Spy vs. Engineer War Update Speculation Reaction Thread

Fantaboi

Gone and one day forgotten
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Mar 11, 2013
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I hope custom maps for competitive despite knowing that it would be practically impossible
 

RubbishyUser

L7: Fancy Member
Feb 17, 2013
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As an engineer: I hope the engineer gets something to rival minisentries in offensive use. I dream they reverse the "buff" to the Eureka Effect and nerf the Pomson so I don't have to feel dirty when all I want is a long range weapon. I fear minisentries will become ever more powerful with new items.

Seriously, some of the potential attributes listed in that video were terrifying. Valve haven't shown a good track record for engineer unlocks so the concept of them focusing half an update on it is mind-boggling. More Rescue Rangers, fewer Pomsons, Short Circuits (post-buff pre-nerf), Eureka Effects (post-buff), and FEWER MINISENTRIES.

Actually, any one else noticed that when it comes to weapons, Valve has been converging on complex and in my opinion unwieldy designs? It started with requiring using the reload button to activate the hitman's heatmaker, something that literally no one actually asked for and just made them learn to use the reload button for something that wasn't reloading; Now their adding whole heads-up display menus to the Eureka Effect to do slightly more than it could do before it was updated. Before hand, you pressed right-click - a perfectly fine button for alt-fire - and headed back to spawn. Now, you have to press 3 to switch the wrench, r to bring up the menu (reloading a wrench), 1 to chose your location, and then you can do exactly the same as before. That is just inelegant. I know I was literally the only person who used the Eureka Effect before hand, and for that matter the only one afterwards, but it was 100% a step in the wrong direction.

And competitive matchmaking remains potentially incredible.
 
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TyeZenneth

L6: Sharp Member
May 31, 2014
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I kind of want to see both classes get items that represent each other, like some sort of mechanical trap for the spy and some sort of cloaking device for the engineer's buildings.
 

bobotype

L1: Registered
Sep 24, 2014
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More Engineer buildings please.
A PDA that works in Medieval as well as normal play. A backpack Sentry. Tesla Coils. Something equivalent to the Laptop Gun from Perfect Dark, perhaps.
On Tuesday I had Jaffles.
 
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Moonfixer

L5: Dapper Member
Aug 23, 2014
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Oh wow. This looks like its gonna be really interesting.
 
Nov 2, 2010
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Competitive matchmaking sounds exciting. I've used TF2 Center for ages but you can't have it open the Steam overlay so you have to tab in and out a lot which is frustrating. Plus there aren't enough people on it to get matches going fast enough; too much waiting. I reckon an integrated matchmaking system would fix that.

It would be a dream come true if you could use the same modifiers server owners have; enabling/disabling crits, banning the use of some weapons and so on. Best of all, if the Valve servers hosted custom maps it would be incredible. Imagine starting a lobby and loading up some of the old gems from this site and it actually getting filled for a change. :thumbup1:
 

HQDefault

...what
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Aug 6, 2014
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A sentry that shoots rockets. Now, this may seem crazy, but imagine a sentry, that, too, built fast like mini-sentries (but a little slower) but shoots rockets in a similar fashion to a level-3 sentry. It would still deal a fair bit of damage, and, heck, it wouldn't even be as annoying!

Also, nerf the mini sentry. Make it less accurate. Please, god.
 

radarhead

Basically? Kind of a Huge Mess
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Mar 6, 2013
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A sentry that shoots rockets. Now, this may seem crazy, but imagine a sentry, that, too, built fast like mini-sentries (but a little slower) but shoots rockets in a similar fashion to a level-3 sentry. It would still deal a fair bit of damage, and, heck, it wouldn't even be as annoying!

Uh. How is that better, AT ALL?
 

Toomai

L3: Member
Apr 14, 2011
129
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I'd like to see a totally new sentry type.
  • The Barbecue. Basically a flamethrower sentry, has little range but huge damage.
  • The Tesla Coil. Fires 1/2/4 beams of lightning that latch onto opponents and drain health like anti-medi-beams (thinking along the lines of Metroid Prime's Wavebuster).
  • The Twister. Shoots blasts of air that deal immense knockback and reflection but no damage.
A new dispenser would be good too.
  • The Decoy, which does half the work of a level 1 dispenser but explodes with the force of a crit rocket when sapped.
  • The Mini-Dispenser, which is thrown like a grenade and deloys upon hitting the ground.
 

bobotype

L1: Registered
Sep 24, 2014
39
5
Also, nerf the mini sentry. Make it less accurate. Please, god.

The mini sentry's actually a surprisingly balanced sidegrade, although there are very few people willing to admit it. :thumbup1: Nearly all the classes have a way of dealing with it outside its range, and its hitbox is actually taller than the actual mini itself [the same as a level 1 sentry].
The only class it really hard counters is Scout, and I'm assuming that's the point of the Engineer class as a whole.
I would probably support a nerf of its DPS from 48 to 45, though. And the Engineer definitely needs a new buildable Sentry replacement that isn't just an aimbot.

I don't want to double post, but Toomai, I had the same idea as you on the Tesla Coil. Hell yeah. What if you could build [God forbid I mention this number] three Tesla Coils? Place em around?
 
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Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
4,694
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So End of the Line, Engineer vs. Spy, whatever the Deusenberg they're going to theme around the release of Asteroid... they've got a lot going on in the foreseeable future and we're not even done with Halloween yet.
 

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
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Sep 8, 2008
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The mini sentry's actually a surprisingly balanced sidegrade, although there are very few people willing to admit it. :thumbup1: Nearly all the classes have a way of dealing with it outside its range, and its hitbox is actually taller than the actual mini itself [the same as a level 1 sentry].
It might be balanced on that part, but its heavily broken on an other.

Normaly an engineer takes time building a nest. It gives slow progress but gives a good holding point. Objective wise: if you manage to get your nest at the objective, you should be rewarded with a good chance of taking it. The problem lies on being able to get that sentry up there.

With the mini sentry it no longer matters if they shoot it down. They are forced to take out that sentry as soon as its built. And even though it does only half the damage of a normal level 1. That still is alot considering the engineer only has to reveal itself for less than a second. Its dumping the sentry and retreating. Once its down repeating the process. Its low cost allows you to even do that multiple times.

The mini sentry isnt bad balance wise. Its simply an anoying weapon to face. There is no fun at all when you are fighting 2 engineers using that tactic. You need someone dedicated to take them out to even get a chance to counter them.

With normal sentries they often are put back since its very hard to get them that close to an objective. It makes it less fun for the engineer but gives an area that allows normal pvp combat. Combat that people find fun.

People dont care that sentry guns lock down areas like the last cp on dustbowl. They simply want a fun battle which mini sentries cant give.

Not only that, but the frontier justice which in design on its own is fine. It becomes broken with a mini sentry. You just dump the weapon and its very likely to gain assits which is free crits.

Balance isnt the only thing required to design a good weapon. Avoiding frustration is also important. If people get frustrated alot they just leave the game. And on a longer timespan its bad to have that.

What happens in a pub when a good player faces a team with mainly mini sentries and his team cant battle them? He swaps teams. He doesnt even care about trying since its boring and frustrating. And this only amplifies the problem.

Its why the gunslinger is called broken. Its not a fun weapon except for its user. And guess what also has that same 'feature': Exploits. Exploits are only fun for their users and not for those facing them. Exploits give no risk at all other than getting kicked/banned from a server. And to face an exploiter isnt fun.

Nerfing might reduce its problem, but it doesnt fix it. Even when they remove its knockback entirely its still a spam weapon that doesnt require skill other than knowing where to place it to make it anoying.