zero margin
Member
How noob friendly is this game guys. Finally got a capable system and looking to catch up on some things. Guessing it's not friendly. :lol
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Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
TF2 Engineer update incoming?
- Thread starter delirium
- Start date
zero margin
Member
ah that's good to know! Thanks gents. 
CrazedProfessional
Member
Steam still refuses to boot TF2.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
It really really is. Except right now. For the next few days it will be people all spamming the same few classes for achievements. Once that dies down though its like....the best game ever.zero margin said:
Also, with the help of GAF I got all three of my unlocks, but I'm going to give it a week or so for the mayhem to die down before I really start experimenting.
chixdiggit
Member
zero margin said:
You will have no problems jumping in. Buy now and thank us later.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Just remember to prioritise killing everyone with ear buds first.
So some thoughts after playing demo for a while.
Those mini sentries are a joke; you have more than enough time to destroy them even if they're shooting you the whole time.
The wrangler is powerful, I could see it being real nice if the shield gets a bit of a nerf and maybe the ammo or damage or something; with the range it can really lock things down.
Moving sentries is way over powered. Maybe if they give if it takes 2 seconds or something to pick up, and maybe a bit longer to put down--there has to be some downside to the thing other than slow movement speed.
Those mini sentries are a joke; you have more than enough time to destroy them even if they're shooting you the whole time.
The wrangler is powerful, I could see it being real nice if the shield gets a bit of a nerf and maybe the ammo or damage or something; with the range it can really lock things down.
Moving sentries is way over powered. Maybe if they give if it takes 2 seconds or something to pick up, and maybe a bit longer to put down--there has to be some downside to the thing other than slow movement speed.
Boonoo said:
Yeah, the moving is already really powerful, even without teleports. WITH teleports, you can basically work with another engie and set a teleport off in a hidden spot while he builds a level 3 sentry, moves up to you, then he can move the whole team up again while you build a sentry. As long as you get the teleporter exit down, you basically can bottleneck your way up a map.
Of course, all the implications of it can't be determined while 90% of the players are engineers, but I don't see it being possible for a very long time, atleast not with level 3.
Kuro Madoushi
Unconfirmed Member
played on some regular maps after the update.
mini sentries are annoying, but not overpowered
wrangler can be used to suppress snipers from far away
moving stuff is WAAAAAAAAAAAY over-powered.
so many strats you could do...everyone lvl their shit up at spawn while one engie builds a tele to the front lines...INSTANT lvl 3 sentries near the blu spawn.
shield from the wrangler also pisses me off. I think they should remove it altogether as I had several good shots at it from a distance with powered scope but it didn't do shit. I figure, if the engie can control it and wants to protect it, he should decide to aim at the sniper.
new wrench is alright for spy checking, but the wrangler is better for that. What I've seen though is if a spy jumps on top, I'm not sure the engie can target the spy on his sentry
man that damn shield really needs a nerf
new maps
meh...hard to say since every player was an engie :lol
mini sentries are annoying, but not overpowered
wrangler can be used to suppress snipers from far away
moving stuff is WAAAAAAAAAAAY over-powered.
so many strats you could do...everyone lvl their shit up at spawn while one engie builds a tele to the front lines...INSTANT lvl 3 sentries near the blu spawn.
shield from the wrangler also pisses me off. I think they should remove it altogether as I had several good shots at it from a distance with powered scope but it didn't do shit. I figure, if the engie can control it and wants to protect it, he should decide to aim at the sniper.
new wrench is alright for spy checking, but the wrangler is better for that. What I've seen though is if a spy jumps on top, I'm not sure the engie can target the spy on his sentry
man that damn shield really needs a nerf
new maps
meh...hard to say since every player was an engie :lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urAtStdn3tc
have you guys seen this? He rocket jumps and picks up his sentry at the same time. You could get to a lot of fun locations with this.
have you guys seen this? He rocket jumps and picks up his sentry at the same time. You could get to a lot of fun locations with this.
Kuro Madoushi
Unconfirmed Member
Boonoo said:
movable shit...OVERPOWERED....
I'd prefer it to be lvl 1s ONLY...
