72 replies to this topic

[Zemious]

The Manmelter is fine, but extinguishing is really the last reason I like the airblast.

I feel like the airblast is great for pushing someone up against the wall while they're on fire, then while they're in the air after two airblasts or so, you switch to your Axtenquisher or Postal Pumbler and just 1 shot them.
It's also extremely helpful for crowd control.
ie, keeping an uber away, or blasting an ubered medic away from his ubered companion.

Well, I didn't leave immediately when the hats started, and hats aren't even the core reason why I left. When I started playing there was a strong, consistent gaming experience, very carefully put together with no extraneous elements over 9 years. Now, stuff like the Crit-a-Cola (and probably a whole crapload of newer stuff I don't know about) get thrown into the game with literally less than a day's consideration or testing. The robust game that I liked so much was getting diluted into a total mess. Hats and paint and shoes or whatever else they've tossed into the blender is just a surface symptom of a deeper underlying problem.

*Almost* every weapon in TF2 has a purpose, even if it doesn't seem to.
The new camper item that the Sniper got was really good for Spies because all the new snipers and even veteran snipers might want to try it out. By equipping this item, it makes you more vulnerable to spies because you can't don your Razorback.
Some items were introduced for balancing purposes for other classes like the above mention while others were to even out the number of items per class. Some classes have more items than others which shows favoritism.


My thoughts on the subject about the Degreasor is that it's only really meant to be used with the Axtenquisher or Postal Pumbler.

Edited by Zemious, 27 March 2012 - 06:23 PM.

[Moonbread]

Razorback is terrible. "Lol, nice Razorback you got there. Good thing this revolver kills you in 3 shots anyway." Most of the time, Razorback doesn't even work.

Also, I fancy myself using Degreaser with the Homewrecker. Fantastic whenever an engineer sets up a level 3 sentry in front of you and you ruin his day. Either way, I mostly combo it with the shotgun, since people tend to run away from fire.

[Zemious]

Razorback is terrible. "Lol, nice Razorback you got there. Good thing this revolver kills you in 3 shots anyway." Most of the time, Razorback doesn't even work.

Also, I fancy myself using Degreaser with the Homewrecker. Fantastic whenever an engineer sets up a level 3 sentry in front of you and you ruin his day. Either way, I mostly combo it with the shotgun, since people tend to run away from fire.

Razorback hasn't failed me yet. I only ever use it too. Revolver kinda sucks imo, for damage I'd use "The Enforcer" or for headshots, you know what I'd use.

[WindStrike]

Here's the problem with trying to balance TF2 - you'd have to somehow balance it for new players, experienced players, and pro players. I've had the game for a while and have been playing it since before even the Medic update. While I'm not exactly at the pro level of play, I am familiar with it, and I can say that the game is closer balanced at the pro level (at least for vanilla classes) than the other two levels.

With all of the unlocks, the game is... sorta balanced. A lot of them work well, some are still seemingly broken (COUGH Tomislav), and some are just stupid (whatever those heavy gloves are called that force you to taunt when hit). Nonetheless, every class is still perfectly legitimate and doesn't really need buffs or nerfs. A few items could use tinkering, but I like all of the options that each item gives. It allows you to personalize the play style that you want to use. If you want to go solo rather than be a team player, then hey, there are items and builds for that sorta thing.

There is no such thing as a strongest build because this game IS a team game. There are tons of builds both within solo play and team play, all for a bunch of different strategies. However, in my experience, the ones that work as a team and use each others synergies to protect the team and kill the others while having one or two solo people are the scariest (solos would either be scout, soldier, demo or spy). I've turned a team that was outmatched in every way (aka, stacked teams and the other team knew it) into a struggle for victory on both sides just by coordinating the team and using the strengths of all the items I knew about. Unfortunately, I rarely get the chance to play with competent players, so my ability to coordinate a team rarely gets to see the light of day. And I don't play clan battles or tournaments - I just play for fun. That's all there is to it on my end.



I'd say the only class that's potentially unbalanced... is the bloody sniper class. If you've never run into a sniper than point-blank headshot you multiple times, consistently, over and over while you're a crazy-jumpin' scout... rejoice. I don't usually rage quit, but when I do, it's because of god darn snipers that can actually do that. Yeah, I've sunk about 700 hours into the game over the course of 4 years... the people that can do that are typically people that have played x4 as much as I have. Frigin' scary.

