Team Fortress 2 Update Released

[tf2.com]

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:
Happy Smissmas 2016!

• All players who play TF2 during the event will receive a Stuffed Stocking as a gift! Stockings contain goodies for good little Mercenaries.
• Added the limited-time key-less Winter 2016 Cosmetic Case to the Mann Co. Store
  • Contains 17 new community-contributed items
  • The Festivizer can be found as a bonus drop when opening the case
• Added 3 new taunts to the Mann Co. Store
  • The Scotsmann's Stagger (community-contributed)
  • The Didgeridrongo (community-contributed)
  • The Table Tantrum (Valve)
• New weapons for the Festivizer!
  • Fire Axe, The Jag, The Kritzkrieg, Pistol, The Quick-Fix, Natascha, The Sandman, The Spy-cicle, Kukri, Shovel and The Scottish Resistance
• Mann Co. Store winter sale!
  • Look for 20%-75% off selected unlocked cosmetic crates, taunts, and tools in the Mann Co. Store through January 11th, 2017
• Matchmaking Improvements
  • At the end of a Casual match, players are automatically formed into a new match with the same players and teams
    • Players get to vote on which map the new match will take place on
      • There are 3 maps to vote on, chosen based on the maps everyone in the match had selected when they began searching for a match. The current map is always the first option.
    • This replaces the Rematch system
  • Players can now set their maximum acceptable ping by clicking the new gear icon in the top right of the Casual and Competitive matchmaking lobby screens and choosing "Ping Settings"
• New autobalance system to help with balancing teams when players leave a match. The system will ask players to volunteer to switch teams.
  • Automatically enabled for all Casual match servers
    • Players who switch will be able to earn bonus XP as a reward
  • Community servers can enable this new feature by using "mp_autoteambalance 2"

• General
  • Fixed security issue reported by Justin G. (sigsegv) and Linus S. (PistonMiner)
  • Fixed not clearing the teleport condition for players who have their teleport interrupted before the teleport is complete
  • Fixed PASS Time exploit related to bonus points
  • Updated mat_monitorgamma so it can be adjusted in Competitive mode
  • Fixed the ShouldPreserveSquad flag not being parsed correctly in Mann vs. Machine mode
  • Fixed a bug related to bot Engineers and teleporters in Mann vs. Machine mode
  • Fixed not being able to transfer Strange stats between versions of Jarate and the Sapper
  • Fixed incorrect particle position for Unusual taunt effects when using the Racho Relaxo
  • Added the ESA Rewind tournament medals
  • Added the Winter Wonderland 2016 community medals
  • Updated the Dalokohs Bar to fix a bug related to the health buff
  • Updated cp_metalworks to fix a texture problem
  • Updated pd_watergate
    • Respawn times will now change depending on which team is in the lead: 8 seconds to leading team, 4 seconds to trailing team
    • Moved the current beer amount to the center of the HUD
    • Added a jump to low spawn route to give respawned players something to do en-route to mid
    • Added a light to illuminate roof-snipers better
    • Adjusted some clipping

Read on the TF2 Blog...

 

[nickybakes]

I'm excited for the new casual mode changes, seems like they'll fix almost every issue it had.

 

[Moth]

• Look for 20%-75% off selected unlocked cosmetic crates, taunts, and tools in the Mann Co. Store through January 11th, 2017

Pretty damn cool. i'm pretty sure you can get strange unusuals with thoses, even 25% discount is cool

• • Players can now set their maximum acceptable ping by clicking the new gear icon in the top right of the Casual and Competitive matchmaking lobby screens and choosing "Ping Settings"
• New autobalance system to help with balancing teams when players leave a match. The system will ask players to volunteer to switch teams.
  • Automatically enabled for all Casual match servers
    • Players who switch will be able to earn bonus XP as a reward
  • Community servers can enable this new feature by using "mp_autoteambalance 2"

This sounds great, lets see how that works in practice

 

[Crowbar]

Half obligatory whining post because pyro update when, half great mm changes!

