Team Fortress 2 Game & Blog Update

[Evo]

A new Team Fortress 2 update has just been released, two important gameplay changes for everyone to be aware of:

• Players who are stunned by a Scout now take 50% less damage
• Increased the minimum distance to stun a player with the Sandman

More details can be found here.[br]Quite exciting news from the blog update shows the work Valve are doing on distinguishing 'good' and 'bad' servers from the server list.

After kicking around some proposals, we came up with a simple system built around the theory that player time on a server is a useful metric for how happy the player is with that server. It's game rules agnostic, and we can measure it on our steam backend entirely from steam client data, so servers can't interfere with it. We already had this data for all the TF2 servers in the world, allowing us to try several different scoring formulas out before settling on this simple one that successfully identified good & bad servers:

• New servers start with a score of 0 points
• Each time a player connects to a server, it loses 15 points
• For each minute the player stays on the server, it earns 1 point (up to a max of 45 points per player)

• • Using this system, Valve can quantify the success of servers, showing a badly stacked server with players regularly leaving a poor rating. It sounds like a system which could be really good at showing the best established community servers which are well maintained with regular admin present. See the full blog post here.

 

[Sledgehammer]

Players who are stunned by a Scout now take 50% less damage

Not the kind of fix that I was expecting, and not really needed in my opinion, but it's a nice change anyway. The Sandman is the worst griefing weapon in the game. It may have a small impact.

Increased the minimum distance to stun a player with the Sandman

Very needed fix. No more free kills for scouts. The only major thing left now to fix, is to make it less powerful against ubers.

Fixed Natascha's chain not being drawn on the view model

This is one of the most noticeable bugs in the game. Not one that directly affects anything, but it's nice anyway.

 

[Jintor]

Seriously, stupid bloody Sandman taking down stupid bloody Ubers.

 

[Sledgehammer]

Oh, and medics should keep on healing their target after being stunned.

 

[Viperidae]

Well, no more griefing for me.

 

[Sledgehammer]

Players who are stunned by a Scout now take 50% less damage

I read this as "The ball does 50% less damage." Feels stupid.

 

[L3N!N]

I enjoy every aspect of the Sandman except the "stunning ubers" part. Just scrap anything that inhibits ubering.

 

[Jintor]

Yeah, the point of an uber is that it's neigh unstoppable. Airblast was a good counter, but.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Added blog entry to OP to keep things together. (Although I'm sure post people already have read it).

 

[Absinthe]

Wrong fix to make IMO. The only problem with the Sandman is that it heavily negates ubers. Pyros may be able to stall them for a time, but they don't deny an ubered couple's ability to move and return fire. Other than that, Sandman's fine.

 

[Diesel_Power]

I hope the server rating thing doesn't get abused. I foresee people doing raids on servers with the intent to bring the score down.

Admin's will probably create a new rule on their servers saying something along the lines of "leave the server 3 times in less than 5-10 minutes and get perma banned!".

 

[okidoki]

I guess I'm in the minority, but I think they did the right thing with the sandman. Stopping ubers is what makes it useful. Maybe they should make it less powerful against ubers than on non-ubered players, but I don't think it should be completely unable to slow down ubered players. Hopefully scouts can no longer stun players and take two quick shots with the F-A-N point blank for easy kills with the longer stun distance.

I like the server score feature but I don't like how it sounds like they will deny access to certain servers. There might be a few people who want to play on those servers. Will they still show up on history and favorites? I would like the option of having them on the browser at least. I hate instant respawn/achievement/false player count servers as much as the next guy, but I don't like Valve telling me what servers I can play on as a matter of principle.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

• New servers start with a score of 0 points
• Each time a player connects to a server, it loses 15 points
• For each minute the player stays on the server, it earns 1 point (up to a max of 45 points per player)

But the server admin would have to market the server for there to be any real positive effects for that server.

