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[Duke 2.0]

TF2 does seem to have turned into an RL cash for IG benefits gig. You can't really get all the weapons without paying and especially with the item sets where you need a hat to complete them and give you that extra bonus. For example if I was willing to fork over £10 I could get +25 health on my scout and reduced sentry damage on my soldier.

Except every item that has gameplay stats are gonna be available through ingame means. They just haven't added crafting recipes for some of the new stuff yet. If they designed it so you had to pay for those benefits instead of some bug they plan to fix then I would agree. But this is currently an inaccurate assumption.

[Jreengus]

I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about the item sets mainly. Especially those where completing the set with a nice expensive hat gives a bonus but no negative. Without paying I can maybe eventually get the hat for one of these sets. Someone with a ton of money to spend however can get the hats to complete all the sets and give themselves a nice advantage over me completely unrelated to skill.

[Mr.Person]

I say they should cut the hat out of the already existing item set bonuses. Everybody who's purchased one already can get some free keys or something as a pseudo-refund.

[Tradanbattlan]

Hoo boy, it's these discussions again. My opinion remains firmly seated on the ol' "If you don't want to spend money, then dont" argument.

Although, I agree that the hats shouldn't be part of the sets. Being replaced by keys should only apply if you bought, not crafted, the hats

I played some of Medieval mode earlier today. The wordfilter was amazing.

[Zai]

Except every item that has gameplay stats are gonna be available through ingame means.

But to get them all will take a long time going by in-game means alone, whether you're waiting for them to drop, gathering materials to craft the ones with recipes (which you may already have enough of if you've been stocking up; still a fuckton of materials considering most of the new recipes involve two Reclaimed Metals), or trading for them (which requires something that the trader views as equally valuable).

I am hoping they (temporarily?) increase drop rates (which they very well may do for Christmas Day or something as a "gift").

Fun fact: The Loch-n-Load currently has 2 recipes that yield the same result with no other possibilities, but one requires several less weapons. This is because it has its own personal recipe as well as the "Fabricate Class Weapon" recipe. The personal recipe (Scottish Resistance + 2 Reclaimed Metals) requires a total of 13 weapons (1 SR + 2 (3(2)), while the generic Fabricate Class Weapon recipe (Class Token + Slot Token + Scrap Metal) requires a total of 8 weapons ((3(Demoman weapons)) + (3(Secondary Weapons) + 2).

I say they should cut the hat out of the already existing item set bonuses. Everybody who's purchased one already can get some free keys or something as a pseudo-refund.

Yeah, I think the only reason they haven't done away with the hats from the original Polycount update sets is because they've gone on for months accepting money and having people crafting those hats just for the bonuses. The people who bought a Polycount hat and the people who spent a long while getting the weapons for hats they didn't necessarily like aesthetically would be in an uproar if they did away with the hats being required for the original bonuses. And if I had bought the hats just for the bonuses, I'd be kind of pissed if I got a few measly keys as compensation for Valve removing the hat requirement.

My solution (which I highly doubt has not been proposed before) is to have a slightly weaker form of the bonus for the original sets if the hats are not there, to resemble the more mundane bonuses of the Australian Christmas packs. For example, the Tank Buster set for the Soldier. Currently, with the hat, the bonus is +20% Sentry damage resistance. Without the hat, the bonus could be something like +10% Sentry damage resistance, which closely resembles the +10% fire damage resistance of the Demo's hatless set. For the Scout's set, +12/13 Health instead of +25. For the Pyro, +5% move speed and bullet vulnerability instead of +10%.

The Australian Christmas sets could also be boosted with the hat, encouraging sales of those hats. +2 heath regeneration per second for the Medic instead of +1, +10% critical hit damage resistance for the Heavy instead of +5%, and make the Demo the ultimate in resisting the Pyro by making it +20% fire damage resistance instead of +10% (it's cumulative with the Targe's +50%). And of course these are all just numbers for the ideas.

The 2 sets that would present a problem with this idea are the Spy's set and the Sniper's set. For the Sniper, it's hard to reduce a "wearer cannot be killed by headshots" effect without boosting the original, or going in a completely different direction. One thing about the Sniper set is that the bonus compensates for the effect of the required weapon Sydney Sleeper, which itself cannot headshot. The Bushwacka in the same set has a +20% fire damage vulnerability attached to it. Perhaps the hatless effect could be +10% fire damage resistance or somesuch, for a cumulative effect of +10% fire damage vulnerability? It's not immunity from enemy Sniper's headshots, but it does compensate for one of the required weapons. Though this is arguably the better bonus, as enemy Snipers typically just bodyshot Snipers wearing the Ol' Snaggletooth hat anyway.

