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[LASD]

I got incredibly annoyed by the first Casual Mode changes half a year ago, but now the mode is exactly what I wanted it to be: slightly matchmade Quick Play, with map votes, team balancing and not too serious TF2 action.

So, they fixed every problem I had with it and thankfully I play the game every 6 months or so anyway, so wasn't too annoyed for the wait.

Playing the game reminded me of how much Overwatch owes to TF2 and how much Blizzard managed to streamline it even further. Swapping weapons is pretty much the least fun thing to do in a team-based shooter. And ubercharges are exciting and a ton of fun, except when you get killed at 90%, so adding an uber to everyone that doesn't reset on death is a pretty smart thing to do.

Also, considering rollbacks: Valve will fix everything they add and I for one would even rather run a game to the ground on my own terms than be unable to do anything because of a fanbase that is scared of change. Considering TF2 started as just one neat addition in a pile of games, became one of the first games-as-a-service, then successfully turned F2P, I'm sort of amazed that TF2 fans don't trust Valve to figure out anything.

Then again, I left a negative review on TF2 half a year ago after playing it for 7 years. Just to stomp on a single decision done on one of my favorite games ever.

[TheBiggerFish]

I believe you may want to update that review.

[Egan_BW]

Just got like 21 kills in one life as heavy, with the flame-spewing minigun. It's insanely good in places where the enemy has to fight up close.

And I kinda disagree that weapon switching isn't fun. Switching to something that better suits the moment-to-moment situation is one of the more exciting moments that TF2 has to offer.

[TheBiggerFish]

Huo-Long Heater.  Yeah, I can see that being useful.  Personally I prefer the Tomislav, I can shoot more accurately with it.

[Egan_BW]

Tomislav is also good. Pretty much all the miniguns are good.

[miauw62]

I think you're overreacting. I just played today and honestly, I found a game way faster than I could with the previous set up. I could be the cancer on TF2, but whatever. I think maaaaaybe you're 'everyone is a speshul snowflake' comment is a bit uncalled for. If everything that went slightly wrong was rolled back when someone complained, we'd still have only six maps and no alternate guns.

Server browser has always been quick enough for me.

I got incredibly annoyed by the first Casual Mode changes half a year ago, but now the mode is exactly what I wanted it to be: slightly matchmade Quick Play, with map votes, team balancing and not too serious TF2 action.

So, they fixed every problem I had with it and thankfully I play the game every 6 months or so anyway, so wasn't too annoyed for the wait.

Playing the game reminded me of how much Overwatch owes to TF2 and how much Blizzard managed to streamline it even further. Swapping weapons is pretty much the least fun thing to do in a team-based shooter. And ubercharges are exciting and a ton of fun, except when you get killed at 90%, so adding an uber to everyone that doesn't reset on death is a pretty smart thing to do.

Also, considering rollbacks: Valve will fix everything they add and I for one would even rather run a game to the ground on my own terms than be unable to do anything because of a fanbase that is scared of change. Considering TF2 started as just one neat addition in a pile of games, became one of the first games-as-a-service, then successfully turned F2P, I'm sort of amazed that TF2 fans don't trust Valve to figure out anything.

Then again, I left a negative review on TF2 half a year ago after playing it for 7 years. Just to stomp on a single decision done on one of my favorite games ever.

They made it more serious and removed the drop-in-drop-out gameplay I loved. No team balancing, STILL RANDOM CRITS. It was basically complete bullshit.

And this isn't "afraid of change". Am I wrong for being mad that Valve fucked up my entire game with no warning and then didn't fix it? Nobody asked for Casual, any advantage could have EASILY been implemented into quickplay as it existed.

I don't trust the new crew with anything because they fucked up competitive, basically not changing it at all from beta, then they fucked up quickplay for no reason, then they weren't even able to make a working Halloween update. This isn't the Valve that made the TF2 I love. Fuckup after fuckup without any semblance of apology doesn't exactly give me confidence. I used to trust in them, but MyM was the end of that.

[Iceblaster]

You can still do drop in drop out gameplay. The imaginary experience points aren't going to make you unable to play anymore.

Team balancing is still a thing. It just avoids the pitfalls of putting you on a losing team simply because they're unbalanced. Sure, it makes it less common for teams to be balanced, but you'd still complain about team balancing putting you on losing teams if it stayed the same.

Random crits keeps people from being soley based on skill. I realize it's luck, but honestly it's never bothered me to the point of rage. Maybe 'oh darn that soldier got me with a crit rocket', but most of the time I barely notice the random crits. It's almost as if you're overreacting to something minor in the game. I realize you're angry at the changes, but have you given them a fair chance without going in thinking 'this is going to be bad and it is bad therefore i will go and confirm my angryness'?

[WealthyRadish]

Personally I think valve missed the boat on setting TF2 up for its twilight years, and most of the damage of the last year will likely never be reversed. It's a real shame, since it did look like they were interested in fixing things for a period.

The ideal would've been to have a period of concerted development where they put some resources into the game to at least try to resolve the lingering problems like random crits, hit detection, pyro mojo, the worst of the balance issues, and of course matchmaking. If they did that, they could then go completely hands-off with community cosmetic updates around the holidays and the game could survive indefinitely as a game worth playing and taking seriously.

