Wait wait wait… you can earn ANY of the weapons now just by playing normally, and not trying to get achievements?
Is this absolutely 100% true? Any of the weapons?
This might get me back into the game… I stopped when the first unlockables came out, achievements are boring and pathetic in a FPS.
Squee
3062
Looks like. I was playing scout earlier and I picked up the cloak and dagger.
pyrhic
3063
Yes, afaik, it’s true. Only one dropped for me, and it was one I already had.
Kurina
3064
That is true for the most part, although quite a few forum posts elsewhere such as the Steam boards have people complaining that even sitting in spawn can net you a weapon and it seems totally random. This happened to a friend of mine as well.
Still downloading the update here to see for myself.
Hmm… I don’t think it’s achievement-based, because I saw in the game text “so-and-so found item X” without seeing a message right before about them getting an achievement.
On the other hand, I played for like an hour and a half today and didn’t get a damn thing. So I feel totally gypped.
I got a Bonk, which I already have. There is so much bitching about this in-game. Of course most of the ones bitching are probably doing so because they can’t use their achievement unlockers to get everything instantly. There are seriously people whining that they don’t have everything after playing two hours.
This is clearly an intermediate step pushed out to placate the people who didn’t like the weapons being locked behind achievements. Now all Valve has to do is activate the random stats on new weapons, and all will be awesome. I hear there’s a blog post coming tomorrow that will explain the new system.
Oh yeah, and hats are in. I saw a spy with a stylish fedora.
Kirian
3067
I haven’t played yet, but the new system is random and you get notified on death. I didn’t know hats were in.
If they make the stats random then the backpack starts to make more sense. I assume the stats will have some sort of tight banding for balance purposes.
Gah I really don’t like the new random drops. There is essentially nothing I hate more in games that doing things for multiple hours with a chance of no reward. I liked the achievement mechanism because I didn’t hack it, and it gave me a nice set of sub goals to work towards, as well as some progress meters.
I played for 3 hours tonight and didn’t get a single drop (not even a duplicate). It’s like playing everquest.
Hunty
3069
I kind of see where you’re coming from, but I would suggest as a counterpoint that the systems and game mechanics of Team Fortress are a lot more intrinsically rewarding than those of EverQuest - we all enjoyed playing it even without the drops because of the interplay between the classes, the strategy, the funny characterisation and the big ol’ kabooms. I’d suggest a lot of the mechanics of an MMO like EverQuest are more geared towards the gear (ahem), rather than being rewarding in and of themselves. TF2 would never feel like a grind to me.
I haven’t had a chance to check the new drop system out yet, but I’m going to view them as a bonus, and probably preferable to any achievement stuff.
They could add a trading system. Would speed up things.
Let’s go the full 9 yards and put in an auction house too!
Kirian
3073
I’ve just noticed another new touch. The scoreboard has icons instead of words for the character classes, and it looks like anyone who gets an achievement gets a medal next to their name.
As long as players don’t have two types of grenades and a special piece of equipment, I’m all for it! That shit is sooooo confusing! Wait…
The medals are the amount of dominations one has.
Near as I can tell, the medal (and number next to it) represents how many active dominations that player has. The icons are really nice, though; easy to read at a glance, and they add a nice visual element to the scoreboard.
Glad to see that they’ve re-tooled the way they unlock weapons, and the random stats thing sounds interesting. The in-game descriptions make much more sense this way too – the whole “level 5 minigun” thing always sounded a bit odd to me before.
I love the random “loot” drops. As a not-so-dedicated player, there was almost no chance of me ever getting any of the updated weapons (I previously only unlocked two weapons before last night) unless I went on an achievement server. Since I have no urge to grind on an achievement server, this new scheme lets me unlock weapons legitimately.
I haven’t played in ages (I think I stopped just before the first new weapons came out) so I’m sure this is a dumb question. When you obtain a new weapon, how does that work as far as inventory – does it autoreplace the old one, can you switch between the old/new options at any time ingame, or do you have to choose your arsenal every time you respawn?
Hunty
3079
You can switch between them in-game using the main menu by pressing escape. Your loadout doesn’t change until you respawn though.
You don’t need to respawn, just go to a supply closet.
In the past, one weird thing is that it’s broken the “quick switch” weapons key if the weapon I was quick switching to is one of the ones I traded out. I don’t know if they’ve fixed it (and its not a big deal), but you;ll have to manually select a weapon (mousewheel or num key) before you can quick switch it again.
