Try this: http://www.martin-majowski.de/wlanoptimizer/SonOfABeep said:
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Team Fortress 2 Sniper Update Info, Pyro Megaton
- Thread starter sonicmj1
- Start date
So they released an update and it didn't fix the issue? I'm sorry but spending hours playing and not getting a single unlock, for any class, and watching people walk around getting everything is not that fun.
And as for getting them for playing normally, err not really, you just get them randomly it has nothing to do with what you're doing. You can sit in spectator and get items, so it's not any better than just using an unlocker.
And as for trading items, and all this rare item nonsense, not sure I really what that sort of stuff in TF2 to be quite honest.
And as for getting them for playing normally, err not really, you just get them randomly it has nothing to do with what you're doing. You can sit in spectator and get items, so it's not any better than just using an unlocker.
And as for trading items, and all this rare item nonsense, not sure I really what that sort of stuff in TF2 to be quite honest.
Alaskanbullworm
Member
I haven't got any dropped items yet. No new ones, no duplicates, nothing. Guess I'll continue playing and doing the achivements.
I so want the Pyro hat.
I so want the Pyro hat.
Spotless Mind
Member
I really wanna try out the new sniper and spy stuff. :/ Played for 5 hours since update and all i got was jarate, which i don't care for that much. I think the unlock system is completely nonsensical. The achievement system was far superior.
cheesybread
Neo Member
Got another flare gun and sandvich when I already had both. COOOOOL.
I'd really like the old system back :-/ Or at least a fix or something
I'd really like the old system back :-/ Or at least a fix or something
as much as the single player stuff in Orange Box is awesome, I'd wait until you can either play it on PC or even on 360. 360's TF2 is just as out of date as PS3's, but at least 360 TF2 will probably get the full load of changes PC TF2's been getting, once they have achievements and new weapons out for every class.StateofMind said:
Hazaro said:
I don't see why they completely ditched the old system to replace it with this. The other class milestones still work, right? They might as well have kept it since pretty much half of the classes are still able to unlock via achievements.
PillowKnight
Member
It's(the new system) a total FU to the players that went through the trouble of unlocking the weapons. I just got an extra BONK, which is annoying considering I spent at least 10 hours unlocking it.
Oh, and I just saw this response. I don't mean to just pick on you, but you made a couple of very hit-and-run posts that basically reek of "It's beneath me to actually read what you all said, but I'm sure it was stupid and baseless. Stop whining, it's perfect."
If a vast majority doesn't have many unlocks from before (when everyone had achievements, months to work on them, unlock scripts that could get them instantly, and achievement servers to get them very quickly), it can ONLY be because the vast majority of people didn't care, or are new and trying on the free weekend. If you think that Valve's intention is to not overwhelm an audience of free weekend people who haven't played the game before, then that's your opinion, but I don't think it really seems reasonable.
In fact, a great many people on my friends list have been playing Team Fortress 2 lately. I'm pretty sure several of them have played before, but they basically want to get into it again and check out the new weapons. Building excitement for fans who get back into your game only to discover that there is no deterministic path to the very thing they wanted to try out? Not an optimal strategy.
Why should Valve care about people ignoring a new weapon because it doesn't seem helpful at first? I really don't think it seems reasonable that Valve's balancing goals involve getting everyone to use newly unlocked weapons. And if you're new to TF2 and start playing as a spy or sniper, you're pretty likely to get frustrated...and I don't see a problem with that. Some things are easier. Some take more practice. What's the problem?
The only thing this really has going for it is that it has the potential to give items to average players who play occasionally slowly, if we temporarily assume that "overwhelming average players with options" is actually a problem. Problems include the following:
1. It doesn't have a guarantee that average players will ever get the items, or even the ones they want. They have a decent chance of it if they play for weeks, but that's it.
2. It doesn't have a guarantee that "hardcore players" will ever get the items, or even the ones they want. They have a good chance of it, but that's it.