[Moonbread]

Razorback hasn't failed me yet. I only ever use it too. Revolver kinda sucks imo, for damage I'd use "The Enforcer" or for headshots, you know what I'd use.

Then honestly, you're playing with n00bs. It's pretty easy to notice a giant shield on someone's back. The revolver is pretty accurate too, by the way. I hate using enforcer because of that increased blink time.

[Zemious]

...and some are just stupid (whatever those heavy gloves are called that force you to taunt when hit)

It's great for Degroot Keep and the such, that's about it.

Then honestly, you're playing with n00bs. It's pretty easy to notice a giant shield on someone's back. The revolver is pretty accurate too, by the way. I hate using enforcer because of that increased blink time.

That's -all- I play with because Valve suddenly let the game go F2P which only has n00bs now. If I want to play with veterans such as myself, I have to play in lobbies. Other than that, you just get a bunch of n00bs without mics.
No mic = no communication = no coordinated strikes = me not playing medic for you.

Edited by Zemious, 28 March 2012 - 12:26 PM.

[Moonbread]

That's -all- I play with because Valve suddenly let the game go F2P which only has n00bs now. If I want to play with veterans such as myself, I have to play in lobbies. Other than that, you just get a bunch of n00bs without mics.
No mic = no communication = no coordinated strikes = me not playing medic for you.

Well, you could always play on a server that doesn't have "VALVE" on it. Or God forbid- Lotusclan servers...uggh. P2W servers are the worst. I've been playing on Skial, they tend to be numbered with skilled players.

[Zemious]

Well, you could always play on a server that doesn't have "VALVE" on it. Or God forbid- Lotusclan servers...uggh. P2W servers are the worst. I've been playing on Skial, they tend to be numbered with skilled players.

I tend to play Egypt maps that are 24/7.
My ultimate pet peeve with TF2 (and it's not TF2's fault even) is you want to play a certain map and you join a server and within the second you actually start playing, it switches maps because the game is over...
I go by Rizz in-game.


I tried the Valve servers like the first day or so and then avoided them like the plague.

Edited by Zemious, 28 March 2012 - 12:40 PM.

[WindStrike]

About 99% that I played, it was on the OCR server (OCR = OverClocked Remix). It was pretty much always filled with skilled players. New players got slaughtered there, but it was typically fun... sorta. Over the last two years, the server was riddled with lag problems team stacking (players just selected Random for team select and it didn't go so well), and I found out recently that the server finally died about a week or two ago. Sadface. So now I just join friends' games and hope the people are fun.

Does PureZC have a server or does everyone in the Steam group just raid a single server? I may be interested in playing a little this weekend I suppose.

[Zemious]

I'll be on the Skial egypt servers today if anyone wants to join.
Add my on Steam too if you want to better coordinate playing. (Check my sig)

[Beefster]

I honestly basically disagree with... your entire post. I really have to especially disagree on the subject of Degreaser and the Equalizer- both are honestly really well balanced- the Degreaser makes it more difficult to kill someone solely using the flamethrower (because the backburner and an unsuspecting victim makes for a quick kill) and the weapon switch is fantastic for the shotgun or Axtinguisher, and the Equalizer sucks unless you're low on health, and medics can't heal you if you're equipped with it anyway. The Enforcer is fair because that extra time it takes to cloak makes you a lot easier to be found and the Spy dies pretty quickly once you know where he is, the Spycicle can leave the Spy without his best weapon and plus his victims warn you that there is a spy in the area (really, no one pays attention to the kill list unless you're the one killing) plus the pyro can keep using his flamethrower to check for him because it still has range

Degreaser discourages killing with fire and is far better than any other weapon. For the Axtinguisher to work, the target only needs to be on fire. A way to balance the Degreaser would be to eliminate its afterburn entirely.

Equalizer is a straight upgrade to the shovel because the penalty is only in effect while you have the Equalizer out. You're really not giving up much to get the speed boost, which everyone uses to get health packs.

Enforcer + Dead Ringer is why it is unbalanced. The Dead Ringer nullifies its weakness.