What you would have is one or two players on the server. Somebody else joins and sees there is not much happening, and disconnects.

 

[Mutley]

Let the server wars begin...

 

[Adabiviak]

If the sandman is able to stop an uber cold, it should at least take as long as it takes the uber charge to acquire a ball, and during that time, they can't use another weapon. It's incredibly frustrating to spend the match hiding and waiting to build up the uber to have it effectively cancelled by one scout shot.

Likewise, scout vs. heavy in a long, confined corridor should only favor the scout if he's exceptionally adept at dodging fire. As in, he shouldn't be able to steamroll a fully healed heavy with a bonk and two sandman blasts and not even break stride.

Also, question for anyone with the energy drink: what's the spindown time like? Are you immobile for like five seconds? Can you move, just extra slowly, for ten seconds? Are you fully impervious to all fire? Can the pyro's compression blast still move you around?

 

[Sheepo]

You're pretty slow (slow as the heavy?) for about 4 or 5 seconds afterwards.

 

[PriNcE oF SpAcE]

wrong way to fix the sandman....they should just do away with the stun effect completely and replace it with another effect like screen sway and/or double vision...to simulate a concussive blow.

the problem with the current sandman stun is that for the opponent it's not a fun/interesting way to die as it isn't a result of the player making a fatal mistake that would fairly cost him his life(like failing to spot a spy or a snipers dot) on top of that it also works against the scout's design philosophy since when his opponent is stunned there's no need to bob-and-weave which should be the skill that a scout master to be effective(not stunning people and getting free kills).

if the player would suffer a concussive blow, screen sway/double vision, he would still be hampered enough that he's almost as good as dead vs. the fast scout, but it still leaves a small change for him to be able to either retreat to safety or getting off a lucky shot and kill an overconfident/reckless scout.

 

[Sheepo]

1) It punishes slow, predictable movement.
2) Except the scout is rarely fighting another person away from the action like the spy does, there are still plenty of enemies to dodge.

 

[Jintor]

1) It punishes slow, predictable movement.

It punishes being a heavy.

Personally I would love some sort of wonderful interface screw instead of a stun, or an interface screw coupled with a temporary slowdown or something.

 

[Sheepo]

It punishes being a heavy

Are you aware of the sniper rifle? It's kind of like the Sandman except it has a ridiculous range, you have 25 balls, those balls are actually bullets, and they will kill you with one shot to the head.

 

[Javert]

Ubers are supposed to be "uber". Stop the uber-stun!

 

[Jintor]

Are you aware of the sniper rifle? It's kind of like the Sandman except it has a ridiculous range, you have 25 balls, those balls are actually bullets, and they will kill you with one shot to the head.

Yeah, if they can hit you in the head, and if you're not ubered, and if the snipers have the space to set up the shot without getting shot in return/set on fire/stabbed in the back etc.

 

[Kyorisu]

Eh I haven't been bothered by scouts much since Cake. now has Cheese as a member who primarily plays the relentless torch your arse pyro role. That and teamwork stacks.

 

[bbson john]

It will be less of a problem after a months or two, when the number of scout players reduced to normal value.

 

[Sheepo]

Yeah, if they can hit you in the head, and if you're not ubered, and if the snipers have the space to set up the shot without getting shot in return/set on fire/stabbed in the back etc.

1) Already mentioned the headshot deal
2) Valid argument, uberstun should be removed
3) All of those things applies to the scout as well

 

[Jintor]

Hitting with the Sandman is a little like hitting with the flaregun, as opposed to hitting a head with the sniper.

 

[PriNcE oF SpAcE]

3) All of those things applies to the scout as well

except not at all.

1) you do not have to hit the head of an opponent.(this could actually be a thing that could balance out the sandman)

2) your fov isn't limited

3) your mobility isn't impaired(compared)

4) no real skill required to hit any of the slower classes.

5) even in case you miss your a far more viable direct combat class than the sniper.