3. For the above two points, note from the blog post that the system isn't finished. Eventually they plan to let people trade items or aim for the weapons they want. Valve admits the system isn't perfect, or complete, and thus it's pretty crazy for you to say it's perfect. Basically they turned it on (including the amazing duplicate identical weapon feature) before it was ready, resulting in awesome community feedback. From the maybe 8-12 hours I've played in the last day or more, the VAST majority of feedback is negative from players. Even the people who are okay with it, and are lucky like me (getting most of the items after playing 12 hours or so) tend to think that it could have been done better.
4. For a gradual system, as someone pointed out in MMO's, they offer a continuing system of accomplishment and reward. Even if you only earn 1 valvebuk per hour of playtime, and you need 200 valvebuks to unlock an item, at least you know what's going on, and how you can gradually get things. This system doesn't do that.
5. In short, they eliminated the benefits of the achievement system (a feeling of reward, and a known path to a goal, for people who want to try it) in favor of a system which might help a theoretical "average" audience who hasn't played the game before and needs to be protected from too many choices.
6. One benefit of removing the necessity for achievements was that servers might not have been filled with as many spies as say, scouts in the scout update. Except there were still lots of spies and lots of snipers. And guess what, once the weapons started updating, there were MORE spies and snipers as people wanted to try out the new weapons, the very thing they were looking forward to to begin with...so the teams end up unbalanced and silly, and people have lots of fun with bows, but it's just some 12 or more hours of gameplay later, with the frustrating unknown of when the powers that be decide that you can start trying out a bow or a pistol.
So basically, you might have seen people complaining baselessly before, and you decided to come in here and put an insulting blanket statement on everyone, assuming the situation and the posters were the same. Awesome.
dLMN8R said:
If a vast majority doesn't have many unlocks from before (when everyone had achievements, months to work on them, unlock scripts that could get them instantly, and achievement servers to get them very quickly), it can ONLY be because the vast majority of people didn't care, or are new and trying on the free weekend. If you think that Valve's intention is to not overwhelm an audience of free weekend people who haven't played the game before, then that's your opinion, but I don't think it really seems reasonable.
In fact, a great many people on my friends list have been playing Team Fortress 2 lately. I'm pretty sure several of them have played before, but they basically want to get into it again and check out the new weapons. Building excitement for fans who get back into your game only to discover that there is no deterministic path to the very thing they wanted to try out? Not an optimal strategy.
Why should Valve care about people ignoring a new weapon because it doesn't seem helpful at first? I really don't think it seems reasonable that Valve's balancing goals involve getting everyone to use newly unlocked weapons. And if you're new to TF2 and start playing as a spy or sniper, you're pretty likely to get frustrated...and I don't see a problem with that. Some things are easier. Some take more practice. What's the problem?
The only thing this really has going for it is that it has the potential to give items to average players who play occasionally slowly, if we temporarily assume that "overwhelming average players with options" is actually a problem. Problems include the following:
1. It doesn't have a guarantee that average players will ever get the items, or even the ones they want. They have a decent chance of it if they play for weeks, but that's it.
2. It doesn't have a guarantee that "hardcore players" will ever get the items, or even the ones they want. They have a good chance of it, but that's it.
3. For the above two points, note from the blog post that the system isn't finished. Eventually they plan to let people trade items or aim for the weapons they want. Valve admits the system isn't perfect, or complete, and thus it's pretty crazy for you to say it's perfect. Basically they turned it on (including the amazing duplicate identical weapon feature) before it was ready, resulting in awesome community feedback. From the maybe 8-12 hours I've played in the last day or more, the VAST majority of feedback is negative from players. Even the people who are okay with it, and are lucky like me (getting most of the items after playing 12 hours or so) tend to think that it could have been done better.
4. For a gradual system, as someone pointed out in MMO's, they offer a continuing system of accomplishment and reward. Even if you only earn 1 valvebuk per hour of playtime, and you need 200 valvebuks to unlock an item, at least you know what's going on, and how you can gradually get things. This system doesn't do that.