Or, if you're moving lvl 3s, it's A LOT slower than lvl 1 and should take longer to set itself up and should be extremely vulnerable
Though I will say it was fun sniper slow moving engies around
One thing I didn't like is how an engie immediately packed up his shit and moved it only a few feet away to avoid teh spam. There's gotta be a cooldown or something
I wouldn't mind maybe having you stand there while it packs itself up before you move it. Having it done instantly is... >_>Or, like I said, only make lvl 1s movable
Otherwise, I may start playing on more servers with engie cap limitszero margin said:
Start with medic. So you see what the other ppl do and can be useful too. Although i have to say that i only played the normal maps for like 10 hours and now just play orange servers (without snipers) Over 100 hours of engie there (second place is demo with 20 or so). Can't wait to try the new stuff.
Stabbing on a high ping server is so weird. I backstab 4 people and only n0b dies.
Also not sure about Mini-sSentries yet. Seem kinda weak. I guess +25 health on the Engineer is the main advantage of the glove, if you want to play as an aggressive Engineer.
And I still try to think about all the horror scenarios with moveable Tier 3 sentries. brrrrrrrr
Also not sure about Mini-sSentries yet. Seem kinda weak. I guess +25 health on the Engineer is the main advantage of the glove, if you want to play as an aggressive Engineer.
And I still try to think about all the horror scenarios with moveable Tier 3 sentries. brrrrrrrr
Ice Monkey
Member
I disagree. moving sentries is not OP at all IMHO. Just because it feels like it doesn't mean it is. Look at it this way, how did you kill sentries before? You have to shoot behind corners, take pot shots while ducking behind cover and stuff, or just slam a bucket of pain on the sentry under an uber or just taking the heat as a heavy.
Look at the possible scenarios involving moving the sentry:
1. It is OP because you can save it at a moment's notice
A. Don't forget that not only are you unable to move very fast when you pick up a sentry which means it's easy as shit to chase you down, but if you die (and engineers are VERY squishy) you lose the sentry plus any possible hits it could have dished out before dying. It takes just as long to build a new sentry as it does to replace the sentry you just saved anyway, and anyone who cant manage to kill a sentry in it's building phase loses all rights to claim it is OP.
2. it is OP because you can build sentries elsewhere and transport them to some great new locale, at level 3 no less.
A. even exploits like a rocket jump allowing weird sentry locations could absolutely have been done even without sentry moving being enabled, and don't you dare suggest altering the wrangler (at least that's a separate argument). The wrangler is simply the best thing to come out of TF2 for ages. I'll be devastated if it's altered. On the argument that it's OP to basically construct a lvl 3 sentry in any given locale given enough preparation, well if somehow this breaks the game for you then your team probably sucks. All this change does is cut down on the time it takes to get a lvl 3 sentry up and running in some arbitrary locale. At any point in walking a prebuilt sentry to some location the person could have built a level 1 sentry and built it up to lvl 3, it would have taken the same amount of time but not only in the meantime do you get lvl 1 and 2 to get some kills if possible but the loss of time (gathering resources is the same as extra time) an engie has if one of the sentries is destroyed during this process because the area is too well guarded is much greater for transporting a level 3 than a level 1. It takes a good couple minutes to get a lvl 3 sentry and it's all lost if you allow it to be vulnerable and don't save it during the course of a game. A lvl 1 sentry? more like 30 seconds or less.
Look at it logically, all the change does is cut down on menial "tribal chant" equivalents required to get lvl 3 devices up and running somewhere. With the proper teamwork, this shouldn't be an issue anyways so why ignore bad teamwork and instead claim something is OP.
Finally look at it realistically (kind of as a joke). Why in the hell does it make sense that an engineer destroys a device he had spent a good chunk of time building it elsewhere instead of just transporting it (at the expense of lugging around all the 600 metal, that slows him down, required to rebuild the device) if that (should be) possible? Not only does that make sense but you are making the parts vulnerable since they are off (by them exploding if you die while holding the sentry).
Maybe the problem is that you can have sentries up and running but just save them as your teammates die around you and you run away? Well chalk that up to the TEAM in team fortress allowing you to survive another day because your teammates took the heat for you.