Spycicle removes Spy's core weakness AND it kills silently.

the Huntsman taunt is really for humiliation when you lose if you ask me, because it's managed to score me one victim while I couldn't use my weapons and only once.

The reason I hate the Huntsman taunt is because it comes out quickly and stuns its victim. It's actually usable in a real battle.

I suppose you'll complain about the Pyro's hadoken too, because I get plenty of unsuspecting snipers with that beauty of a taunt. Or maybe the Holiday Punch because it allows the Heavy to effectively backstab people by punching them from behind and then taunting at them.

Actually, I like those taunts and items.

The only thing I agree with is the part about nerfing vanilla demoman. For the love of crepes, the Scottish Resistance was how the Sticky Launcher should have been in the first place, because it's crazy powerful and most demos have that annoying tendency to put all 8 stickies around one of your spawn exits (usually the one everyone uses) before the match begins and there's NOTHING you can do about it.
...are you f***ing joking? Seriously? We're talking about NERFING the demo, not making him INVINCIBLE. Your friend has some really stupid ideas, I'll be honest. Engineer doesn't need 175 health, and neither does the Spy for that matter- the Spy should not be a class that can directly take on other classes especially because the revolver is a damn good weapon already. It should be about being careful and knowing that there's a big risk for having an insta-kill weapon. You talk about wanting the pyro to be better, but your friend doesn't want him able to kill anyone at this rate.

I actually think he forgot some of the details about his Demoman.

The key thing he did was reduce spam. The changes to the sticky launcher make it so it's only useful for traps and not useful as an actual weapon.

As for the stickies not being damaged by bullets... He's trying to make the classes balanced by an effectiveness triangle.

(=> Hard, -> Soft)

Scout->Soldier->Pyro->Scout
Scout=>Heavy
Soldier=>Engineer
Pyro=>Demoman
Demoman->Soldier
Heavy->Pyro
Engineer=>Scout
Support=>Defense
Spy=>Sniper,Medic
Sniper=>Medic
Demoman=>Engineer

His mod is designed for high-level play, where Engineers are currently useless. He fixes survivability issues and problems with the excessively long build times.

[WindStrike]

Engineer is useless? HAHAHAHAHAH. If you're useless as an engineer, then you're not using him right. That's all there is to it. His sentry is not meant to be a one man army. It is support, as are his other utilities. It's certainly fun to try and use him as an assault class, but if you want him to be the most useful, then you'll have to play his purpose as support.

[Zemious]

I'll be getting on TF2 now. (8:00 PM, eastern time.)
I'll be on the Skial Egypt server.

[Moonbread]

Engineer is a fantastic class when you know how to play one, Beefster. If you want to be an offensive engineer though, you need to use Gunslinger, and perhaps Widowmaker or the Pomson.

Also, the whole point of having different items is to change the flavor of the game with different styles of playing. Also, on the subject of the equalizer- you were the one complaining that melee weapons are a joke. And then you get upset when they make ones that are designed to help a class fight with theirs? As for the Dead Ringer argument... it has an insanely loud uncloaking sound, and it's more difficult to use than the other watches (you have to be more clever than just being able to cloak everywhere- people can recognize a DR spy if you die waaaaaay too easily). I think that balances out.

[Mitchfork]

The only thing that bugs me with the Dead Ringer is that the Saharan Spy set makes the decloak silent, and the the Enforcer's downside doesn't apply to spies that use it. Those two are really bad balancing points. Otherwise it's fine.

Degreaser discourages killing with fire and is far better than any other weapon. For the Axtinguisher to work, the target only needs to be on fire. A way to balance the Degreaser would be to eliminate its afterburn entirely.

I guess if you think the Pyro should be an awful class, this makes sense.

EDIT: The reason why engineer isn't used in high-level play is because teams are very much built around building an Ubercharge and are generally very good at it; an ubured demo or soldier is able to take out a sentry nest pretty easily (depending on location). It ends up being a big waste for a team to play a man down just to have the sentry wrecked by something that is almost inevitable. Making changes to the engineer won't really fix this problem; an Ubercharge is a hard counter regardless. In contrast, Engineer is very powerful on certain maps in Highlander format, especially with the Wrangler (I can't stress how underrated it is; it's very hard to use on a lot of maps but certain positions are virtually made for this item).