5. In short, they eliminated the benefits of the achievement system (a feeling of reward, and a known path to a goal, for people who want to try it) in favor of a system which might help a theoretical "average" audience who hasn't played the game before and needs to be protected from too many choices.
6. One benefit of removing the necessity for achievements was that servers might not have been filled with as many spies as say, scouts in the scout update. Except there were still lots of spies and lots of snipers. And guess what, once the weapons started updating, there were MORE spies and snipers as people wanted to try out the new weapons, the very thing they were looking forward to to begin with...so the teams end up unbalanced and silly, and people have lots of fun with bows, but it's just some 12 or more hours of gameplay later, with the frustrating unknown of when the powers that be decide that you can start trying out a bow or a pistol.
So basically, you might have seen people complaining baselessly before, and you decided to come in here and put an insulting blanket statement on everyone, assuming the situation and the posters were the same. Awesome.
I think Valve will listen and put back the milestones and make them retroactive after the free weekend is over.
At least I hope.
Achievement farming would still be present, but the achievements aren't hard at all as they mentioned. They've made them so that you should be doing things that a good class does, and a few fun ones as well.
*http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=870536
Because of threads like this I would imagine they retool the system.
At least I hope.
Achievement farming would still be present, but the achievements aren't hard at all as they mentioned. They've made them so that you should be doing things that a good class does, and a few fun ones as well.
*http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=870536
Because of threads like this I would imagine they retool the system.
Baloonatic
Member
They said on the blog that we'll be able to trade duplicates eventually, but I think they should have either implemented that at the same time or made it so we don't get duplicates until we CAN trade.
But anyway, I'm glad they fixed the Ambassador.
But anyway, I'm glad they fixed the Ambassador.
Better solution : base it on objective completion. You win, you get a random drop. No nonsense. Achievement milestones can be used to get small cosmetic upgrades such as the hats. People are rewarded for doing well what they're supposed to do, and those who want to get hardcore into a class can get a little thing on them saying "I'm hardcore LOL". Everyone wins.
People, just because you get achievements fast doesn't mean most of the population does. There are stats that show how many people actually got to those milestones, it's freakishly low with every update. Look at what the game would be like a while from now, with all 9 classes updated with milestones. It would mean people would have to unlock 90 achievements total to get the first weapon for all classes, unlock 144 achievements total to get the second weapon for all classes, and unlock 198 achievements total to get all of the unlocks for all the classes. Say hello to all that update shinyness landing in the hands of a laughable small minority of players.
All that needs to be said is in the numbers. Clearly, class updates in the past have been serving roughly 20% of the population, instead of being accessible to the vast majority TF2 players. This new unlockable system, while broken right now, is clearly heading in a better direction.
What we can expect to see? The numbers of people with unlockable weapons to increase dramatically, which in turn should increase the chances of more varied combat overall (More people with different weapons -> More combat with different weapons involved). Allowing the items to trickle down through the population as they play over time is going to seed more interesting combat situations in the future. You will benefit.
If you're wanting to get very specific items, duplicates or unwanted items will expedite the process for you. That's your "do this->get that" option if you don't want to wait. We've yet to see if it's a simple "trade item x for item y", but I'm sure it'll fill the player participation void somewhat. It's not here yet, obviously, but the new unlock system will be much more complete with it.
All that needs to be said is in the numbers. Clearly, class updates in the past have been serving roughly 20% of the population, instead of being accessible to the vast majority TF2 players. This new unlockable system, while broken right now, is clearly heading in a better direction.
What we can expect to see? The numbers of people with unlockable weapons to increase dramatically, which in turn should increase the chances of more varied combat overall (More people with different weapons -> More combat with different weapons involved). Allowing the items to trickle down through the population as they play over time is going to seed more interesting combat situations in the future. You will benefit.
If you're wanting to get very specific items, duplicates or unwanted items will expedite the process for you. That's your "do this->get that" option if you don't want to wait. We've yet to see if it's a simple "trade item x for item y", but I'm sure it'll fill the player participation void somewhat. It's not here yet, obviously, but the new unlock system will be much more complete with it.
