Team Fortress 2 Update - Milestone Achievements Return

[Absinthe]

I still think a trade system is absolutely superfluous, but we'll see. It just begs the question of what else they might be adding to make it worthwhile.

 

[Laivasse]

It may be working as Valve intended, but it still comes off as broken.

I have my doubts that it's working as Valve intended, or at least I doubt it's working in the way it's been explained. As I've posted elsewhere, twice (on occasions separated by a few days) I saw a friend of mine get about 16 unlocks dumped on her in the space of a few minutes; she now has 8 out of 9 hats. Someone else posted about a server where for a while people seemed to get awarded with unlocks every time they died. If people are being awarded stuff that the system probably wasn't meant to award them, how do I know if it's not also failing to award stuff to other people, ie. me?

My problem with it is that I just have no faith in the real randomness of the system. If someone I'm playing with gets all the unlocks in the space of an hour, then personally I have no problem with it if I know for sure he just got lucky. If however I suspect that the system is just glitching out in his favour, having seen examples of very definite glitchiness, then that just leaves a sense of brooding frustration. At least with milestones I know that I'll get an unlock if I meet the requirements, and that other people aren't accidentally going to have everything unlocked at the first milestone.

 

[Absinthe]

Well, I agree. Was just trying to offer the benefit of the doubt.

The distribution of the drops seems massively uneven from what I've seen and heard. And then you have cases where the server starts spitting out unlocks at everybody on the server (an event I've unfortunately never been part of of). I initially had the sneaking suspicion that there was a coded bias for new players at least during the free weekend, but I don't have anything to back that up obviously. I just don't really understand how people can be picking up new weapons consecutively in a single play session while I still haven't received anything of worth after a week except through milestones.

 

[the.v.dog]

The distribution of the drops seems massively uneven from what I've seen and heard. And then you have cases where the server starts spitting out unlocks at everybody on the server. ... I just don't really understand how people can be picking up new weapons consecutively in a single play session while I still haven't received anything of worth after a week...

I have my doubts that it's working as Valve intended, or at least I doubt it's working in the way it's been explained. .... I saw a friend of mine get about 16 unlocks dumped on her in the space of a few minutes ... My problem with it is that I just have no faith in the real randomness of the system.

@Eejit:this is exactly what I'm talking about; a purely random system isn't smooth, giving stuff fairly to all. It's all over the place with the potential for huge highs and lows.

While the majority will get stuff at the advertised rate, some a will get a lot quickly, while others get nothing. This makes the system feel biased towards a lucky few. Even tho' this is mathematically 'fair' (everyone has an even chance), it sure doesn't feel like it to those on the loosing end.

 

[Laivasse]

This makes the system feel biased towards a lucky few. Even tho' this is mathematically 'fair' (everyone has an even chance), it sure doesn't feel like it to those on the loosing end.

Yeah, well, while I understand the grievance of those who dislike pure randomness, the point I was making in my own post is that I've seen instances that are very hard to account for by just saying 'it's random', but much easier to account for with 'it's broken'. I very much doubt that the system is even mathematically fair.

There is perceived lack of randomness and there is very obvious lack of randomness - such as the same person getting singled out twice in a few days from a server of 33 players to receive a massive haul of items, when at no point has this huge multiple-unlock-dump been mentioned as a feature of the system.

 

[xcellerate]

Before they did the milestone system the ONLY weapon I found was a SINGLE sandvich. A lot of people were complaining about finding 14 natasha's, but I wasn't even finding duplicates. When they finally released milestones it took me 20 minutes, in a real game, and I've got the huntsman and the ambassador.

Random drops are fine as long as you aren't the outlier who finds 1 weapon in 7 days of regular gameplay, then it's just a stupid ****ing system.