Instead they tried to stick to the old moneymaking formula on an even more shoestring budget, and the damage from that is showing. I remember the seemingly bottomless good-will valve had with players, and they seem to have more or less pissed away the entirety of it. Looking at TF2 in the state that it's in, I'm frankly embarassed to have played as much of it as I did; I used to feel confident when speaking with people about it that it is in fact an excellent game even if first impressions indicate it's cartoony F2P garbage, but now I don't think I can make that argument. It's been too long, and the developers themselves clearly don't think it's anything more than that.

[LASD]

I believe you may want to update that review.

I thought the same and did that right after posting!

Also, random crits have some good design ideas behind them. The way they scale with damage make amazing kill streaks where everything seems to go your way possible. They also give players a chance to beat someone who is more skilled than they are. If you ever had the satisfaction of hitting a crit rocket on the player that has been absolutely crushing you all game, you know what I mean. They become increasingly an annoyance the more you play the game, but for the first few dozens of hours, they are part of creating some of the highest highs that players then get hooked on.

[Iceblaster]

* Iceblaster must have missed the memo on that

Because I mean. I've never gotten annoyed at a random crit. Maybe I'm too casual a player, but it's never been too much of a problem.

[miauw62]

You can still do drop in drop out gameplay. The imaginary experience points aren't going to make you unable to play anymore.

how so? i need to go through a loading screen every time a round ends, i cant just keep playing as long as i like.

Team balancing is still a thing. It just avoids the pitfalls of putting you on a losing team simply because they're unbalanced. Sure, it makes it less common for teams to be balanced, but you'd still complain about team balancing putting you on losing teams if it stayed the same.

no it doesn't. people leave losing teams, so youll always have a higher chance of matchmaking into a losing team. also, there are ways to fix autobalance without this bullshit

Random crits keeps people from being soley based on skill. I realize it's luck, but honestly it's never bothered me to the point of rage. Maybe 'oh darn that soldier got me with a crit rocket', but most of the time I barely notice the random crits.

random crits are bullshit. it's you suddenly dying just because rng said so. they dont help newer players because you get more of them as you do more damage. but oh, im SURE that 5 people dying because some dude randomly got a shiny rocket and then them losing the game makes it so much more fun. maybe random crits were neccessary to spice up gameplay BACK IN 2007. theyre not in the current tf2. fuck, i wouldnt even mind if new players scaled inversely with the amount of damage you dealt. i mean, i would still be angry that they even exist, but i wouldnt be as angry at their existence. if you're on a huge streak you usually dont need crits.
 

It's almost as if you're overreacting to something minor in the game. I realize you're angry at the changes, but have you given them a fair chance without going in thinking 'this is going to be bad and it is bad therefore i will go and confirm my angryness'?

i've given them a fair chance, and they weren't fun. how much unfun games do i have to endure to have the right to critcise valve? i waited for things to get better, but then valve didnt actually do shit to fix it, or they did it far too late. maybe you're just sucking up to valve so much without thinking about things that could be bad about the changes? also, random crits are bullshit and have affected me plenty in my 2000 hours.

and in the end, what fucking advantage does casual even give??? it has so many disadvantages, but i've never seen what it's actually supposed to achieve.

[Iceblaster]

Casual is matchmaking. Are you offended that they've taken quick play and put it in a new coat of paint? Because honestly, you can get your same old drop in drop out experience with the server browser. I mean, you said it was always faster for you anyway. Surely you can find a server with a map you like easily. I myself prefer the new system because I can streamline what maps I want to be in. The maps that're voted on are based on the maps you've chosen in your matchmaking settings. If 90% of the players on a map had Upward in their selection and they all have three selections, Upward's going to be on that list. All in all, maybe you're getting a bit too worked up over this. Because it's just matchmaking. It's what every other online game has and yes, it has some bad parts to it, but it's not the broken system you're making it out to be.

i've given them a fair chance, and they weren't fun. how much unfun games do i have to endure to have the right to critcise valve?

I never said you didn't have a right to criticize it. I only said that you should give the new system a chance before saying it's shit and broken. You're putting words into my mouth by implying that.

[WealthyRadish]

Anybody remember damage spread? If you talked to people about it before the change disabling it by default, they would make an identical argument for keeping it as people make for keeping random crits. Which is strange, since I don't think there's a single populated server in the world that chooses to enable it now. The moment the burden of proof shifted from proving that it should to be changed to proving that it should be kept, the argument disappeared, and I don't see anyone complaining about not getting one-shot by the loch or doing 37 damage with a sniper rifle.

Things like random crits and damage spread are only not bad for new players because they don't understand how the game works yet. As soon as this hypothetical new player turns on damage numbers and realizes that most crits are completely random, the stupidity of the system becomes self-evident, even if they're at a skill level where they on average benefit from the mechanic. Even a completely green player, who has never used a computer before and whose inputs are being relayed by carrier pigeon, will still get killed by random crits and be irritated by it, because it's a fundamentally irritating experience.

[Leafsnail]

The advantage of casual is that you play a full game of TF2 on the map of your choice easily. Trying to find an appropriate server under the old system was difficult (and the auto-queuer frequently just spat you into empty servers).

[scourge728]

Not sure if I should be reviving this or not, but gonna do it because I couldn't find anything stating at what point I shouldn't (besides that pink and red box when I go to reply, but that thing isn't exactly helping me feel confident in making a new thread)

So, how do you guys like x100 and x1000 mode, I think there fun, but wish we had some running actual maps, or really anything other than highertower or orange maps