New TF2 Updates!

RavenStryker

Former Alias: †Blade†/Xi.Cynx
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Nov 25, 2008
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Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Team Fortress 2


The Engineer's teleporters can now be upgraded to level three. It will recharge faster the higher level it is

The Engineer's dispensers can now be upgraded to level three. It will give out metal and heal faster as it is upgraded

Spies will be able to recharge their cloaking ability by picking up ammo off of the ground or from health cabinets

Some changes to the second part of the first stage of Goldrush to give the attackers more of an advantage

Any weapons that fire bullets (shotguns, sniper's machine gun, heavy's minigun, etc.) can now break apart the Demoman's stickybombs

The icon on the HUD for a person calling for Medic will now give more information to the medic (if the target is low on health, on fire, etc.)

Added an achievement tracker that will allow people to choose specific achievements that they are trying to get

There is now a custom icon for death messages when the player was killed from a critical hit

Added a new particle effect for when a player enters the water

Added smoke to the feet of a rocket jumping soldier

Players will now have some particles swirling around them so other players can see when they are overhealed


These are just to work on some class balance and depth issues that we've seen in the wild with these two classes, but aren't meant to replace their entire class packs. They will be getting more attention further down the road.



While that's in testing, we're off working on several things that folks have been emailing us about, so we thought it'd be good to provide some detail:

* The next class pack will be the Scout. One of the main goals we're focusing on for him has been to provide tools that make him useful in maps like Dustbowl & Goldrush. If you have any ideas for what you think would work well, post them over on the Team Fortress 2 Forum and we'll take a look.
* We are actively working on a massive XBox 360 update, which will include pretty much everything we've shipped on the PC in the last year. We'll provide you with a rough date when we have one.
* We're also working on bringing over a variety of engine improvements from Left 4 Dead into the TF2 engine, but it won't be a wholesale replacement of the engine. This means we'll get some of L4D's performance improvements, like the better multicore support, but not all of them. For example, we can't bring over some improvements without dropping support for DX8, which we're not prepared to do.
 
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grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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Interesting, i don't think they need to make stickies destroyable, i wonder if you can just shoot them out the air? That' be pretty naff.

That spy update seems sweet and all but a little overpowered? I'd have only done it from cabinets. They just need to fix the f$&^ing backstab.

The engineer updates seem swell and all but they really don't need to dispense any quicker. Under fire from several targets i can keep my sentry up without running out of metal too quickly. Quicker health seems neat but i didn't see the need to make that faster either; that was fine as was, imo. Though i can see how they are relating it more to the old dispensers to which you had to fill yourself (to a certain extent).

It'll be interesting to see how this fairs, now.
 

Icarus

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Sep 10, 2008
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Stickies cannot be hit midair. However, they only take one bullet (read: only bullets) to disappear. Not too bad.

Spies only get like 1-2 seconds of cloak from dropped items. Again, not too bad.
 

Ida

deer
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Jan 6, 2008
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Wow, the update is out already? Can't wait to test this, I'm really digging this. :D
 

YM

LVL100 YM
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Dec 5, 2007
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Yeah the vastly better teleporters and dispensers might actually entise me back into playing engie, which I haven't done since the beta
 

Zeewier

L9: Fashionable Member
Sep 20, 2008
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NO! the explode consolecommand is now just kill :(
 
Feb 14, 2008
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Played a bit today, the demo nerf, can hardly be called a nerf when I managed to top the leaderboard with it (and it's my 2nd least played class), but still, it'll be handy to have a heavy around sentries now when ubered demos come.

I forgot about the spy thing, I must try it out. The achievement tracker is pretty cool as well, looks nice.

On the level 3 dispensers/teles. Dispensers look sweet and teles have a new particle effect. Teles are balanced, by, when their exit is destroyed they lose their upgrade I think, as when I rebuilt mine, it suddenly became slow again, or that could be a glitch. Whatever.

New goldrush thing is cool, although it's easy enough to jump up there, and now probably even easier to camp.

On the multiple flags. Yes, there's a new flag skin, have you tried taking multiple flags yet?
 
Aug 19, 2008
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i´m not sure about the goldrush update, i was fine with it the way it was

one thing i didn´t like was that you could see the overheal-particles on a cloaked spy
don´t know if that was because he just cloaked, but i believe he was fully invisible
 

YM

LVL100 YM
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Dec 5, 2007
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one thing i didn´t like was that you could see the overheal-particles on a cloaked spy
don´t know if that was because he just cloaked, but i believe he was fully invisible
who overheals a spy anyway? you should see the particles because it shows up stupid teamwork that needs to be mocked - badly


I like the changes to goldrush, the blu/red win ratio has been way off for ages, so much so that I've only seen the final explosion a handful of times in hundreds of games.

Brandished, do you think that means Shmitz might be able to get his HUD working for meridian? Or perhaps it means we're getting further developement of the CTF gametype from valve themselves (if so thats pretty lame, CTF is so static :( )
 

Ida

deer
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Jan 6, 2008
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who overheals a spy anyway? you should see the particles because it shows up stupid teamwork that needs to be mocked - badly


I like the changes to goldrush, the blu/red win ratio has been way off for ages, so much so that I've only seen the final explosion a handful of times in hundreds of games.

Brandished, do you think that means Shmitz might be able to get his HUD working for meridian? Or perhaps it means we're getting further developement of the CTF gametype from valve themselves (if so thats pretty lame, CTF is so static :( )

Why NOT overheal a Spy? More health means they might be able to survive that last shotgun blast from a very pissed Engie - I'm always happy to be overhealed as a Spy.

I hope it's just a bug. According to someone on the Steam forums, they've been in contact with someone at Valve, who told them that there's a fix for it coming. Can't find the topic again, and I dunno if it's true.
 
Aug 19, 2008
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I love being overhealed as a spy, gives you more survivability... but a medic healing a spy is a rare thing to happen.
the current "bug" with the particles showing is deadly when you cloak before the gates open and a medic overhealed you ----> quick death
valve, hotfix plz
 

Brandished

L5: Dapper Member
Jan 19, 2008
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Brandished, do you think that means Shmitz might be able to get his HUD working for meridian? Or perhaps it means we're getting further development of the CTF gametype from valve themselves (if so thats pretty lame, CTF is so static :( )

I don't know for sure, didn't try meridian yet, or mess with the entities it uses, but I kinda doubt it (right now anyways). I messed around with the flag entities for an hour or so yesterday and didn't notice any changes, other then "materials/models/flag/briefcase_ntr.vtf".

I had heard in the past, from a certain someone, that Valve was considering finishing up the other flag game modes, but it was based on the policy at Valve that new features and entities are only created when there will be a game or map type that will actually use them (although sometimes the stuff created in prototyping gets included in updates as well).
 
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Scotland Tom

L6: Sharp Member
Jan 19, 2008
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Regarding overhealing the spy:

The new HUD improvements are a huge boon to the medics out there. I don't play medic that often, but I enjoyed it far more last night when I tried him out. I actually found myself obsessed with keeping as many members of my team overhealed as possible. That included spies because I know they don't get much love from medics. Of course, I was always careful to stop healing if they headed out to a visible area. It wasn't until I saw some cloaked enemy spies with the overheal crosses around them that I realized overhealing spies is currently a bad idea. I sincerely hope it's a bug with a fix in the works, because darn it, I like keeping everyone - including spies - overhealed.
 

ProfFiendish

L2: Junior Member
Nov 15, 2008
95
10
...what? You can build dispensers on the payload? This is madness!...

can you build sentries up there too?
 

Brandished

L5: Dapper Member
Jan 19, 2008
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You don't actually "build" the dispenser, you "upgrade" the cart (quite literally). :p
 

ProfFiendish

L2: Junior Member
Nov 15, 2008
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Ah. Aha. That makes sense now... because I was thinking a sentry attached to the payload would be incredibly unbalanced.
 
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Icarus

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Sep 10, 2008
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Look what found!

bomb_cart_red.jpg
 

ProfFiendish

L2: Junior Member
Nov 15, 2008
95
10
!!! Interesting!

But no neutral cart, right?