EvilDick34
Banned
I would like to give a big hearty fuck you to valve. Last nite i was kicking ass with the ambassador and despite what they said about the hitboxes, i was making sure to aim with the gun and when i wasn't i would miss people left and right.
Now last nite i came home to valve nerfing the shit out of this gun. I sit right in front of people and aim at their goddamn chest and somehow it manages to miss them completely..great job valve you nerfed what is suppose to be an upgrade in the span of less then 24 hours and made me go back to pyro, GREAT FUCKING JOB!
Now last nite i came home to valve nerfing the shit out of this gun. I sit right in front of people and aim at their goddamn chest and somehow it manages to miss them completely..great job valve you nerfed what is suppose to be an upgrade in the span of less then 24 hours and made me go back to pyro, GREAT FUCKING JOB!
Tying the unlocks to achievements was a mediocer design, but this is far worse.dLMN8R said:
I played earlier today and just about instantly got an unlock, but then later got nothing.
I'm going in and playing and crossing my fingers that eventually the game will randomly give me a huntsman so I can try it out, but the odds of that are quite low.
I feel like I have no control over how I play at all. There is no reasonable way for me to get the weapon I want.
Suburban Cowboy
Member
active player numbers are highest right after a patch because people want to try the new shit. This system prevents them from doing so. If you werent playing often prior to the patch, you have little reason to do so now.
Someone in a random server said if I wanted items, going spectator would be the fastest route. Any validity to that?
Someone in a random server said if I wanted items, going spectator would be the fastest route. Any validity to that?
Botolf said:
While I see your point, I don't think using the percentage of players that obtained the achievements like that works all that well, since there's only a single achievement that over 50% of people have. How many people currently playing the game that have new weapons would be a much higher number, I'd imagine. Also, the percentage of people that DO have the weapons are likely the biggest fans of the game and are as of now left pretty shafted by the complete randomness of drops now.
I have every class milestone, but all that means to me now is that the drops are likely going to be duplicates, which almost makes me feel punished for getting the weapons in the first place. Instead of just earning the spy's new weapons, I'm left hoping it will randomly happen instead of getting my fourth backburner...a lot of this does rely on trading and how it'll be utilized, but even then I'd just use the extra backburners I randomly get to trade for a spy weapon I may randomly get in the next 10 seconds. I just think the milestone achievements should still be there as an alternative way to earn them, 20% of players may not be the majority, but it's still a lot of players that got the class weapons perfectly fine before.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Botolf said:
The flaw in your reasoning is assuming that every single TF2 player plays every single class equally, and wants every unlock for every class equally.
Prior to this update, I played Pyro, Medic and Heavy enough to get all of their unlocks, but don't have a single unlock for the scout because I never play as him outside of the occasional scout rush on a CP map.
If Spy and Sniper had both been released with achievement based unlocks, I would play Spy when the fuss had died down for his unlocks, and really not be too fussed about the Snipers unlocks because I dont play as him often enough to be that bothered about not having them.
EDIT:
If when they release Engineer unlocks (my 'main') and I can't get them for playing well as an engineer, or, worse, getting unlocks I don't want or already have, I will be pissed. So I can understand some of the venom Valve are getting.
Random time based rather than performance based unlocks just feels like a sloppy idea.
Adding in duplicate drops 'to prepare for a trading system' when there is no trading system is ridiculous for a number of reasons.
If the point of adding weapon unlocks is to change class playstyles and get more players playing as them, and if valve really must have weapons unlockable at all instead of just additional options at class select, they should have some kind of deterministic aspect.
Probably the most annoying and weakest thing possible to do.Suburban Cowboy said:
On one of the main servers I jump in, there are at least 4-5 spectators and it takes FOREVER to get onto the server. It's got to the point where I'll be in the ISPs IRC channel and tell the admins that such-and-such is AFK and they'll be booted.
No use joining a server if you're just going to AFK it up to get unlocks. Lazy people will do anything to get free toys it seems.
