B4nny visits Valve, tweets about upcoming update

[CommodoreKong]

I do think Valve should do something more with stamps but I don't honestly know what. I do think one of the most important things Valve could do for map maker revenue would be to get rid of strange filters (because honestly who wants to restrict their strange to a single map?) and just make a strange part they sell for each map in the store. Just have it count whatever the primary counter for the strange is, give the strange the special name and make it a special 4th part that can be attached to any strange and not restrict the strange in any way like a filter.

I would even put up strange parts for Valve made maps as well and any revenue from those would be considered the same as buying a map stamp pack and be divided up the same way as a pack.

 

[Jekyllson]

I do think one of the most important things Valve could do for map maker revenue would be to get rid of strange filters (because honestly who wants to restrict their strange to a single map?)

I wouldn't want them removed, because they let you make a weapon more personal than anything else in the game. For example, how many people do you know who own a Totally Ordinary Professional Killstreak Psychadelic Pain Train? You could be the first. That said, I wouldn't mind if Valve added Strange Parts, too, although I still can't imagine that they would make mapmakers as much money as from contract campaigns, unless it were a map like Borneo or 2Fort Invasion that certain kinds of players play on all the time.

 

[Toomai]

So you basically like playing with OP / Dumb weapons and don't care about balance. Got it.

It's more like, I care about whether a weapon successfully does the job it's designed for, in a unique and fun way, more than whether it's perfectly balanced.

Part of the problem with TF2 is that competitive play has always leaned towards teams of size 6 for logistics reasons, but since all maps must function properly (by which I mean "be reasonably balanced") with 12 players per team, every kill in a comp match is twice as important. Therefore, no matter what the balance of a weapon is, it's inherently less balanced in that kind of environment compared to a pub where you have to string together multiple kills to get the same kind of progress. (EDIT: This is pretty much why random crits are the first thing to go when players turn serious mode on, and of course that messes up the balance of a bunch of things.)

My opinion is that it's impossible to balance both "variants" of the game at once, and that if Valve tries too hard on the competitive side, there won't be enough fun left on the casual side.

 

[Lain]

It's more like, I care about whether a weapon successfully does the job it's designed for, in a unique and fun way, more than whether it's perfectly balanced.

Part of the problem with TF2 is that competitive play has always leaned towards teams of size 6 for logistics reasons, but since all maps must function properly (by which I mean "be reasonably balanced") with 12 players per team, every kill in a comp match is twice as important. Therefore, no matter what the balance of a weapon is, it's inherently less balanced in that kind of environment compared to a pub where you have to string together multiple kills to get the same kind of progress.

My opinion is that it's impossible to balance both "variants" of the game at once, and that if Valve tries too hard on the competitive side, there won't be enough fun left on the casual side.

I've honestly never had fun fighting an Air Strike soldier, they can instagib a lot of classes with 0 skill involved. Same with the old Axtinguisher, Phlogistinator, old Caber, and old Tide Turner (and Demonknight in general). They where all just cheap kill weapons for people who can't play the game.

And honestly, a lot of games have a serious competetive nature but have a fun casual side. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive, and in fact TF2 is a worse game for having all of these terrible unlocks not be balanced and fun for everyone to play with / against.

 

[Hyperion]

I've honestly never had fun fighting an Air Strike soldier, they can instagib a lot of classes with 0 skill involved. Same with the old Axtinguisher, Phlogistinator, old Caber, and old Tide Turner (and Demonknight in general). They where all just cheap kill weapons for people who can't play the game.

I'm surprised that you included demoknight but not snipers in general. Basically sniper rifles are the cheapest way to get kills with 0 skill

 

[LeSwordfish]

I'm surprised that you included demoknight but not snipers in general. Basically sniper rifles are the cheapest way to get kills with 0 skill

It was, but then they banned lmaobox.

 

[Muddy]

I'm surprised that you included demoknight but not snipers in general. Basically sniper rifles are the cheapest way to get kills with 0 skill

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

good one mate

 

[Vel0city]

I've honestly never had fun fighting an Air Strike soldier, they can instagib a lot of classes with 0 skill involved. Same with the old Axtinguisher, Phlogistinator, old Caber, and old Tide Turner (and Demonknight in general). They where all just cheap kill weapons for people who can't play the game.

And honestly, a lot of games have a serious competetive nature but have a fun casual side. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive, and in fact TF2 is a worse game for having all of these terrible unlocks not be balanced and fun for everyone to play with / against.

Every weapon is a cheap kill weapon for people who can't play the game. By your logic Heavy, Engineer, Pyro, Sniper, Demo and Soldier should be nerfed.

There's a difference between bad players using a certain loadout and good players using a certain loadout. People hate Pyro, but mostly because of the hordes of W+M1 guys. People hate Demoknights because they think they're absolutely useless, while in reality a good Demoknight can be more effective than a Sticky Launcher-equipped Demo. I consider myself a good Demoknight (almost 5900 kills on a Strange Festive Eyelander). I can be more mobile than a Sticky jumping Demo. Trimping is a thing in this game, and Source's physics allow you to go a mach 3 while charging and strafing trough the air. It's how you get from point A to behind B on Upward, and how you get from full health pack area to the Sniper balcony on Hightower. Most of the time I'm a Hybrid Knight with the Loose Cannon (which also should get its nerfs reverted asap alongside all the Demoknight nerfs/rebalances in general) and Tide Turner because it's way more fun to play as instead of a sticky spamming douche holding down M2 while M1'ing into enemies with my stickies.

Axtinguisher in its current state is absolutely worthless if you also don't equip the Degreaser, which itself is also on the borderline of being absolutely useless. Even with the Degreaser it takes ages to take the damn thing out and then does less damage while also swinging less often. It's horrible. I found my strange Axtinguisher in a crate like before MvM was even a thing. Used it extensively until Love&War broke out which nerfed it into oblivion for no real good reason. It's been sitting in my loadout slot, almost unused, ever since.

I'll have to agree with you though with the Phlog. The unnecessary Tough Break buff made it into the most brainless weapon that has ever existed, and instead of reverting that buff (and keeping the "needs more damage to mmmph" nerf given to it right after) Valve makes it go from horrendously OP to horrendously UP by taking away the health regen on taunting which makes it completely useless. Every time I see a Pyro taunting with the thing I just wait until he's done, then she's dead within a second.

 

[Aeix]

I'm surprised that you included demoknight but not snipers in general. Basically sniper rifles are the cheapest way to get kills with 0 skill

What?
Just.... What?
The one class that is purely aim...

 

[Mikroscopic]

As a general rule of thumb, every weapon is overpowered when it's in the enemy's hands, but underpowered when it's in your hands.

Spoiler

Something I realized a few days ago, does the third degree have any downsides at all?

 

[Izotope]

Something I realized a few days ago, does the third degree have any downsides at all?

Nope, straight upgrade

 

[Gabe Noodle from Volvo]

Every time I see a Pyro taunting with the thing I just wait until he's done, then she's dead within a second.

I didn't think anybody else used alternating pronouns for the pyro. Besides Valve that is.

 

[CommodoreKong]

I wouldn't want them removed, because they let you make a weapon more personal than anything else in the game. For example, how many people do you know who own a Totally Ordinary Professional Killstreak Psychadelic Pain Train? You could be the first. That said, I wouldn't mind if Valve added Strange Parts, too, although I still can't imagine that they would make mapmakers as much money as from contract campaigns, unless it were a map like Borneo or 2Fort Invasion that certain kinds of players play on all the time.

Okay maybe not remove them but I have no doubt just strange parts for maps would generate a lot more revenue then filters.

 

[Asd417]

Now that reminds me of those duck upgrade coin thingy's from eotl. :/

Trainwreck. Guess there aren't any legit way to reward the mapper?

 

[Joshenkstone]

Trainwreck. Guess there aren't any legit way to reward the mapper?

Nah i guess people would still buy em', i mean c'mon they also buy a coin counting kills on some maps.(invasion)

 

[CommodoreKong]

In the newest episode of Backcap they summarized what B4nny said on his stream about the update:


The main reason B4nny was invited to Valve was to look at weapon rebalances.
The current TF2 team has 10+ active members.
TF2 may get majors (CSGO Valve sponsored tournaments with $250k+ prize pools) if matchmaking is well received but but the comp community shouldn't expect direct financial support from Valve anytime soon.
Valve is actively looking at the performance of TF2 so optimization seems to be a big priority for the TF2 team.
The update will be a new take on things - competitive is the main driving force behind the update but it will be beneficial to all aspects of TF2.


Also for anyone that missed it one of my previous posts about this update was deleted during the server move. Valve sent this email to server owners:

Hey everyone,

I wanted to give a heads-up about some upcoming changes to the way server accounts work in TF.

In an future update, we are going to be introducing features that will only be available to game servers that have a registered game server SteamID, via the Game Server Login Token (GSLT) system. This system has existed for some time, but is currently only used in TF for persistent favouriting in the server browser. It has also gained some more restrictions recently that you should be aware of.

Game server accounts are tied to an owning Steam user account
This Steam account must not be currently community banned or locked.
This Steam account must not be limited.
This Steam account must have a qualifying registered phone.
Game servers that violate the community guidelines for the game they are hosting may have their access suspended or revoked.
Game server account suspensions or bans also apply to all other game servers tied to said Steam user

More info and management tools are here: https://steamcommunity.com/dev/managegameservers

For TF specifically, being free-to-play, access to some upcoming features may eventually depend on the qualifications the owning Steam user account. So, while creating dedicated individual user accounts to own individual game servers is possible, it may lead to an increased burden in the future. We recommend game server accounts be registered to the Steam account of the acting server owner -- GSPs should require clients to provide their own tokens.

This change will allow us to have a greater level of confidence in game servers, by making it easier to revoke access for bad actors and better tying game servers to their owners. The increased persistence gives us many more opportunities to assign trust to community servers, and to provide them access to features that would otherwise be too open for abuse. It also provides a much better mechanism for dealing with abuse than the current IP-ban system that is both less effective and more painful for server providers that share IPs between clients.

We will have more information once we are ready to begin rolling out these features, but I wanted to send this heads up such that current admins and server providers can look into integrating this support into their setups.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns and I will try to address them,

- Neph

 

[Hyperion]

So, what to expect is more pyro nerfs and demo buffs

 

[Lain]

So, what to expect is more pyro nerfs and demo buffs

Why would they need to nerf the worst character in the game, and buff the best?

 

[Vel0city]

Yes, let's send b4nny for weapon balancing. That seems like the smartest plan in the world.

How about taking weapon balance ideas from like 10 mains for each class instead of one guy who only plays Scout/Soldier/Demo(not knight)?

Valve is actively looking at the performance of TF2 so optimization seems to be a big priority for the TF2 team.

I'll believe this when it's actually in the game. Tough Break was also supposed to bring performance improvements with "reduced memory consumption on OS X and Linux" and "particle performance improvements". The former is a total lie and the latter has actually made things worse for a lot of people.

 

[Hyperion]

Why would they need to nerf the worst character in the game, and buff the best?

Because Benny doesn't like pyros obliviously