I'm surprised more people don't see this as a welcome streamlining of the process an engineer goes through during a typical game as opposed to something OP that ruins the game. At any point that you move a building you have constructed, you are very vulnerable and risk losing more by a common "death" than usual. That sounds like enough of a tradeoff to me.
Look at the possible scenarios involving moving the sentry:
1. It is OP because you can save it at a moment's notice
A. Don't forget that not only are you unable to move very fast when you pick up a sentry which means it's easy as shit to chase you down, but if you die (and engineers are VERY squishy) you lose the sentry plus any possible hits it could have dished out before dying. It takes just as long to build a new sentry as it does to replace the sentry you just saved anyway, and anyone who cant manage to kill a sentry in it's building phase loses all rights to claim it is OP.
2. it is OP because you can build sentries elsewhere and transport them to some great new locale, at level 3 no less.
A. even exploits like a rocket jump allowing weird sentry locations could absolutely have been done even without sentry moving being enabled, and don't you dare suggest altering the wrangler (at least that's a separate argument). The wrangler is simply the best thing to come out of TF2 for ages. I'll be devastated if it's altered. On the argument that it's OP to basically construct a lvl 3 sentry in any given locale given enough preparation, well if somehow this breaks the game for you then your team probably sucks. All this change does is cut down on the time it takes to get a lvl 3 sentry up and running in some arbitrary locale. At any point in walking a prebuilt sentry to some location the person could have built a level 1 sentry and built it up to lvl 3, it would have taken the same amount of time but not only in the meantime do you get lvl 1 and 2 to get some kills if possible but the loss of time (gathering resources is the same as extra time) an engie has if one of the sentries is destroyed during this process because the area is too well guarded is much greater for transporting a level 3 than a level 1. It takes a good couple minutes to get a lvl 3 sentry and it's all lost if you allow it to be vulnerable and don't save it during the course of a game. A lvl 1 sentry? more like 30 seconds or less.
Look at it logically, all the change does is cut down on menial "tribal chant" equivalents required to get lvl 3 devices up and running somewhere. With the proper teamwork, this shouldn't be an issue anyways so why ignore bad teamwork and instead claim something is OP.
Finally look at it realistically (kind of as a joke). Why in the hell does it make sense that an engineer destroys a device he had spent a good chunk of time building it elsewhere instead of just transporting it (at the expense of lugging around all the 600 metal, that slows him down, required to rebuild the device) if that (should be) possible? Not only does that make sense but you are making the parts vulnerable since they are off (by them exploding if you die while holding the sentry).
Maybe the problem is that you can have sentries up and running but just save them as your teammates die around you and you run away? Well chalk that up to the TEAM in team fortress allowing you to survive another day because your teammates took the heat for you.
I'm surprised more people don't see this as a welcome streamlining of the process an engineer goes through during a typical game as opposed to something OP that ruins the game. At any point that you move a building you have constructed, you are very vulnerable and risk losing more by a common "death" than usual. That sounds like enough of a tradeoff to me.
zero margin
Member
Donos said:
Was looking for advice like that, appreciate. Download is going to take all night I think so I'll be doing that tomorrow for sure.
zero margin said:
Medic is a good initial starting point, but I'd also so jump around on all the classes. Start to get a feel for one that works with you and read up on it a bit, and see if you can't start to learn the maps as that class.
For the first while I'd stick to basic valve maps, and then if you want to branch out from there.
Don't be afraid to die over and over and over again, and don't feel that you're doing something horribly wrong if you don't wrack up kill streaks. it's fine to have a 1:2 or 3 or 4 k:d ratio, everyone does at the beginning. Just focus on helping your team push.
zero margin said:
I would also avoid playing Spy and Sniper at the beginning. Pyro is also a good starting class imo. Like i said i only have 10-15 hours on normal maps so i guess there are more helpful ppl here with more experience. But like other said the community is rather nice friendly and you get really fast into all the classes. Mastering them is another thing. Try them all out.
perryfarrell
Member
Boonoo said:
How did he do taht?
some thoughts on the new weapons as well on balance predictions
Wrangler: Works as advertised. Fairly balanced for what it does, too. Leaves the engineer vulnerable as hell. Got my first gunslinger taunt kill on some wrangler dude not paying attention at all.