Nor should they feel that they have a right to bitch and complain over a game that is literally the price of a restaurant dinner and you're not paying for these updates.Papercuts said:Well, when the game is literally giving you items for doing nothing, I can't really blame them.
I can't understand it sometimes. This is bordering upon WoW patch update levels.
What it demonstrates is perfectly reasonable: very few who play TF2 actually benefit from the class updates. That isn't a positive by any stretch of the imagination. When you're judging 20% versus 80%, it's a no brainer: bring more of the game's content into more hands. That's what the new system is doing.Papercuts said:
Flaw? I'm not making assumptions beyond what the data so obviously suggests. It doesn't really matter that the classes aren't played equally or wanted equally, what the numbers show is that the updates aren't getting into enough hands in a tangible way. 4 class updates were released and the new toys were gained by a pitifully small section of the population, every single time. That's a big problem and Valve is aware of it. The new system is broken to be sure, but it shows a lot of promise.MrNyarlathotep said:
Instead of grinding for achievements today, I played the game like I would any other day and had a blast using and facing the new additions. Not a bad update day, considering.
KittenMaster
Member
Once again, fix the drop rate, then everyone is happy.
Botolf said:
Ooh numbers! If the 20% normally has 100% of the content, and the 80% normally has 10% of the content, making a system change that results in your dedicated 20% fanbase only having, say, 50% of the content, is annoying.
Furthermore, if they had added a couple of lines of code to say "if player already has this item, then roll the dice again", more of the game's content would be in more hands. If they had left in the achievement system as WELL as adding the random item acquisitions, more of the game's content would have been in more hands.
I would say that most people, including me, aren't arguing that Valve won't eventually, in their good time, reach a reasonable solution. They're reasonably good at balancing, and they provide a lot of continued support to their games. All we're pointing out is the reasons why it isn't working now, and how other systems could have been better, even by the metric you suggest.
Gully State
Member
After about 8 hours of playing, I picked up a FON (which I already have) and the Deadringer- which is the spy's get of out jail free card. You lose normal cloaking but now you have viability against every class except pyro (which is the spy's hard counter anyways). It's nice being able to live after bumping into an enemy.
Suburban Cowboy
Member
most people play after a patch is released cause they want to try the new weapons. Guess valve wasnt having thatice cream said:
benjipwns
Banned
Four people on my friends list have been sitting in "achievement_idle" servers over the last few hours. And the number of them on my server list went from two to twenty five over the last hour.
They took a bad system and made it worse somehow. Instead of bopping into an achievement server for an hour or so to unlock everything, or setting up a server to farm with friends, now people are joining servers just to sit idle in spawn for ten hours. Meanwhile there's still five or six snipers per team, and the weekenders (understandably) don't know how to play enough to make up for it.
They took a bad system and made it worse somehow. Instead of bopping into an achievement server for an hour or so to unlock everything, or setting up a server to farm with friends, now people are joining servers just to sit idle in spawn for ten hours. Meanwhile there's still five or six snipers per team, and the weekenders (understandably) don't know how to play enough to make up for it.
This is what I am thinking. I'd love to hear what Capndrake has to say about the unlocks because, as we all should know, he plays TF2 to a near-on obsessive level and his favourite class is Sniper.ice cream said:
Getting bothered by it all will only make it worse. I throw in 20 hours of TF2 every fortnight according to my Steam account and the people idling in the servers in a blind attempt to win their toys won't be around playing the game in a month's time. Guaranteed.benjipwns said:
Baloonatic
Member
I like the new system but there's obviously something up with the drop rate at the moment. Once they fix that I think it will be fine.
Diablohead
Member
3 hours of gaming this morning and I saw maybe 4 people find something like a sandvich or backburner. since ysterday's small area of time where I found the heavy helmet, natasha and the spy's new gun I have had nothing else for about 8 hours total now. It's a bit bonked.
I would like to see valve adjust it so maybe you get an item for winning a map overall, then it would require you to play a map until the end without quitting. What ever you do people will setup "achievement" servers anyway, but at least us legit players get a reward if our team wins. Maybe they could make it so a map must be played for more then 10 minutes to get around the item whores?
