 5 or 6 runs and maybe inch the cart forward a little bit before realizing the defense is too stiff. But an equal amount of the time, I’ll move the cart a huge chunk on my first try, and often cap the point. The only thing stopping our team from capping the point was that no one was actually trying.
BlakeD
2759
Interesting thoughts on the Scout update. I have no clue what they’ll do. I’m sure they’ve got something fantabulous planned. Didn’t even see the Sandvich coming which is hilarious, although I’m not sure how useful in the long run.
One annoying thing I miss from playing FPS games on my 360 is the ability to form “parties”. I often can’t get on the same server as my friends and when I do, I’m forced to be on the opposite team for a round or two. For a game so reliant on team work it’s frustrating to be separated from people you know and can work well with.
A friend of mine has gotten his wife to start playing TF2, but the problem is that they share the same IP so one will be kicked as the other joins more often than not. Not sure if that is a server setting or something hard coded into TF2 itself.
This has been true of every single multiplayer team fps since the beginning of them. The trick that TF2 does is to make them useful, or at least a bit more useful, even if you’re right, they could be doing more as another class. But since they aren’t so inclined and obviously won’t be any time soon, it’s a damn fine thing they have that dot to show where they are aiming.
The dot is how a not so good sniper is helpful. Every single person that steps out into a hallway and sees a dot moving around is at least going to consider it and how to avoid it. Or if they should even be stepping into that corridor…
That’s what makes TF2 the game it is…it engenders cooperative gameplay without people even realizing it in a lot of cases.
So yeah, I’d love to see one of those snipers being a medic or a demoman or something… but since they aren’t in any hurry to do so, at least they are throwing the other team off a bit when they are taking pot shots down the corridor at the incoming forces.