If it gets nerfed, it'll probably be something like 50% sentry protection or something
Gunslinger: Fun as all hell. Mini-sentries are just a bit TOO underwhelming. My only real complaint too. I could see Valve giving some SLIGHT buff to the gunslinger. I'm hesitant to say something like increased mini-sentry damage, but it could happen
Frontier Justice: Well, shit. Almost a straight upgrade like the ubersaw. I'm almost certain Valve will fuck with it somehow.
Movable sentries: Too good. Gonna get nerfed to shit. Level 2 and level 3 rebuild times will be upped big time.
Wrangler: Works as advertised. Fairly balanced for what it does, too. Leaves the engineer vulnerable as hell. Got my first gunslinger taunt kill on some wrangler dude not paying attention at all.
If it gets nerfed, it'll probably be something like 50% sentry protection or something
Gunslinger: Fun as all hell. Mini-sentries are just a bit TOO underwhelming. My only real complaint too. I could see Valve giving some SLIGHT buff to the gunslinger. I'm hesitant to say something like increased mini-sentry damage, but it could happen
Frontier Justice: Well, shit. Almost a straight upgrade like the ubersaw. I'm almost certain Valve will fuck with it somehow.
Movable sentries: Too good. Gonna get nerfed to shit. Level 2 and level 3 rebuild times will be upped big time.
overthehill99
Member
I'm pretty sure I'm the unluckiest TF2 player in the world. I played for like 2 and 1/2 hours tonight, and all I unlocked was the Chargin' Targe...... which I already had two of.
Their damage definitely didn't seem to be half, or perhaps this was negated by the fact that they have the same fire rate and same amount of knockback(!) But I could easily walk in at full health (usually medic) and be dead in a matter of 3-5 seconds. They need a nerf really badly.Jenga said:
thetrin
Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
I'm actually really enjoying moving my sentry around, and some of the servers have been hilariously engineer filled. It's been WAY too easy for spies to sap everything in sight (easy to blend in when everyone on your team is standing in the same place playing the same class :lol)
Yasae said:
What class were your playing? So far every time I've found an isolated mini sentry its pretty much been a free kill. The only time they prove difficult is when the engineer is using the wrangler in conjunction with them. That shield is unbelievably good.
EDIT: Hmm, read that as "Usually with medic" was wondering what the hell you were doing. :lol
Ice Monkey
Member
zero margin said:
really most any class is fun to pick-up-and-play except sniper requires a lot of hand-eye coordination and spy requires a good chunk of logical thinking in order to be successful at. You can't just disguise yourself and go running into the enemy base and think you'll succeed. A lot of people just randomly shoot their teammates all day long looking for spies so you'll be going nuts if you werent aware of that, thinking someone must be hacking.
engie you can just find some obvious point you want to defend and build a sentry there. Build a dispenser too to help repair your sentry and build teleport exits where your sentry is and entrances at your base and you've basically mastered the engie.
Heavy you just run straight into battle and start whirling your chaingun. Make sure to just whirl it using right click until you see an enemy. Lots of good medics may follow you and you could find your sweet spot there.
Soldier is nice because you can just fire and forget your rockets. Don't go for the direct hit until you feel like you've mastered the way players move so you can outsmart them. shoot for the ground if you feel like you're always missing someone.
demoman is nice to set up traps with stickybombs but can also shoot behind corners with normal grenades. Choose him if you want to get an engie's annoying sentry or just fire wildly and feel success when a random grenade kills some dude. After playing him for awhile you should get a feel for how to aim to hit some obscure spot you;re not even looking at. That's his strength.
medic is nice just to run around healing people and then uber someone and you get to go to town for a precious few seconds. This is where tf2 shines, the fact that you get to share kills with someone every kill, built probably just for the medic. Eventually youll get the kritzkrieg but that takes more skill as it doesnt involve GAME-ENDING-INVINCIBILITY.
scout is just for capturing points and being super twitchy that you outmaneuver other peeps. stay away until you are an fps pro.
like i mentioned, sniper is all about hand-eye coordination, seeing someone, aiming accurately and sniping someone's head off. The type of thing consoles try to alleviate by adding autoaim. Their upgraded weapon is something that travels slower and doesnt zoom for pete's sake. It's basically about acting like your either super awesome or just drank a whole bunch of ritalin and coffee and want everyone to know it.
Spy is terribly hard to enjoy, because it all relies on the other team to be a (collectively) stupid idiot. It's just there to make people feel stupid for all choosing engineer thus they get dumb to the fact that that guy next to you is not repairing your sentry but rather destroying it.
Anyways that's all I got for now, hopefully it helps with understanding tf2.
Ice Monkey said:
Looking at the sticky launcher (which, I think, we can agree is the king of sentry killers) it generally takes 2 or 3 stickies to take out any given sentry. Many is the time that I've been tending my sentry that I see stickies start to fly in. It used to be that I would whip out my shotgun and try and break them; now all I need to do is right click and back up 10 feet; since the demos are generally far away or blind firing I'm safe for the time being.
Same thing with rockets. As long as my team keeps on fighting and gets rid of the assailant I'm good to go.
Now it's a given that this won't work all the time, but I think it will work enough of the time to raise some red flags. Packing up your gear should primarily be used to "move that gear up" it shouldn't be an oh shit button.
A 2 second deconstruction time would do that fine. Long enough that if you do it in the face of danger you're dead, but short enough so that you can push forward to help your team.
As far as killing a sentry in the build phase; it's hard when the sentry drops down with full health and an engie beating on it. It dropping with half health, I think would be a good thing.
It's not so much that it cuts down on the time it takes an engie to build; it's that the enemy has a minuscule window of opportunity to destroy the sentry when he just plops it down. When you're building up a level 3 from a level 1 there's a wealth of opportunities to destroy it not the least of which is the initial low health building phase (not present in a prebuilt lvl3 ). It's faster, less dangerous, and more powerful. It lets an engie set up a fully powered sentry under light fire.
There need to be some ramifications to this huge boost in potential. It should be more dangerous than it is to pack up and move your sentry around.
I like that it's quicker and cuts down on busy work for the engineer, but it shouldn't make things a complete walk in the park. It's all reward, no risk.
Moving your sentry up should be safe and efficient if you're behind your own lines like in say a payload map as you move your gear from the captured point 1 to the now captured point 2 as your team begins to assault point 3. Moving up to the contested point 3 with your gear, though, should be a dangerous maneuver (as should, say, the defense moving their gear from the taken point 2 to the contested 3).
Anytime you move your gear under fire it needs to be more risky.
I think we mainly do see it as a welcome streamlining of the process. But you need to be more vulnerable when you move your gear. It's just to easy to plop a level 3 down on the front lines.
I'd suggest 3 basic changes.
1) 1-3 second deconstruction time.
2) A placed object starts at half health.
3) Movement slowdown based on lvl of object, so that a level three makes you noticeably slower than the heavy.
This would, as I said about, make things safe and efficient when you're behind your own lines, but a real risk when you're pushing to a contested zone.
As for the wrangler. I haven't seen it in action too terribly much, but I'd say, as my first thoughts that 1) the shield is far too powerful, and 2) it needs severe distance penalties.
Ice Monkey
Member
Jenga said:
I wholly disagree with the frontier justice. I played for a few rounds with the normal shotgun and noticed a huge improvement because of the fact that i had just so much more potential with more than 3 shots ready to go while dodging back and forth. You underestimate the comparable power of a normal shotgun compared to this.The 3 shots allowed before reload really distill this gun into exactly what it should be : a utlity to get off super crits with, and im sure it does that pretty well.
I still don't get why everyone is against moving sentries, all it does is keep people from having to spend a good 5 billion seconds on committing to a certain location! Jesus, you'd think that they gave sentries a +100 damage per hit towards heavies or something.
zero margin
Member
Boonoo said:
got it.
Donos said:
got it.
Ice Monkey said:
Got it.
Thanks a ton all, extremely helpful stuff, been watching a bunch of youtube vids while waiting for this download as well. Starting to get an idea at least.
Ice Monkey
Member
Boonoo said:
I dont even want to respond to anything involving the wrangler as it is too much of a joy to use in its current incarnation. I cant say a damned thing that would make any sense because Im too biased towards how fun it is to use right now. Maybe suffice it to say that losing the ability to auto target as well as the sentry does on its own justifies the abilities you have. Not to mention how jarring it would be to aim the sentry somewhere and "oh gosh, it didnt go that far".
I still feel like I'm unconvinced on the subject of building(sentry)-moving because I see it as just added mobility with a tradeoff for the engie. It (arguably) shouldnt be so easy for someone to casually choose demoman and stickybomb to beat the crap out of a good engie spot. The engie should be able to at least do SOMETHING to skillfully counter this arguably ho-hum tactic of stickystickysticky until sentry death, and what better than to save the sentry for another day? It's not like it heals itself upon picking it up on a whim, it saves its woefully downtrodden state. If the demoman cant at least show himself for a second of vulnerability why does he get a free pass for sentry destroyability? Its not like the engie is recalling his sentry from a mile back, he's right there next to it, subject to the same (at least similar) perils as the sentry is when getting hit with stickybombs, so as soon as the engie takes the sentry, why cant the demoman show himself, break out the correct weapon and slaughter the poor, vulnerable engie? That's exactly how it is in this environment and that sounds fair to me :-/.
EvilDick34
Banned
Does anyone know why like about half of my achievements dont update themselves when playing Arena??? I cannot get the achievement helping to set up teammates building among many others...wtf??
Ice Monkey
Member
Won said:
I do see some ways to "abuse" that system, but they seem more to me like "things that should have been there since day 1" as opposed to new abilities that ruin the whole scope of the game.
Expanding on my previous thought, when someone figures out (as if it should take very long) how to deal with a certain sentry spot, why should the engineer be punished if he can foresee this?
As it was before the patch, if an engineer notices everyone is going crazy attacking his sentry (as often happens) , he has not much alternative than to sit there hoping his wrench spamming will save the sentry. As it is now, post-patch, he can say "screw this, I'm going to adjust my strategy" and run off somewhere else to concoct some perfect sentry strategy. Why punish him, absolutely, for realizing it was a bad decision to put his sentry there? It's akin to punishing someone for deciding "no in fact, I do not want to be pyro next round because everyone else kills me before I'm in pyro distance". (yes i know that's exaggerating in perhaps an unwelcome way)
It just seems wrong that when you know your sentry plan is foiled (as is the case for every smart engie) you must start over from square one. With this patch, you can choose between seeing how your prediction pans out or preempting it and moving your shit elsewhere. Why is that bad? Is it so important to allow a demoman to get off his uber-thought-up sticky bombs rather than allow an engie to do something about it?
The new gear is all a lot of fun, without entirely superseding the uses of the original loadout. Good work from Valve there.
Carrying buildings around is incredibly useful and cuts down on all of the boring downtime of either waiting for something to happen or standing around beating on stuff over and over. I'd hate to see the mechanics change.
The new maps all seem great, and the three Valve ones in particular feel very fresh.
Carrying buildings around is incredibly useful and cuts down on all of the boring downtime of either waiting for something to happen or standing around beating on stuff over and over. I'd hate to see the mechanics change.
The new maps all seem great, and the three Valve ones in particular feel very fresh.
Ice Monkey
Member
Sciz said:
magnificent summary
speculawyer
Member
Those little sentries are annoying. They tend not to kill you in normal combat since you spot them & shoot them (or avoid them), but when you are leaving combat to get some health they finish you off as you turn a corner.
Moving of the sentries seems OK, though I haven't played one myself yet to see how bad the movement penalty is (I figure carrying a LV3 should put you about on par with a Heavy). I think the carrying through teleport probably needs to go, though. Also quite a few bugs so far - I've seen LV3 Gunslinger sentries (which are easy to spot because they will change color to the opposing team when they are upgraded, however it's being done) and there's some visual bugs with the Gunslinger's taunt.
Right now I'm just taking the opportunity to feed my Soldier some achievements, as most of these players are terrible at Engineer and their buildings are Direct Hit fodder.
Right now I'm just taking the opportunity to feed my Soldier some achievements, as most of these players are terrible at Engineer and their buildings are Direct Hit fodder.