For the Spy, the "Reduced decloak sound volume and 0.5 second longer Cloak blink time" effect doesn't translate very well to having the effect lowered or changed in a similar theme. I've got no ideas for an effect for this set. It would probably need to be something dealing with cloak, but the current effect kind of has that covered.

[Mr.Person]

That doesn't solve the fundamental problems. People with money to pay have an undeniable advantage over everyone else and players would still be shoehorned into wearing hats they may not like.

[Duke 2.0]

 Advantage being time/convenience.

 But I will agree that people should not have to wear a hat for a set bonus.

[MagmaDeath]

Well, quite a few items can currently not be found/crafted.
The Claidheamohmor, The Candy Cane, The Warrior's Spirit.
And the Fists of Steel and Loch-n-load can only be crafted.

And the drop chance for the new stuff seems to be amazingly low, as post update I have gotten:
2 crates
1 pain train
2 Homewreckers.
1 Cloak and dagger.
1 Flare gun.

[Duuvian]

Hell yes.  Look at this.  Are these new medic weapons?  Cool cool cool.  So apparently the new gamemode you can only use "dated" weapons I guess.

Here's a thread in the TF2 forums that explains the new weapons.

Cool as hell.

Thanks Toonyman

[PTTG??]

Southern Hospitality is lame.

I figure it's a straight upgrade for the regular wrench, and it might give you a hint if someone's a spy since it'd give them the bleed effect, right?

That doesn't solve the fundamental problems. People with money to pay have an undeniable advantage over everyone else and players would still be shoehorned into wearing hats they may not like.

Except that people who have money generally have no time to spend getting stuff, and people who don't have money just play all day. If you don't have money or time, why are you playing video games? If your part of the idle rich, with tons of money and time, then everything else in life is easy, so why should games be different?

[Soulwynd]

I'm sorry, but you can have all the item sets and crazy items you want. I will still grab a regular old sticky bomb launcher and blow your face off.

*trollface here*

On a more serious note, every item that alters gameplay is dropable. To be honest, they don't make any difference to me, they're just cool to have a situational, but otherwise you can still wear the vanilla items and kick ass without a problem. Paying for them just means you get them sooner, instead getting drops/crafting/trading. If you're playing TF2 for the items, you're playing for the wrong reason.

Meanwhile, Soulwynd is very careful about hiding his dozens of hats and items and shit. All of which he didn't buy and earned/traded honestly. "My dear dear hats."

[ToonyMan]

Hell yes.  Look at this.  Are these new medic weapons?  Cool cool cool.  So apparently the new gamemode you can only use "dated" weapons I guess.

Here's a thread in the TF2 forums that explains the new weapons.

Cool as hell.

:]

Also, my brother made dem bear claws and they can destroy people.  You may lose 20 HP, but that is no matter for THE DA RUSSIAN BEAR.

[Duke 2.0]

Well, quite a few items can currently not be found/crafted.
The Claidheamohmor, The Candy Cane, The Warrior's Spirit.
And the Fists of Steel and Loch-n-load can only be crafted.

Again, they are supposed to be able to be crafted/dropped. There is a large difference between accidentally not being able to do something and intentionally designing the system so you can't do something. We'll be able to craft them soon enough. And considering that we already busted all our scrap metal on some of the new items and have to get more drops to get more, this adds a nice deal of buffer time to get more metal.

Southern Hospitality is lame.

I figure it's a straight upgrade for the regular wrench, and it might give you a hint if someone's a spy since it'd give them the bleed effect, right?

No random crits means 99% of the times I die as a spy to an engineer is gone, and the vulnerability to fire means you are twice as weak to pyros who get the drop on you. They can do a surprisingly large amount of damage to your sentry, which is made easier because they will kill the engineer before he can repair the sentry too much.
 In my eyes it's a straight downgrade unless you want to be a melee engineer, and even then the lack of random crits on a melee weapon is an issue.

[Sensei]

Some of the items that drop do provide a huge advantage- although yes, you can indeed get by with defaults. Anyway, getting some of them is nigh impossible through regular means (I've played 133 hours and have less than half of what's available).

Maybe it would be more accurate to say that free players get a scattershot of all the available items, whereas paying ones get to choose which. Of course, just getting random ones can be a strain when there's a particular one you want.

[Duke 2.0]

 I have all pre-update weapons that have stats.
 Drops and crafting only.
 I used spare metal I had to craft half the new stuff.

 It can be done.