I would like to see valve adjust it so maybe you get an item for winning a map overall, then it would require you to play a map until the end without quitting. What ever you do people will setup "achievement" servers anyway, but at least us legit players get a reward if our team wins. Maybe they could make it so a map must be played for more then 10 minutes to get around the item whores?
benjipwns
Banned
Right now, they're caught in some strange conundrum where it seems like they don't want everyone to have the weapons right away, but at the same time they don't want to put anything in the way of getting them. Even if this means the "hardcore" can't have them.
I still think the best way going forward, if they won't just give them, is to default with the drop system, but allow people to opt out and get them either through achievements or "experience" points. (The regular in-game points...and when you chose a system for a class, you can't get them the other ways.)
There also probably needs to be something like, if you kill someone with the Cloak and Dagger, you double your chance at picking it up.
I think the biggest problem with this system is that they want to reward you, but you don't know why you were rewarded. You're just rewarded because the roulette wheel spun your way while you were playing. And that's why it is so confusing to people. (I couldn't count the number of people asking how to get the new weapons and then going "what?" when told to just keep playing, it's somewhat random.)
(I say as the last two servers I joined had 6-8 people idling in spawn. CircleX wasn't as bad, just four people. Still...)
I still think the best way going forward, if they won't just give them, is to default with the drop system, but allow people to opt out and get them either through achievements or "experience" points. (The regular in-game points...and when you chose a system for a class, you can't get them the other ways.)
There also probably needs to be something like, if you kill someone with the Cloak and Dagger, you double your chance at picking it up.
I think the biggest problem with this system is that they want to reward you, but you don't know why you were rewarded. You're just rewarded because the roulette wheel spun your way while you were playing. And that's why it is so confusing to people. (I couldn't count the number of people asking how to get the new weapons and then going "what?" when told to just keep playing, it's somewhat random.)
(I say as the last two servers I joined had 6-8 people idling in spawn. CircleX wasn't as bad, just four people. Still...)
The blog post is cool and explains a lot of what's going on, and what's coming. Namely some ways to influence the randomness of unlocks.
http://www.teamfortress.com/
The system right now isn't working as intended. That's all I needed to hear. I sure as hell don't want them to go back to achievements.
Another question about the new TF2 stuff (http://store.valvesoftware.com/).
Did anyone purchase the Force-A-Nature shirt ? It looks cool, but for some reason they don't show the back of the shirt (they do for every other shirt on the valvestore), does that just mean there's nothing on the back ?
The reason I'm asking what seems like a stupid useless question is because every other TF2 shirt had this obvious "Team Fortress 2" logo on the back, and I don't like my gaming shirt to turn me in an advertisement billboard. I like them subtle, like the Portal ones.
http://www.teamfortress.com/
The system right now isn't working as intended. That's all I needed to hear. I sure as hell don't want them to go back to achievements.
Another question about the new TF2 stuff (http://store.valvesoftware.com/).
Did anyone purchase the Force-A-Nature shirt ? It looks cool, but for some reason they don't show the back of the shirt (they do for every other shirt on the valvestore), does that just mean there's nothing on the back ?
The reason I'm asking what seems like a stupid useless question is because every other TF2 shirt had this obvious "Team Fortress 2" logo on the back, and I don't like my gaming shirt to turn me in an advertisement billboard. I like them subtle, like the Portal ones.
I dont understand why people want the old way back. This way isn't ideal but it at least it's not 100% disruptive of actual TF2 play.
For a week after every previous update, actually playing actual real matches of TF2 was impossible.
Achievement servers weren't the problem. It was acheivement farming on *regular servers* which was the problem.
For a week after every previous update, actually playing actual real matches of TF2 was impossible.
Achievement servers weren't the problem. It was acheivement farming on *regular servers* which was the problem.
D
Deleted member 30609
Unconfirmed Member
I was playing Heavy for a solid attack run Gold Rush and unlocked the Shield for the Sniper at the end of it. :lolYazus said: