By RPS on July 2nd, 2008 at 2:19 pm.
Everyone and his dog mailed us about this – and we thank everyone, and especially dogs, as we don’t get enough canine mail. Robin Walker has confirmed the next pack for TF2 will deal with Alec’s favourite, the Heavy. He also talks about the design issues they’re weighing up, which is a fascinating look at the thought-patterns of a heavy-weight design-group and worth considering while we’re heavy-waiting. Also, clearly, since he’s laid out what they want to achieve – make the Heavy more viable sans Medic without making him more monstrous when he is with one – we brainstormed what we’d do.
Kieron: Heavy’s actually one of my least played classes, so Alec’s experience is going to lead to him have better stuff. But when he was chatting he mentioned something anti-sniper… well, while the Sniper is the counter, I think you can make the relationship less pure Russian Brains On Floor/Sniper Laughs. Inspired by the Pyro getting the anti-Soldier move, something that allowed you to sacrifice offensive power to protect you from snipers may be interesting. If the RMB wasn’t already spinning up Sasha, I’d select something which hid behind the enormous gun.
Alternatively… how about swapping the Shotgun for a Riotshield. When you’re using it, you only move slowly – as if you’re firing the main gun – but you’re pretty much invulnerable from anyone shooting at you from the front. Clearly, you can’t return fire, but it’s a kind of moveable bulkhead. A sniper with people attacking from the flanks will counter it, but a sole sniper wouldn’t dominate in the same way. And there would be interesting dynamics with people taking cover behind you and moving in and out to take snap-shots,etc. But mainly I’d add a pose where he attempts to Fellate his minigun, because I’m wired badly like that.
Alec: Ammo’s the obvious weakness to cover, as those 200 bullets sure run out fast. There’s a lot of interesting ways they could do it. Simply bumping him up to 400 rounds and ditching crits is perhaps the most obvious route, though it’s not an especially fun one.
Perhaps he could have a slow trickle of automatic ammo recharge whenever he wasn’t firing, or better yet be followed around by a cute robo-ammo cart of his own – making good use of those “push little cart” soundbytes, y’know? Possible trade-offs could be a smaller targeting reticule, which would deal with some of the Heavy-is-for-noobs complaints, an even slower run speed (i.e. further emphasise that really he’s a human turrent) or that he’s left with, say, only 100 bullets if his cart gets killed.
Another alternative entirely is to decrease the spin-up time or remove the movement slow-down when he’s firing, but actually reduce his max ammo count to compensate for the increased speed/mobility – he’d be a bit more viable as a lone ranger that way.
The Heavy’s other great flaw is snipers, the dirty, camping little bastards. So some sort of headshot resistance makes a ton of sense – and if that’s what Valve are planning I hope and pray it involves a hat. There is nothing funnier than a hat. What about a Fez that renders headshots non-fatal, or an ushanka that adds 50 health? God, I’d love that. Again, slower movement could be the trade-off, giving snipers a chance to go for a second headshot before fatty’s out of range.
Another idea – have the bullet actually bounce off the Heavy’s thick skull at a random angle, even with a chance to hit the Sniper himself. Sweet, sweet justice.
John: Despite playing as the Heavy comparatively little, I still have my highest scores with him. I’ve no idea what that means. My suggestion would be for a Brick Shithouse mode, where he can enter a temporary state where he cannot fire, but can absorb massive amounts of damage. Human shielding with the lumbering man would be lots of fun.
Jim: The heavy should learn appropriate English enunciation.
Anyone else have any better ideas? I suspect we can safely assume in advance the answer is “Yes”.
Puns! We need to start thinking up puns. Forget all this mumbo-jumbo about the “design process,” the Heavy’s more likely to end up with a shield if it’s a diamond-shaped medieval thing called the Gesundkite.
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I like the idea of a human shield. Maybe an ability to pick up enemy scouts and use them as human shields. With his hands full, he obviously can’t fire.
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In a similar vein, replacing the punchy fists with a dead scout to swing would be the best thing ever.
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Rollerskates!
And rocket punching!
On Rollerskates!
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I want to see the heavy in a girdle. They can call it ‘The Gut-sucker’ and it (magnetically?) draws bullets towards his stomach. The heavy would be given a health boost and team members could be provided with protection when close by.
Also, snipers’ headshots would be sucked downwards too (but they could still aim above the heavy to compensate!)
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I like the idea of a human shield. Maybe an ability to pick up enemy scouts and use them as human shields. With his hands full, he obviously can’t fire.
Scouts won’t be an effective shield since they’re about half as big as the Heavy, don’t you think?
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Give him a shield as alternative primary weapon and X2 cap speed like the scout when it is equipped. The shield can be used to bludgeon for low damage knockback attack. Turn him into a slow moving, base capping tank.
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I like the idea of a human shield. Maybe an ability to pick up enemy scouts and use them as human shields. With his hands full, he obviously can’t fire.
Eat scout for gief health!
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Really like the shield ideas, because oddly enough they don’t transform him into a defensive class. An organised shieldwall of 2-3 Heavies pushing ahead of the cart on Goldrush would be a sight to behold!
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Gulag: Yeah, exactly. That’s precisely the image I was thinking of. It’s about breaching defenses.
KG
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Maybe one of the tradeoffs for a shield/protection from damage is to foresake Medic healing? Also, what does the Shield replace? Fists or Shotgun?
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Oddly enough I was thinking of the Goldrush map when suggesting the Shithouse mode.
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Put spikes on the business end and turn it into a deadly ramming weapon for making enemies retreat. With suitable wind-up and cool-down times to stop it being a replacement melee weapon, of course.
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I like to imagine the Heavy with some kind of cannon instead of a mini-gun, you know the kind that fires cannon balls. Slow rate of fire, less ammo, but strong with the ability to knock-back and maybe only crits against buildings or some such thing.
Also for a melee weapon, the obvious choice would be knuckle-dusters with suitable names.
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@Shieldidea:
I know they are different games, but think about the shields in Counterstrike…
They didn’t work out, they are not really fun to play against and so on.
No shields please
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An autocannon with a slightly slower rate of fire, but a much tighter shot spread would be interesting. You’d be giving up short-range accuracy and killosity for skill-dependent medium-to-long range performance. You might even stand a chance against a sniper if his first shot isn’t true.
Or a snub nosed minigun that can’t hit for beans past my nose, but doesn’t need to spin-up so I can be agressive. Or a hand-held auto-loading artillery gun just to play the same old role in a different way. Or or or….
The fists alt should be boxing gloves; the heavy would hop forward a short distance when he jabs to help him actually catch someone in melee, but be immobile for a half second or so afterward so that it can’t be abused to increase average travel speed.
I’m especially curious as to what they can do with the shotgun that will make any heavy care about it. Since we’re unlikely to see any alt weapons that require new character animations, the possibilities are somewhat narrow. Solid slugs that cause knockback perhaps? But again, that wouldn’t be much more than a novelty.
In conclusion – Valve probably knows best.
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Yes, yes, yes! I want a cannon!
I don’t think it needs a pun name, just call it Alexandra or something.
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Scouts as hats. Win-win.
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I admit, after Miniguns, cannons are the best of all the guns.
KG
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Methinks someone is forgetting shark guns.
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The problem with a solo heavy is that once he commits himself to a fight, he is almost certain to die. Retreating without a medic to heal you is very very difficult.
That’s what a new heavy ability/weapon ought to solve.
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Oooh, maybe he could just drop his gun (or guns?) and run. A girly panicked running animation would be awesome. Make him go back to the resupply closet to get a new one. On the other hand, what’s the point? The only difference between that and dying is your pride. Man, thinking is hard.
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@surprise
i agree counterstrike has tarnised the shield idea in the minds of a thousand gamers and valve would be brave to go there i think, more likely they’ll give him a bike helmet of something to ward off head shots.
they’ll probably give him an optional twist on the minigun too like more accurate but no crits or something
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The shield, while defensive in nature, really increases the Heavy’s offensive power by allowing him to push past the enemies front lines and cap control points. A solid shotgun replacement.
Since the Heavy is supposed to be a defensive class I think the minigun replacement should help with that. I was thinking maybe a minigun that takes 15%-20% longer to spin up and down, but grants a 100% crit chance as long as the heavy stands still. Maybe require the Heavy to stand still for 5 seconds or so before the 100% crit kicks in so it isn’t too powerful and only really useful for defense.
Or maybe a kind of rocket mini-gun that spins up/down slower or makes you move slower but has a secondary fire that shoots rockets (or something long-range and accurate) only when the gun is spinning. It would consume ammo just like the pyro’s compression blast.
As for the fist replacement, I was thinking some kind of brass knuckles that decreases firing rate but increases crit chance. Obviously couldn’t be 100% crit or you could just go around 1-shotting people.
My personal choice would be to go the other way. Boxing gloves that perhaps can’t crit but have a vastly increased firing rate. Such that you could land 3-4 punch combos in a fairly small amount of time that could kill anything including another heavy.
Or maybe some kind of fist apparatus that gives health back to the heavy or causes the enemy to drop more ammo/metal when killed.
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I’d also point out that ideas aren’t often the problem, but executions. It can take a few tries in games before someone gets something right.
(It does help that TF2 is a lot more incredible game than CS. There’s solutions that they can use which would never sit in the Quasi-realism of CS)
I also suspect that Valve prototype a load of stuff to see how it works.
KG
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Yes, Heavy’s my least played, too, and I’m probably not a good source of input. But as a dedicated happy camper, I can honestly say the idea of an unstoppable Heavywall terrifies me to the very core of my being. Even if they can’t kill anything, they’d stop me from killing things.
And, honestly, I’d rather see the big guy’s each of his unlocks be restricted to something that either functions as a weapon or could feasibly take the place of one of his weapons. Replacing his gun with a shield would really change the Heavy to something a lot less fun to play, I imagine. If it were a dedicated shield, anyway. If it were something designed to basically make him less “killable” while not firing the big gun, that’d be easy enough to swallow. Even if that means he can take a fully charged headshot or two, that’s fine.
Spring-loaded boxing gloves, caked in blood and with a “POW!” crudely painted on them, basically putting a coagulated happy-face spin on Pentadact’s knuckleduster idea.
Trick is, the most interesting ideas are hard to twist around, seeing as Valve doesn’t want the unlocks to make Heavy-Medic pairs any stronger than they already are. While it’s possible to think of an unlock that makes for a strong Heavy that’s not quite an ideal healing/uber target through stats and design decisions, it’s much easier to simply give it a special ability that requires he not be at full health to function (or at least not be healed by a Medic).
Am also iffy on the idea of an anti-building Heavy. That kind of takes away a lot of the reasons to play a Soldier or a Demo, dunnit?
An anti-Sniper “flak cannon” that does very little damage but packs a mean knockback and detonation radius would be mean. And being a flak cannon, the rounds wouldn’t need to directly hit anything to detonate–just have to come near enough to a target that isn’t cloaked or disguised.
Problem is, it’d be natural to offset the lower damage by giving him a Kritz.
Then again, not like anybody uses Kritz. Give Medics a reason to whip out their unlock for something other than novelty value.
I kind of like the flak cannon idea. Is good heavy weapon, yes?
[EDIT: The idea of a Shield replacing the Shotty doesn't sound too bad. A big honkin' riot shield. Perhaps with an amusing decal on the front. The decal would sell it, yes. And a flak weapon designed to stop snipers from killing the crud out of a Heavy probably doesn't need too bad a knockback effect. Just continually tapping them with "OW!" would be enough to keep a Heavy alive. Unless dealing with one of those ace snipers I'm so terrified of.
... Hmm.]
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A “berseker” minigun that had a crit chance directly proportional to the amount of damage you currently have would certainly even the field for medic-less heavies. And (obviously) wouldn’t usurp the utility of current medic/heavy pairing.
Wouldn’t take much of a drawback to balance, since there’d be so much risk involved in taking advantage of it. Perhaps 30-50 less max ammo?
But then again, Kieron’s right; this is all so much fan-wank without being able to actually try it out in the game to see what plays well and what doesn’t.
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I actually like the shield replacement for the shotgun idea [because obviously the last thing we want is for the Heavy to be punching less].
The way I concieve of it, its advantage is clear: by blocking all damage from the front, the Heavy, oddly enough, becomes a frontline defensive wall, protecting his teammates and blocking bottlenecks through his sheer size. If he gets the Scout’s x2 ability for caps and the cart, he has even more reason to be up front. He can face Sentries and distract them for his teammates, and with a Medic on him, he can laugh at what little splash and side damage happens to hit him.
The disadvantage is also quite clear: His back is completely open, he may as well have a Kick Me back there. He also has no offense tactics with the shield; if a Pyro, or heck, even a Scout with his bat charges the Heavy, he has to make himself vulnerable again by switching to his Minigun [which takes time to fire] or his fists [which don't hit out of short-range]. The shield also requires to know and be facing the locations of the enemy team. If the shield slows him down as well, then that would be a perfect trade for the mild encroachment on the Scout’s goal-oriented abilities.
Of course, with the shield it is still a good idea for a Medic to stay on the Heavy, and the shield also offers no protection against Spies, his other worst enemy. In that case, I suggest a Minigun alternative that simultaneously protects him against Spies while making it less attractive for a Medic to pair with him.
Then, of the four possible combinations of Minigun and Shotgun alternatives, two remain an attractive choice for a Medic, and two do not. I think it would work out great.
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I’ll admit that I’m really bloody distressed about the Heavy being next for unlocks. I’d presumed he’d be one of the last classes they tinkered with. There’s a simplicity to the guy that I really dig, so I’m worried about over-complication. I also wanted to stay free and clear of achievement-hunting, but suspect I’ll be properly dragged in this time.
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Solo heavy > anything at moderate range except for soldier/sniper in my experience.
Riot shield would be awesome; the reason it didn’t work in CS is because most of the weapons require accuracy while a lot of weapons on TF2 are area effect.
Another unlock could be “bullet eater”, you could trade ammo for health but it saps ammo from everything including shotgun to lessen the impact on minigun ammo.
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If you must give the heavy a shield, then at least make it so he *can’t* turn around until a certain cooldown has occured, otherwise 4 heavies will just walk around testudo-like and nobody will get a crack at them unless you can wedge enough demo bombs in them.
Really dislike the bottleneck idea- as a spy life has already become difficult enough with pyro’s spamming prolifically. My invisiblity barely makes it past the tunnel in goldrush and having heavies clam up the entrances isn’t my idea of balance.
Give the heavies a mortar.
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Actually, an invulnerable shield would be far far too powerful against sentries, even if the heavy himself couldn’t attack it. There would be no need for ubers ever again.
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Flubb:
We already have mortars. They’re called Demos.
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The pattern so far has been, Secondary Upgrade, Primary Upgrade, and Melee Upgrade in that order.
Secondary Upgrade (idea 1): Shotgun & Shield. He’s a big guy he can one hand a shotgun right? The other hand is free to hold a shield then. Lose some accuracy, secondary pulls the shield up maybe blocking the heavy’s view, maybe decreasing movement speed, but prevents headshots and maybe crits and maybe flame resistance.
Secondary Upgrade (idea 2): Shotgun and Construction hat. Simple, just a hat that prevents headshots when using the shotgun. Nothing else really special about it.
Primary Upgrade (idea 1): More accurate minigun that loses the ability to crit, at least from the front.
Primary Upgrade (idea 2): Light-weight machine gun. Less movement penalty, lower spin up time. Less damage or lower rate of fire.
Melee Upgrade (idea 1): Brass Knuckles, each hit returns ammo. (I can’t think of any way to rationalize this from a reality view point, but I think it would make the heavy more effective on offense since he won’t need to run back to find ammo every as much.)
Melee Upgrade (idea 2): Brawler, increased movement speed when melee weapons are in use.
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Roburky: I do see the concern, I’m not sure I agree – clearly, the heavy couldn’t shoot with the shield, and people behind it are as vulnerable as if they were skirting around any similar invulnerable object, like a wall. Equally, it’d have it directional.
Yeah, it’s definitely a useful offensive tool, but I’m not sure if it’ll beat everything.
KG
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If it’s one-directional it’s certainly no match for a Stickyfield. And that’s a good thing, in my opinion.
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That’s what I like about the idea – it’s got its uses as a counter, but there’s a clear counter to it already.
Man, I’m a backseat designer here.
KG
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All of us are. We’re gamers.
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Mortar explosions = rocket explosions, !stickybombs
Give it an AOE with a healthy dose of shrapnel, and a beggar to aim.
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http://www.pentadact.com/index.php/2008-05-31-team-fortress-2-unlockable-ideas
Scroll down to the Heavy section. His ideas are pretty good I think.
Tatyana: mini-gun with an electromagnetic coil built around its motor which sucks in weapons from fallen enemies (or friends) any time the barrel is spinning. The added weight leaves the Heavy unable to move at all while firing. He can still move while spinning the barrel.
Why? Lets the Heavy perpetuate a winning streak by avoiding running dry on ammo, but hinders his rate of advancement so that it’s not easy to exploit this on offense.
Sonya: very obviously stolen Scout Scattergun to replace the standard shotgun. Obviously in that the Scout’s ripped-off hand and forearm are still danging from the triggerguard.
I have no good ideas of my own, so I’ll just pimp someone elses.
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Alec: That’s a good point. The joy of the heavy is spinning your gun and unleashing death wherever you point it. Then laughing like a madman. You can’t do anything that would lessen that.
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While I like the concept, a literal shield just doesn’t seem Heavy-esque, somehow. It’s too cowardly. There’s surely something similar that can be made of the fact he’s already a big old mountain of meat.
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Kieron: The sentry just shoots the closest enemy. Heavy with shield just has to run towards it, and anyone can shoot the sentry with ease. It’s like how an uber from a medic kills a sentry by getting the medic to run up to it and draw the fire so the guy with the gun can attack it without getting knocked back.
Except no need to wait for an uber.
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Flubb:
Mortars are indirect fire weapons, in that they’re designed to get over and around obstacles in order to hit the target, preferably from above. Demos already do that, and with their grenade launcher, they can do it indoors, too–an ability a presumable mortar shell would lack. So that’s why I think it’s steppin’ on the (poorly accented) Scotsman’s toes.
And nobody’s shot down my flak cannon idea yet, so I’m sitting here, humming “Phantom of the Opera” in oblivious self-content.
roBurky: That’s a good point, actually. Though the Heavy isn’t truly invincible, and he can’t take out the sentry unsupported. If the Engineer had support as well, then the Heavy-shieldecoy idea becomes more risky.
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“It shouldn’t have a cumulative effect when being healed by a Medic as well. Heavy/Medic pairs do pretty well as it is.”
That pretty much rules out shields imo. If you have a shield your one weakness is damge from the sides or behind you, a medic would take that away and leave the heavy almost invincible
“It shouldn’t significantly change the Heavy’s role, relative to other classes. In particular, it shouldn’t significantly encroach on another class’s role.”
That rules out X2 point capping as that takes the scouts main advantage over other classes away.
tbh I cant see how to make the heavy stronger without affecting the heavy/medic team. It might not mean new weapons, rather an ability that is only available or only useful when the heavy isnt being healed. Maybe he can shot without slowing down as long as he’s not being healed?
The heavy might get an ability like that as well as the weapons, similar to the pyro’s airblast
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Robin Walker notes that the Heavy’s role souldn’t change significantly, or encroach on another class, so mortar is almost definately a no.
I’d love to give him a portable dispenser; I’m not sure how you’d balance it or what it would replace, but the image of a heavy carrying a full-size dispenser, ‘boom-box’ style or just having it strapped to his back seems very TF2.
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Someone on the Steam forums thought up this:
Yes please, Valve.
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Roburky: Change the turret’s aiming system to “If there’s a next-nearest target to heavy with shield, shoot him instead”.
Legandir: Invulnerable… but useless. The medic can’t defend you. You can’t defend you.
KG
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Actually, I think possibly the simplest boost to a medicless heavy wouldn’t be a change to the heavy, but a change to the engineer.
Give the engineer an unlockable that lets him deploy multiple dispensers. And make the ‘need dispenser here’ voice command put a little wooden ‘need dispenser here’ sign where you’re looking when you press it.
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“Methinks someone is forgetting shark guns.”
Sharks don’t have very good range when fired out of a gun.
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Well, I think the amount of forethought required to get this stuff perfectly balanced is probably not worth it for us fans. However!
For Sentries, level threes will fire rockets at the Heavy. I don’t know how much damage they actually do, but if we allowed its splash damage [if it has any!] to still hit the Heavy, then the Heavy is a lasting but ultimately killable distraction. Of course, level one and two Sentries have no rockets, but level ones are basically worthless to the point where a Heavy could take one out naturally, and you almost never see a level two around. I will admit to having no good idea for the level two to balancing the level 2 in the face of a shielded Heavy.
The shielded Heavy is definitely attractive to Medics. Therefore, what would make him unattractive to Medics would be his alternative Minigun, which would still be his primary weapon. That’s how I think it would work out.
As for the x2 encroaching on the Scout’s role, I admit it might be too much and could probably be taken out. That said, if the shield slows the Heavy down, then he cannot duplicate the Scout very well because he completely lacks the mobility that makes the Scout attractive for point-capping and cart-pushing. Instead, the Heavy would have to fight to get to the point, so once he gets there, the shield is basically a way to say “Just TRY to get me off, LITTLE MEN!” [Presumably, a Demoman's stickies or the Pyro's airblast could do so.] It’s a sticky issue, so I agree it might be a bit too much like the Scout’s role.
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Kieron: then you turn the shield on and off and the sentry spends all its time turning back and forth and not firing.
No shields. That’s what ubers are for, so it encroaches on medic. I like the flak cannon. But, actually, I’d rather they changed or even got rid of snipers – no fun to play and no fun to play against IMO, and they tend to just spend the game shooting at each other.
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Maybe they could pull off the shield. As it’s equipped anything but his legs are vulnerable but he can be pushed back by anyone. Primary fire would be pushing back a little, holding would build up a “charge” but gradually slow his walking. Releasing it then would make people fly.
Secondary fire could be smacking the shield on someone’s head doing some damage, but making him vulnerable by disallowing you to switch weapons.
One thing they NEED to add is a taunt after letting his mini gun rip, with him shouting “CONTAAAAACT!!” :D
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Hows about being able to throw friendlies. Depending on the class they fly longer. Would be fun :D
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@ Donald Duck
Fast ball special tovarisch!
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Touch blue!
Come to think of it, that would be exploited heavily. A charge time could probably help.
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A mad dash or a sprint.
Or a higher probability for critical hits version of the minigun [a blue muzzle flash minigun] with a lower ammo count.
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Base the Minigun replacement on one of those Russian automatic grenade launcher deals (like this). 30 explosives, weaker than the soldier’s rocket, but sprayed out in all of 5 seconds (or 50 in 10, whatever balance needs). It’d be rather lethal, but difficult to employ (blast issues — think of a pyro bouncing those things back, big slow dude runs out of ammo, slow arc makes it a bitch to aim at long range). But in the right hands, it would have good applications (counter-sniper: a few spotting rounds, then hose ‘em down)
Another possibility is to make the minigun a shorter-range weapon: wider cone, less spin time. Then make the shotgun shoot solid slugs to compensate.
For the hand-to-hand, how about giving him something that allows him to grab onto people and hold/drag them until he lets go, gets injured, or 60 seconds elapse? That way you could have cool achievements like dragging enemies into trains.
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Considering he’s the “star” character with an easy-to-understand weapon and role, I’m constantly surprised by the lack of heavies in Dustbowl and Gold Rush. (I don’t really play other maps.).
Coming from 7 years of TFC, where the HW Guy is the backbone of a good defense and offense, I still don’t know what to make of the new Heavy. I think his effectiveness is too dependent on other players. You almost need a medic, and your team’s snipers have to kill the other team’s snipers or else you’ll be constantly picked off. Team game, yes, but the other offense/defense classes give me more freedom.
If nothing else, a riot shield would give the offense a better chance in Gold Rush. Stage 1 in that map quickly devolves into a lame version of 2fort, both teams camped out in the respective bases, the cart sitting unattended in no-man’s-land. A shielded heavy on the cart might encourage people to actually fight over it instead of camping in the bases.
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Yorna: Speaking as someone who’s got 0 seconds played as a Sniper on his profile… yeah, I hate those guys.
KG
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Hmm. It’s an interesting debate, particularly as the heavy is one of the “purest” combat classes, which restricts the number of variables you have to play around with quite considerably (. The additional constraint that it can’t increase the effectiveness of the medic-heavy combo is really restrictive. I’m assuming that they’re not going to introduce any radical changes to gameplay: shields are interesting, but they’d be a massive alteration to the game, particularly given how meticulously Valve place their cover.
The obvious replacement for the minigun is something that increases damage dealt but at a severe movement penalty. This could be either a modification to the existing minigun: trading having to be stationary when firing/increased spin-up time for 100% crits or similar (or more interestingly, a variation in ammunition: it’d be cool, although probably broken, to see wall-penetrating or bouncing rounds). More interesting would be changing the firing mode of the weapon: a slow-firing flak-cannon type weapon, which fires a cone of damaging shrapnel would represent an interesting choice while not changing the mode of play too much. Grenade-launchers/arc-firing weapons would be a good choice, but are a bit too close to the demoman’s domain
The shotgun is probably the hardest to replace, simply because it’s usually a complete irrelevance to the heavy anyway, and going from previous unlock patterns, it has to be the first and least significant. The logical replacement is, depressingly the pistol (or something with similar characteristics).
The melee unlocks are usually the most unusual: the simplest would be something that trades melee damage for ammunition, but that’s quite boring. Alternatively, having the anti-headshot helmet mooted earlier as the melee weapon (headbutt), would be pretty cool.
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He needs a bullet proof cosmonauts helmet.
When he gets shot he bellows “No Aussies in space, but YOU ARE IN MY SPACE – MWAHAHAHAHHA!” etc.
Also needs a big boys version of the shotgun, one that shoots buckshot the size of planets.
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Shark gun? Seems that someone is forgetting the Pain Killer weapon that shoots Shirukens and Lightning.
Hmm, flak cannons…that sounds alright, but I’m not too sure on how different it would be to the mini-gun, I presume it would fire as a cluster and then scatter after a certain distance? That would make it very similar to the minigun already (accurate close up, far too scattered far away) unless, as suggested, it has a knock-back effect and perhaps only criticals sometimes if you hit someone before the shot scatters.
I’m not so sure that a cannon that is good at destroying buildings would be encroaching on demomen and soldiers, I find that many classes other than those two have their strengths against sentries and can take them out if used correctly, including Pyros and Heavies as they are already. A ranged projectile that knocks people back would certainly encroach more upon soldiers and demomen then a one which was good at taking out buildings.
I forgot about the electromagnet idea though, I really do like that, as in a way it’s not really the Heavy if you get rid of the minigun. That’d be like a Pyro without a flamethrower or a medic without a gun that fires syringes. The shotgun can happily be changed though, I could imagine him with a Dirty Harry kind of massive handgun, accurate and strong but low ammo and slow.
Also, what about that sandwich? There must be a way to cram that in somewhere…
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@ Shields
How about making it so that the shield has to be ‘deployed’ not unlike the CS version. With it by his side, the heavy can trundle along at his normal slow pace, but while braced in front of him he can no longer move or be moved. This makes it so the Heavy’s job with the shield is to hold a position to wait for back up e.g finish capping, hold the cart in place while remnants of both teams respawn, block off an entrance to intelligence.
This also removes the mobile testudo, but whether a shielded heavy could move or not, a testudo in this game sounds so easy to take out, few stickys in front of them, pipes over head, rocket jump and rain down or a scout could even run head first at the heavys, double jump ontop and start beating the snot into them.
For minigun unlock have you seen the Bofors artwork thats been floating around. Can’t find it atm, didn’t save it =/.
It’s still a likely fake due to a lack of source, but it’s a nice idea imo.
As for Fists, how about working off the above mentioned berserker idea with them i.e they do an amount of damage inversely proportional to the amount of health you are on. Obviously starting with a lower than normal damage with possibly slower attack speed.*edit- I honestly did not steal this from Tom Francis’ as I have only just read his blog entry on the weapons! And I now mention this due to Mr. Francis’ mastery of stealth*
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I agree with the riot shield, or broken radiator or sheet of corrugated iron or what have you, being a great gameplay tweak. Dramatically boosting his offence and defence whilst keeping him vulnerable. But I also think it’s too big a change to be an unlockable. It would certainly make the biggest difference of all the unlocks so far and would really penalise the more casual heavy players. So if it is made it would have to be an auto unlock like the Pyro air blast.
How about meat bullets which drain his health instead of ammo? It would help make the heavy/medic combo more important, right now pyros are most likely to be ubered, whilst also solving the ammo problem whilst still having clear drawbacks.
Edit: There’s an old myth about assassins who would fire bullets made out of compacted meat and bone which couldn’t be found by the corroners. This doesn’t work on any level but you do get the phrase MEAT BULLETS. Which is totally worth the lies.
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I think a grippable Tesla Coil would be a great addition to the Heavy’s arsenal. It removes the ability to have a wide spread on your gun, but increases the damage against a single target. Maybe it’d get less ammo, crit more, whatever, the key is that he’s holding a tesla coil.
I’ve been pretty unimpressed with the weapon unlocks so far though. I’ve never seen a use for the Flare Gun, the air blast is one of the least useful abilities in the entire game, and the new unlockable main weapon doesn’t even have the air blast ability. It does, however, add health and damage (from behind), meaning you’d be a fool to use the old weapon.
I hope they are much more subtle with the Heavy than they have been with the Medic and Pyro. I’ve played a Pyro since QTF, but I’m moving towards other classes. I just don’t think the Pyro really has a role.
The Heavy is my second-best scoring class, and my third least played. I think the key to his success as a class is that he’s easy to learn, has a very clear role, and has clear pro’s/con’s. I really, really hope they do a better job with the Heavy than the Pyro (whom had none of her problems solved).
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Shield seems fine.
Damage output while shielded is zero,
slow move speed,
very slow rotational speed,
can’t be healed with the shield on (its magnetic whatever – interferes with the medigun beam),
turrets ignore you if your shield is blocking LOS to you,
very vulnerable from the flanks and rear,
invulnerable from the front – though maybe splash from direct explosives hit to the shield do small amounts of damage?
Also can’t cap with the shield out, just like uber.
Its an obstacle that will force the opposing team to adjust their battleplan, but isn’t particularly difficult to counter. Gives the heavy another neat card to play without changing his core role. Shielding is obviously situationaly great but as soon as the opposing team try to counter its back to being the big tough guy with the big tough gun.
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Also, meat bullets??
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I just Googled what a “Bofors” is from Vitalis’ comment; seems to be some kinda anti-aircraft gun.
I quite like the idea of the heavy carrying an anti-aircraft gun around; 2 rounds a second but longer range, small explosive shells. Pom-pom-pom etc.
I really don’t like the idea of a shield though – feels like it would slow everything down.
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I’m against a shield on the grounds that it’s too drastic an idea to be contained by a secondary unlock – it could comfortably be the basis for an entirely new class. Hiding it away as a heavy alt would distract from the heavy’s core competencies and could never really do the idea justice.
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Yeah, I think Valve dropped the ball with unlocks thus far. The air blast is a neat gimmick but fairly worthless, like you said. The Backburner’s superiority is problematic because unlocks should be subtle and situational — not outright better than the default weapons.
Disparage it all you want, but the Kritzcrieg is still the best unlock. It doesn’t displace the standard healing gun but still has its (limited) uses.
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He should curl up into a ball and roll forward, not particularly quickly, crushing all in his way like a bull dozer. And is also highly resistant to damage.
I don’t play. Sorry to interrupt.
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Erlam actually, the airblast is ridiculously useful in any defensive role, since you can just pin the person being ubered/medic up against a wall for the entire length of it and they can do nothing about it. If there’s a sentry nearby, then the person knocked into the air will be pinned against the skybox.
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…what the heck’s going on?
I’m convinced that Valve’s basing the order of Unlockable releases on how much I play (and enjoy playing) a class – Medic and Pyro were joint favourite (Pyro is definitely more fun post-both-sets-of-unlockables, though), and Heavy and Engineer are next…
That said – a riot shield is a [i]wonderful[/i] idea…
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Anti-tank cannon concept art:
[img]http://shackpics.com/files/HEVVYWEPENSGIEJPG_com6wa1v3fgernd8j2ub.jpg[/img]
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I play a heavy so much that I don’t have much trouble being effective without a medic, so I’m a bit at a loss of what to give him to make him more effective solo without being overpowered.
That said, I think a 5-10 second run speed boost would be great. The “weapon” would be the sandwich from the scout video hung out in front of the heavy horse and carrot style.
Another thing that would be good for the heavy is something that temporarily nullifies sentry knockback. Even with an uber, a heavy can’t do anything to a sentry down a long corridor. He can’t close the distance because of the knockback, and his gun isn’t accurate enough to kill a sentry at long range, especially if an engineer is repairing it.
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That’s a pretty cool sketch, yours? I think it would work well; more effective at range, less insta-death at close range as a balancing effect.
A giant version of the spy’s revolver made for heavy’s meaty fingers could be a nice secondary; better at range etc…
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I think this is just about the worst choice of class to do next that Valve could have made. We’re already buried in Pyros; the last thing I feel we need is more heavies.
Actually, no, forget what I said about it being the worst class choice. At least it’s not spies.
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I think one way to upgrade the minigun would be to plant the heavy in one spot while he is spinning the minigun, but with increased rate of fire and perhaps damage, turning him into a turret of sorts. The ultimate point defense
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The idea of a riot shield is absolute genius. It would bring so many new strategies, while leaving the Heavy in a very compromised position.
It could even make him completely immune to bullets from the front, and still be perfectly balanced. He is weak from behind, and is reduced to his minigun (with spinup time) and fists as weapons. The Heavy could become a mobile fortress, protecting his squishy teammates from sniper fire.
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Knockback bullets, which would throw of aiming of everybody hit with. No crits maybe, but that could answer the sniper question.
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On the Pyro’s new tricks:
When they came out, I thought exactly the same as Mr. Powers: the airblast is worthless and the backburner is just downright better.
Then I had to play through to get those achievements and unlock the backburner. Know what? The airblast is awesome. Attacked from the front? Send those rockets back to momma! I’ve had soldiers give up and switch to shotgun (and killed some to boot). That really kills any frontal assault, or attempts to drop an Engy station from long range. Some demoman spammed a bunch of bombs on the ground in front of an objective? Sweep ‘em away. Medic and buddy on überrampage? break up the precision shots, and maybe send them their own way. Blasting people into water’s great too.
But mostly, in a head-on encounter, you light the guy up, then use air to get some separation. From there, disengagement’s easy.
Of course, if you can catch ‘em with their pants down, the backburner comes in handy. But the time to unlock lets you appreciate the air blast, if you choose to do so.
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Why are Valve still using screenshots showing the heavy’s minigun with a cartoon style muzzle flash, when it looks nothing like that in-game?
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You can’t have a shield.
People will just crouch in front of doorways not allowing anyone in [or out].
Griefing will go through the fucking roof.
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On choice of class to update next-
It’s pretty obvious that Valve are doing Support-Offence-Defence.
I’d much rather see a load of Heavy’s than Engies or Demos tbh.
Pyro update days just sucked, Medic one was funny in its passive-aggressiveness.
I think Heavy update, Sniper and Spy will be hilarious. Can’t think of more useless teams that’ll be funny to fight against, pyros will have a field day for each one, let alone spies ( I mean you don’t even have to think about what class to disuise as)
Scout and soldier updates will be hellish to play through, Unreal Tournament anyone?
Engineer will just be two turtled sides looking at each other wondering why no ones got any achievements.
@Radiant
Ermm you can walk through your own team members btw… And in nearly every map theres a way round
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Instead of a shield how about getting a desert eagle and the ability to pick up dead bodies(maybe living enemy players too?) and use them as human shields. The damage given by bullets and direct projectile hits will be significantly reduced from the front, but not splash damage.
Melee – punches do less damage, but you can disarm people (then pick up their guns for ammo).
Primary Weapon – Alot more accurate, and no crits maybe? This still seems a little over powering…
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I imagine them as re-purposed engine blockheads off a small car named Glasnost and Perestroika.
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Expanding on the shield idea. I think being able to move and be completely invulnerable (even just from the front) is a bad idea. Think of the engineer’s sentry, a heavy would simply have to “shield up” and walk into the line of fire of the sentry, getting it to lock-on to him, and while he’s absorbing the downpour of bullets and rockets an ally could step out from behind the heavy and pretty much take out the sentry at his leisure (since it doesn’t reacquire new targets).
It’s already nearly impossible for an Engineer to keep a sentry up for an extended period what with all the Spy’s running around, pyro’s that can destroy it in about 2 seconds (it should be invulnerable to flame, but that’s another post in itself), and it’s ridiculously short range and slow reaction time so that just adds one more thing for us poor engineer to worry about.
The shield idea is good and I’d love to see it, but please not complete invulnerability. Maybe he can’t hide behind it entirely while moving, so you can shoot him but you do far less damage. Then to get complete invulnerability he can squat down and duck completely behind his shield, but then be immobile.
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the air blast is one of the least useful abilities in the entire game
WHAT?
- easily push away stickies
- blow medics away from their patients or vice versa
- blow people off ledges (this is hilarious in the OrangeX maps with towers, but useful in several other maps as well)
- deflect Soldiers’ rockets, if your timing is good
- juggle enemies in front of allies or turrets
That said, it’s hard to argue with +50 health and 100% crit-from-behind. There have been times when I wish I had the air blast when I had the Backburner, but when I switch to the standard flamer I usually end up wishing I had the Backburner instead.
Flaregun is semi-handy on some maps, and is good for comedic value, but in general the shotgun wins. Axtinguisher is cool but basically useless.
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How about combining a couple of those ideas and creating a secondary fire shield ability that’s deployed when the mini-gun is just spinning — like an electromagnetic field-type thing that sucks in bullets that hit it (but maybe not explosives or splash damage). It would take a few seconds to spin up so it would need to be deployed strategically, but also accumulate the sucked-in bullets and add to ammo. The trade off would be no healing from medics while the gun is spinning, whether firing or shielded because the field interferes with the healing gun.
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I think what would be rather awesome would be a deployable minigun. As in on a tripod or somesuch, to make the heavy almost purely defensive when it’s equipped. A longer spin up (deployment) time, and the inability to move while it’s deployed (obviously) as a trade for increased ammo count and higher damage output I think would make for an interesting tactical ability. Could even have it so that the engineer could give ammo with his scraps like he does a sentry.
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What about a shield that the heavy could fire through, almost like a turret that has a blast shield. But make it so the Heavy can’t move. And make him turn slowly and can only see through a little viewport, or maybe he turns at his usual speed but can’t see through the shield so he has to fire blind.
Perhaps it could even be a combination: the Heavy can open a little viewport to see and turn but he can’t fire while it’s open. Once he starts to fire, the viewport drops back into place and his turning ability diminishes or even ceases. The idea is that he can’t hide behind the shield forever. He has to at least open the viewport to take a look around, and when he does, an accurate sniper can still pop him through the viewport.
For the shotgun, maybe the unlock could just be a simple modification, like allowing the heavy to fire 2 shells at once for greater burst damage at the expense of a longer reload time and quicker expenditure of ammo.
For the melee unlock, I have 4 different ideas:
1) The Heavy could throw a massive punch like a Haymaker that requires a windup and cooldown but nearly KOs an enemy. Maybe this massive punch could destroy buildings, since it would be balanced by the fact that the Heavy has to get so close to use it?
2) He could “pound the ground”, temporarily stunning or at least slowing down an enemy within a certain radius, so that the Heavy’s teammates could catch and kill him. This could be helpful in catching a pesky scout or stunning a spy that is sapping nearby buildings so he can be eliminated.
3) The Heavy gains the ability to block the melee strikes of enemies, maybe even block-n’-counter. Not to sure about this one, as far as whether it would actually be useful or fun, but what the heck.
4) The Heavy can lunge and grab a nearby enemy, and has 5 seconds to throw the enemy at a wall or at other enemies. The thrown enemy takes impact damage from the throw and any enemies hit take some damage and suffer knockback. This could really provide strategic uses, like throwing an enemy off of a ledge down into water or onto a lower level where they have to run back up. It also effectively removes the enemy from combat for 5 seconds. Play testing would decide whether or not this grab could affect Uber’d enemies like the Pyro’s air blast does.
I feel like some of these punches would make melee more fun for a Heavy, possible encouraging them to use melee more in close quarters, and thereby making it actually realistic that a medic could get the “Uber Heavy killing 2 opponents with punches” achievement.
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“It’s pretty obvious that Valve are doing Support-Offence-Defence.”
I thought they did the medic and pyro because they were underepresented?
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I think the shield idea is great, to counter the whole ‘we can’t move him at all’ thing, don’t give the heavy a riotshield, just give him a half-size shield, that way he can crouch, and be completely covered from the front (but slower than his normal creeping speed), or stand up and be able to move faster but with vulnerable legs.
The one downside I can see to having the shield be a shotgun alt, is that no-one would ever use the shotgun again, so it’s not an alt – it’s an upgrade.
I also think the scatter-gun with scout-hand-still-attached is an awesome idea.
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As a heavy, er, heavy player, the shield sounds fantastic. But I can’t see how it wouldn’t be overpowered. So something that makes the heavy a viable sentry killer would be very goodl.
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Personally I like the idea of a Minigun that gives +crit chance at low health, up to 100% at say, 5 HP. Not sure what the drawback would be, although “no normal crits” is a given.
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Oh man… I’d love to play as a heavy with almost any of these ideas.
They’re also my favourite class after medic, so I should soon be covered by these achievements (though I’m still not convinced they work well; I can’t think of any real reason to go back to the old medic syringe gun, for instance).
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I posted this elsewhere, I’d like to hear RPS fans thoughts on it:
Glad Valve started that blog. While at first I couldn’t imagine why they would do Heavy before the Spy (and I think it has something to do with the fact that they are having problems figuring out how to fix facestabbing/making real backstabs work), their reasoning behind the decision makes sense.
Also, glad to see that they know how to do these unlockables for classes that are already well balanced. Admittedly the Heavy is probably one of the best balanced classes in the game next to the Soldier, Spy and Scout, so I was afraid they’d just over power the guy. Apparently they know that he’s already potent and aren’t doing that.
Ok. So. I think its wrong to necessarily look at just the weapon for this upgrade. Using the backburner as an example, they just added one new element (back crits) to a weapon but did something drastic to the class (+50 HP). So its clear they are willing to radically change to class to achieve their goals. In the case of the Pyro they wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be a team of 3 Pyros running around with air blast, as that would practically ruin the game. But by giving 50+ HP to the BB, you’ll have a team of 3 pyros, and only one will want to take the health hit to use the air blast.
So, as for ideas… yeah. The hard thing about this design problem is that to make changes causes issues with other aspects of TF2′s design.
For example:
I was thinking of reducing the Unlock Heavy’s (UHeavy) health, as this would make a good trade off for his new abilities when he’s alone; he can kill you better alone, but only if he’s paying well enough attention. But even without getting into what the weapon will actually be, already I’ve hit a wall. Because how do you communicate the Heavy having less health to the player visually without changing his player model? Although the whole issue may be a wash, as Pyro got +50 HP and uses the same player model. So it looks like Valve is starting to step away from that clear cut design.
The real challenge is the weapon though. You can’t really give him a better weapon per se at least with regards to higher damage-per-shot, as that would serve as a complete replacement for the Heavy’s main weapon. Which if you look back on the other 2 class updates they don’t do that with the classes main weapons. There really are benefits to staying with the old version. So I would actually imagine the gun not changing very much in terms of the damage dealing ability in and of itself.
So what about… a secondary ability?
So I was thinking of the way bomber planes use “painted” targets in demolition. Once painted by infantry, the plane was drop its payload and take out the target.
So the heavy has a new model. This gun has no spin up time, does the same damage as the minigun, but has the ability to “paint” a target. This process should take no more than holding down right click and the crosshairs on the target for at most 2.5 seconds. Once the target is “painted” the gun becomes more accurate, as in the cone of fire becomes smaller, and perhaps a SLIGHT damage increase. Not by a huge margin by the way, as that would be no good. Or may be instead of the slight damage increase, once an enemy is “painted” the crit chance goes up a bit?
The hard part will be communicating to the enemy that he’s been painted. Maybe a laser beam ala HL2′s snipers?
Only one player at a time can be painted, so the skill will be in painting the right classes. For instance, you’d want to paint that medic, as he’s going to be amongst that large cluster of enemy players on the last leg of dustbowl, so all the accurate shots you throwing his way will inadvertently hit those other players as well. Once you paint somone else, the other player you painted will go “dark” again.
This would fulfill a few of Valve’s design wishes:
-It shouldn’t significantly change the Heavy’s role, relative to other classes. In particular, it shouldn’t significantly encroach on another class’s role.
-It should be understandable for both the user and the player it’s being used on.
-How often does the Heavy need to think about it? Is it something he uses once every 5 minutes, or is it something he needs to be constantly thinking about? A greater impact on player decision making is generally a good thing.
However this isn’t ideal, as it still breaks 2 very important rules:
-It shouldn’t have a cumulative effect when being healed by a Medic as well. Heavy/Medic pairs do pretty well as it is. Which my idea obviously DOES has a cumulative effect with a medic. You could reduce the UHeavy’s overall health, but that would just make him even MORE useless by himself.
But the biggest rule it breaks is:
-Is it an interesting tool to choose relative to the base Heavy weapon it’s replacing? What scenarios can you envision in which each is useful? What arguments can you raise for why each is better than the other?
Yeah, this is just an out and out REPLACEMENT for the regular heavy. There aren’t any real negative here. Which is no good.
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OK guys if you make a shield it HAS to be called the Iron Curtain.
Seen many good ideas here – it only makes me want to see what the final unlocks will be.
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Yoma:
Speaking from the perspective of a longtime Sniper, I can assure you that the only time I’m not a productive camper is when I’m playing 2Fort.
In just about any map other than that, a good Sniper will be supporting the frontlines, whether offensively or defensively, and not always in the killing capacity. A fully-charged potshot can still take off a lot of health, and never underestimate the usefulness of suppressive fire. Though, of course, it actually has to *hit* in game before the target starts feeling “suppressed.” But the net effect is the same: They keep their heads down, and run back for healing.
If anything, at least the Sniper helps other people kill faster. And take out Engineer Forts, preferably by taking out the Engineers first then working up from there. The only problems with Snipers I’ve ever experienced is when there’s too many Snipers and not enough frontliners. And only when this applies to the team I’m on, of course.
The sorts of Snipers who can’t contribute to the team are Snipers that should leave Sniping to those who know what they’re doing. Like Heavies, Snipers need to know how to be in the right place at the right time, and know when to move to another right place when the time isn’t right anymore. And they also need to know their limitations in covering fire lanes. Or their own backs, for that matter.
Anyway, people never really notice the Sniper until he kills them. And if he kills enough of them to get noticed, then he’s not really being unproductive, is he?
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I’d like to see an energy weapon with loads of flashing lights and cables. This gun would shoot plasma bolts which travel quite slowly at first, but speed up and increase in size and damage as they go. This would let the heavy do some suppression fire, but at a cost of his short range firepower. It wouldn’t really make him a long range killing machine because of the slow travel speed, but it would let him force long range enemies to keep their heads down while his teammates get closer. It would also be quite good at sentry destroying, as they can’t get out of the way.
It should have a much quicker spin up time, but an ability to overheat when the trigger is held down too long. Mostly because I want to see the look on the heavies face when his gun stops working.
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“WHAT?
- easily push away stickies
*Or you could shotgun them. Or a Soldier could rocket them. Or another demo could sticky them, etc, etc.
- blow medics away from their patients or vice versa
*Or you could kill the medics. I’ve never been in a situation (and I’ve tried) where the medics were better dealt with by moving them than outright killing them (other than when they’re ubered, and then you’re just putting them in the air – they’re still healing)
- blow people off ledges (this is hilarious in the OrangeX maps with towers, but useful in several other maps as well)
*Soldier rockets, Demo grenades, etc. I can only think of this being ‘useful’ in a place like Hydro, or maybe on a tower. Again, you’d have to get close, and you may as well just kill them.
- deflect Soldiers’ rockets, if your timing is good
*This is probably the only really good combat use, and if the soldier has any brains he’s shooting at the ground, and you don’t have the chance to reflect them back anyway. Soldier is one of my more played classes, and I never worry about Pyros somehow teleporting forward, DIRECTLY in line with my rocket, then bouncing it straight back.
- juggle enemies in front of allies or turrets
*As opposed to flat out burning them? How often does this even happen?
Honestly, if you still use the normal flamethrower, that’s your choice. But there is no way under the sun that the ability to sorta push things (taking 1/8th of your ammo per shot) is better than an almost 30% health increase, and 100% crit chance from behind.
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I was actually thinking about possible heavy minigun replacements a few days ago. This one doesn’t really fulfill the points in the Valve post such as “less desirable with a medic,” but I think it’s an interesting choice regardless.
What would make the heavy consider leaving his beloved Sasha? How about twins, named Olga and Katya? Basically make a minigun with dual barrels. Right button would now make the right-hand barrel spin up and begin firing. The idea is that you remove the heavy’s ability to keep his barrel spun up to react faster, and in exchange he can pour out damage at twice the rate if he so chooses. Maybe make it so he can’t move if he’s firing both barrels at once. Between that and the truly absurd ammo consumption, I don’t know if it would need much further balancing.
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Yeah, I’ve seen the air blast used all of four times since the update. Most pyros now have the Backburner equipped because it just hurts so good, which is one of the reasons I find myself playing less.
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Keep the Backburner. I’ll be out violating ubered people while you cower in spawn. ;)
Okay, alright, the Backburner makes you the mean big brother of old-school Pyro. With a flamethrower forged from the knives of a thousand roasted spies. It is very nifty.
But the airblast? It’s a whole new ballgame. And the balls are heavies.
You really should try it.
Heavy update next? Servers full of less-than-experienced Men With Big Guns? All nervously scanning the horizon for their dread Australian Nemesis?
Note to self: stock up on high-tech cigarettes and snazzy suits.
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I think you were onto something with the flak cannon idea. I’d like some feedback on this idea:
Instead of changing the normal characteristics of the minigun, make the unlockable a different kind of ammo. Flak shells, rubber bullets, soft-boiled eggs, what have you. Adjust the ammo capacity based on power. And change the color on some part of the gun model to make the ammo choice visible to others.
Regarding the shotgun, I love the idea of a double-barrel shotty. Someone mentioned it earlier, but not by name. Alt-fire lets you fire one barrel at a time for more control, but doesn’t affect reload speed.
And “me too” on the LOVE/HATE brass knuckles idea. That was the tops!
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Heavy is my favorite class, so i do have something to say.
The main reason why a heavy gets offed without a medic is his short range, he doesn’t stand a chance against anything that’s not right on his face, with the possible exception of a pyro.
Put a heavy and any other class on opposite sides of the 2Fort bridge and the other class wins as long as they realize hey have a hand gun.
So what i want is, instead of a minigun, a heavy machine gun, something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjL5zdyRUE0
Bullet per bullet it does the same damage as the minigun, but it has a slower fire rate, so it does less damage, and it has much greater accuracy, nothing excessive, like the Spy’s magnum, but comparable to the engineer or scout’s handguns.
The Heavy is also be a bit slower than it would be with the minigun, but he doesn’t slow down while firing.
That would be enough to make a heavy more survivable with out a medic, but at the same time, every heavy will wish they had a minigun if they have a medic buddy and knows he can charge into a room full of enemies.
Also, the suggestion about more ammo is pretty useless, really, if you’re firing enough that you run out of ammo, you must at least have killed 2 players, then you just need to run over their bodies and collect their weapons, it’s even easier now that you can pick up scrap metal for weapons, i don’t think i’ve ran out of ammo even once since November last year, a powerup that just adds mode ammo would be a waste; However, i wouldn’t mind carrying, say, 50% less ammo, as long as each round did 50% more damage (Sasha now fires $300 dollar custom tooled cartridges!) , you wont be able to use this powerup if you really are a noob who can’t aim, and it would drastically reduce the stamina of the really good heavies that can kill 7 guys in less than 5 seconds.
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Heres my idea for the minigun. My main focus was the whole medic / lone heavy idea.
When the heavy reaches his critical hit spree, instead of firing critical hit bullets, he starts to increase health at the rate at which a medic would be healing him. So the heavy with this unlock has a higher survivability when going lone wolf, but a medic, if given the choice, would heal the base heavy as he would recieve those deadly critical bullets.
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Erlam: wouldn’t you say that giving the pyro abilities to match the soldier and demoman’s knockback is a substantial addition? Clearing stickies with the shotgun is tedious, time-consuming and relatively ineffective.
As far as knocking back the uber goes – the whole point of it is to prevent the ubered medic advancing with his charged friend. Generally, ubers are used on big pushes forward, not simply to remain in place, and the ability to kill the push forward is very valuable. The air blast provides finer control for uber disruption than, say, rockets, and it moves heavies a lot more.
I’ve killed some very good soldiers with their own rockets. The pyro’s air blast radius reaches right down in front of him, so that if the pyro times the air blast right, he need never fear splash damage, even from shooting at his feet. You haven’t played against the right pyros.
It’s notable that in most of the discussions I’ve read among competitive players, the Backburner is viewed as largely irrelevant (actual teams working together don’t leave that much scope for ambushing) whereas the air blast is viewed as enough of an upgrade to actually consider including a pyro. The Backburner is great on a disorganised public server with a bunch of chumps running into ambushes over and over again. It’s also great pyro vs pyro. If you’re facing enemies instead of ambushing them, though, the air blast gives more of an edge.
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If they introduce the shield as shotgun replacement, then this should detiorate over time. Shotgun is not a weapon used by HWG unless he runs out of bullets.
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Quirk:
Your notes on the Pyro matches my experiences pretty well. Having played some hours with the Backburner, I find myself getting killed by Soldiers and Demos more often than when I was still getting the hang of airblast–that is, when airblast was still new and mysterious in mine eyes. While seductive at first glance, the Backburner winds up looking like a somewhat-more-useful Kritzkrieg–placing emphasis on offensive power at the expense of survival.
It’s still amazingly satisfying when I manage to get behind the bomb in Goldrush, though. Those moments are why I bite the bullet and equip Backburner.
Though I miss the ability to separate an Ubering Medic from his Heavy. On Goldrush public servers, I took a special sort of glee in shutting down those metallic knuckleheads with my leafblower. Sure, it took half my ammo, but it’s not like ammo refills are especially hard to get in TF2.
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Well the obvious one for punches is iron knuckles.
Otherwise i can’t think of anything to protect him from snipers beside a helmet.
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“While seductive at first glance, the Backburner winds up looking like a somewhat-more-useful Kritzkrieg–placing emphasis on offensive power at the expense of survival.”
The extra 50hp helps with survival. I was never able to get the hang of the air blast, anytime it would have been useful my instinct told me to take out the shotgun. I guess i played a bit too much pyroo before the update :P
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The Heavy doesn’t need a shield because he is one already.
The ideas I like best so far are the increased ammo pack, hat (I’d pay to put a ushanka on my Heavy) and knuckle dusters. When I play as Heavy I usually support an attack or defence by spraying bullets into the general vicinity while the pyros and soldiers charge ahead, so the enemy team can’t ignore me but has other things to worry about too. That means fewer kills for me, but more damage to the enemy team as a whole.
I’d put a muzzle flash suppressor on Sasha as the minigun upgrade: increase accuracy slightly but remove crits.
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My idea:
Reflective knuckle dusters, while carrying them the heavy admires his reflection while running, you can see the heavy’s grinning face in your fists.
The trade-off is that a percentage of ammo picked up by the heavy goes towards keeping them polished.
The benefit? While they are out any medic who is healing the heavy with the dusters out has his heal beam reflected back at the the medic so that both the medic and the heavy gets healed. This is great in between fight, after the heavy deals with the enemies the medic problably took some damage, so the heavy switches to the dusters and the medic’s health regenerate faster.
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Now that’s a good idea Jahkaivah. The medic is too often a sitting duck while healing, even when hiding around a corner.
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Semi-mobile shields could be brilliant. Everyone keeps whining about how they would be unbalanced. So make the shields have their own health that can be whittled/blasted away. (And repaired by engies.)
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How does a shield help the Heavy when he’s alone though?
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Well, it IS a “Team” Fortress.
Also, getting from one place to another.
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Hmm, another take on this whole shield idea thing, the Heavy Personal Force Field.
Basically it’s a minigun attachment, to use it just hold alt fire and when the barrels reach full rotation the shield comes up and protects from a helluva lot of damage (maybe even all of it).
It consumes ammo faster than regular fire, if you start shooting normally the shield is turned off, also the gun cannot crit and you cannot be healed whilst the shield is up.
I think that would be a lot more interesting and tactical than a large shield that replaces a gun entirely, honestly being the guy just standing there getting shot at is no fun unless you can shoot back.
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Huge anti-tank style rifle/cannon that fires large, wide shells that cause damage and knockback to targets, but causes small (1 or two steps?)knockback to user after each shot to keep Heavy’s speed limited. Acts as replacement for minigun for medic-less/solo Heavies, bringing them closer in solo offensive capacility to solo soldier (without the splash damage, one of the soldiers distinct traits). Also works as a feasible sniper-scaring weapon.
A stylised bomb disposal suit (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/D0475812-0-large.jpg) replete with ushanka, replaces minigun with some sort of automatic rifle with only 3 40 round clips, no wind-up, no crits. All sniper headshots treated as normal shots, nullifies splash damage from explosives to some degree.
Replacing fists with a two-handed, extremely slow swing of the minigun. Has extended melee range and potential knockback, will gib on crit.
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I’d say having a short-term accurate fire mode (alt fire) that overheats but lets you target snipers a bit better could work. Also as balancers to this (or anyone else suggestions) would be either faster ammo depletion or stopping the heavy from moving at all, including little to no turning. It sets up the heavy as ‘bracing’ himself and the gun as he lets rip with a more powerful burst. A medic can stay with him but then two people won’t be moving forward and in the open he becomes a target to everyone else, especially scouts that could avoid the focused fire with ease.
Etc. anyway, my 2 cents.
PS. Also, all these ‘health buff’ ideas are really not keeping in mind that the medic will make that buff even greater and they don’t want to unbalance that aspect. The heavy is already hard enough to kill at 300hp base!
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I don’t think its been suggested yet, but I thought that having a mini-gun that fires one of a few shots behind him could help disarm spies, while keeping his role largely the same, and weakening his ability to team with a medic. I also liked the magnet ideas to draw headshots down. This would all work to make the heavy better alone, and roughly the same with a medic, since the shots that fire behind would still use the same ammo pool.
Plus, doesn’t everybody want to see a two-sided mini-gun?
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What are the bonuses the medic gives? Healing, clearly. Ubercharge, maybe. It means the Heavy can take chances, too. I would imagine the knuckle dusters will end up regaining some health – he can’t melee with a Medic, it’s too dangerous, but it helps him when he’s alone. That more or less fits Walker’s requisites, right?
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I think This-
Melee: Brass Knuckles
Secondary: Semi Auto Shotgun (Spas 12, Benilli M3/M4)
Primary: Either M249 or a M60 MG
That sounds pretty good to me, if they showed me an auto shottie I would praise the lord, because when I saw the Pyro didnt have one, I sulked. DAMN FLARE GUN.
PS- Cant w8 to see the new pistol! maybe an M1911!
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I don’t like the idea of a shield, because along with the medic, it would make the Heavy far too difficult to take down. Also how about making it so the most damage a single sniper shot can do to a heavy is about 75% of full health, so the sniper still stands to be the biggest threat, but he can’t take out a heavy with 1 shot?
Replacing the fists with the Brass Knuckles really fits the Heavy character’s image well. What about replacing the Shotgun with a motorcycle chain that he can swing the clear out a circle around him.
Maybe make the Brass Knuckles or the Chain stun the target(s) for a second or two, to give him an extra edge in melee combat? Or the berzerker idea, where his fists do a level of damage inversely proportional to his health, since typically you’d switch to fists once you ran out of ammo.
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@ Vengarato: Um, the Heavy class pack got released a while back.
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