 

[Moth]

i'd rather have months of QA and testing for Pyro update than another phlog disaster if it's a huge class overall tbh. Pyro is a bit broken in different ways rn but it could be way worse.

 

[FrostyHoneyJuicy]

• Added 3 new taunts to the Mann Co. Store
  • The Scotsmann's Stagger (community-contributed)
  • The Didgeridrongo (community-contributed)
  • The Table Tantrum (Valve)

Did they just... forget to credit the authors?
This can't be reality.

 

[FrostyHoneyJuicy]

I mean, they credited (sigsegv) and Linus S. (PistonMiner) for reporting the bugs, but they didn't even dare to credit the authors of those 2 little taunts...

C'mon Valve... that shouldn't that hard, should it?

 

[Hipster_Duck]

New autobalance system to help with balancing teams when players leave a match. The system will ask players to volunteer to switch teams.

• Automatically enabled for all Casual match servers
  • Players who switch will be able to earn bonus XP as a reward
• Community servers can enable this new feature by using "mp_autoteambalance 2"

So glad this is a thing. And what a great way to go about doing it.

 

[SnickerPuffs]

I would've preferred a new map or two, maybe even new weapons like The Mecha Update or Smissmas 2014.

This is fine though.

 

[Hi5TBone]

So they added a key-less, case?
Like, a tiered case and not a crate?

I guess there's no real difference but in text it sounds weird.

 

[FrostyHoneyJuicy]

Wait... they finally implemented the new voice codec! Just in time!

 

[nickybakes]

New weapons for the Festivizer!

• Fire Axe, The Jag, The Kritzkrieg, Pistol, The Quick-Fix, Natascha, The Sandman, The Spy-cicle, Kukri, Shovel and The Scottish Resistance

This part confuses me a lot. Doesn't the Festivizer only work with campaign skins? None of these weapons have skins as far as know. So I guess this means that they plan to add skins to these weapons in a new campaign (which could possibly be in January/as a spring update, or just a summer update)? Unless the fesivizer has a feature that I am unaware of where it can work with non-campaign-skin weapons.

 

[Moth]

you can just use a festivizer on the weapons now if that's what you're asking. it's not just skins, it's also theses weapons. not sure it works on festives that use to have to be uncrated, that'd be nice, easier/cheaper to make a specific stange ks festive weapon. there's already a few strange festive kritzkrieg on the market rn for instance.

 

[Fruity Snacks]

Did they just... forget to credit the authors?
This can't be reality.

They normally don't do that in blog posts.

 

[Zooule]

Nice.

 

[FrostyHoneyJuicy]

They normally don't do that in blog posts.

Actually they sometimes tend to do that in patch notes. Not always, but sometimes!

 

[Beef Bucket]

Doesn't the Festivizer only work with campaign skins

Letting buyers choose which festive weapons they want, not flooding people with locked crates to passive aggressively make them want to buy a key, seems to me like Valve is kinda sorta trying to be more consumer friendly.

 

[CommodoreKong]

I'm defiantly disappointed by the lack of rebalances, new campaign/community maps and the pyro update being no where in sight, despite the fact they didn't make Halloween map again this year to work on that stuff. We typically get 2 really big updates a year and this one was basically nothing, hopefully we don't have to wait until next summer until the next campaign/pyro update and it will come in early 2017.

I'm excited for the new casual mode changes, seems like they'll fix almost every issue it had.

Well except you have to queue up with a friend before a match starts, you can't join a friend's game in progress then automatically queue up with them after the match ends. Hopefully they add that feature in the future.

CSGO also recently added the ability to make queues with people in Steam groups, I'm kinda surprised they didn't add that feature to TF2 in this update.

 

[Three Million]

I would've preferred a new map or two, maybe even new weapons like The Mecha Update or Smissmas 2014.

That and the bug fixes in this update?

Oh well hopefully next year

 

[Crash]

Ayy