By John Walker on February 17th, 2009 at 9:39 pm.
Trumpet sounds: Valve have begun their now traditional countdown to the next Team Fortress 2 update, this time, as expected, for the Scout. This means there’s a new website up, and there will be new details about the additional features added every day. The final reveal will be next Tuesday, the 24th. And the first reveal? The Sandman. And it’s a doozy.
The Sandman embraces the Scout’s baseball bat, taking things to their illogical conclusion. Using the bat, you hit a baseball at an opposing player, which will stun him. The farther you hit the ball, the better the result. It will even stun the invulnerable – bring on the sound of an angry mob of Heavy fanatics. The catch: you can’t double-jump when carrying the Sandman bat, but as the site explains, “double jumping never put anybody in a coma.”
It just can’t be a coincidence that the last of the Scout’s baseball themed updates gets announced the day before Spring Training begins. These are the sorts of details we want, developers.
Take a look at the site’s background image, and you can see there was originally a gag to do with “batting order”, and a reference to a comic. Just in case anyone needed to know. Edit: This has been removed now, conspiracy fans.
So, get to speculating. What else will we see revealed over the coming seven days? New maps? New game mode? And most of all, what will the Scout’s other two bonuses be? The more baseball puns, the better.
17/02/2009 at 21:46 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
Can I rub your ball, sir?
17/02/2009 at 21:55 Hybrid says:
Very interesting unlock. Its kinda like the spys sapper but for people. But will it be worth the loss of a double jump?
17/02/2009 at 21:57 Oddtwang says:
Or achievements, even. Got to be something in there to do with bases – First Base, etc. For capping points on your own perhaps?
17/02/2009 at 21:59 cyrenic says:
I think Valve has hinted at a new game mode, but I can’t remember where I read that.
Since the baseball stun works on ubercharged enemies, it sounds like it’ll be pretty useful for deterring ubers if nothing else.
17/02/2009 at 22:02 DeliriumWartner says:
Catchers mitt instead of pistol. Rockets, mines and scout balls (oh God that sounds wrong) that hit the glove do not do any damage. Bullets still do damage.
The Splattergun as a replacement to the scatter gun. It’s a short-range quick-fire paintgun. When it hits, it reduces visibility of enemy, covering their screen with paint. This’ll help the scout rush past with the intel. It does, however, drop his speed by 10%.
I thnk more CTF… erm, intel, maps. Something a bit more foresty, or (my personal hope) moon base.
17/02/2009 at 22:04 DeliriumWartner says:
@ cyrenic – Wasn’t the “hint” the appearance of the VIP in the beginning of the Sniper vid? People thought it might herald the new game mode but it turned out that it was the Arena, unfortunately. Or were you thinking of a more recent one?
17/02/2009 at 22:11 Fumarole says:
Maybe I’ll finally put L4D down for TF2 again.
17/02/2009 at 22:15 Idle Threats & Bad Poetry says:
Hey, I love this idea! It sounds like fun to stun. (There’s a poem in there somewhere.) You could really tick some guys (read: “snipers”) off by stunning them when they weren’t paying attention.
@Delirium: Where are you getting those ideas for unlocks? Are they just your own? It’s unlikely you have insider info. If they are your own, it’s a bit late to be proffering suggestions.
17/02/2009 at 22:16 Steve says:
Didn’t Valve say they were against restricting player movement? Seems like a pretty big about-turn with this and the heavy update. Bad decisions.
17/02/2009 at 22:18 John Walker says:
My prediction: the Spit. The Scout can chew tobacco, which he then spits on the sensors of turrets, making them passable until it drips off.
And achievement names:
Take me out of the ballgame
Bitching mound
Idle – it might be where it says in the post that people should guess what might be in the update.
17/02/2009 at 22:22 Lunaran says:
Don’t forget he’s half baseball player and half bike messenger.
Although I find it surprising that valve left out gas grenades citing that they never want to take control away from the player, then introduce an unlockable that takes control away from players.
17/02/2009 at 22:31 A-Scale says:
THANK YOU JESUS.
17/02/2009 at 22:32 CakeAddict says:
Something that stuns? … ugh not looking forward to that.
If I hate something in games it’s stunning, hopefully it won’t be bad has I think it will be.
17/02/2009 at 22:39 Optimaximal says:
In all fairness, we don’t know exactly how this ‘stun’ will play out.
It could just be a visual disturbance like the pyro fire – possibly a complete loss of focus, making aiming impossible but still allowing enough visual clarity to allow navigation.
17/02/2009 at 22:48 VD-Doom says:
The stun could work like when you get drunk in gta4. navigation and aiming is very wobly! almost impossible to keep straight.
17/02/2009 at 22:51 wyrmsine says:
I’d just like everyone to take a moment to picture Scout rushes on 2fort. Yes, the rain of baseballs on the battlements – that is the sound of awesome.
17/02/2009 at 22:53 Erlam says:
I hope it’s simply a reduced movement/accuracy stun, not an actual stun, stun.
Because I agree with them – taking away player control is never, ever smart.
17/02/2009 at 23:00 Mman says:
It seems like Valve are getting more experimental with the updates; dropping one of the biggest benefits of a class for a different (potentially) huge benefit is far beyond what the majority of the previous upgrades are.
17/02/2009 at 23:02 fodigg says:
Not liking a stun mechanic.
17/02/2009 at 23:14 James G says:
Another worried about stunning, not only is it frustrated for experienced players, but can be very contusing for beginners. “Why can’t I move!” Although I’d imagine there would be some on screen feedback to let the player know what had happened.
17/02/2009 at 23:16 Tworak says:
Woohoo TF2! stun boooo
17/02/2009 at 23:35 FunkyLlama says:
Jesus. Valve seem to have forgotten there was a got reason for them not wanting to inhibit player movement.
17/02/2009 at 23:37 FunkyLlama says:
Good, not got. I don’t know where that came from. >___>
17/02/2009 at 23:49 Arathain says:
It sounds hilarious. And I say this as a not-Scout player. My poor Heavy…
17/02/2009 at 23:56 RC-1290'Dreadnought' says:
Can’t wait to bounce the ball back, as a pyro. muahahahaha! That way I don’t even have to unlock the damn(cool) thing.
17/02/2009 at 23:59 Captain Baseballbat-Boy says:
The skill gap between good scouts and bad scouts is about to become a canyon.
18/02/2009 at 00:04 Nimic says:
I’m skeptical about the stun like most people, but on the other hand I do have almost complete faith in Valve when it comes to something like this. They’ve had enough practice to know what is the right amount of balance testing. I can envision this being something like a lot of the other updates, great in the hands of a skilled player, but a minor inconvenience in the hands of the unskilled hordes who will no doubt use it anyway. The people who think all of the ‘upgrades’ are actually upgrades (I just love seeing heavies with Natascha, the boxing gloves and the sandvich).
If there’s any class which has only decent upgrades, it might be Medic. I didn’t really like the Kritzkrieg before, but when done in pair with a skilled heavy you know (like my cousin), it’s absolutely devastating. As always, in the hands of people who don’t know what they’re doing, it’s often harmless.
18/02/2009 at 00:09 Y3k-Bug says:
But that’s why Valve is great. Even if they completely botch the implementation of this, they aren’t so full of themselves that they won’t admit its a mistake and just fix it later.
Remember when the Pyro update originally came out, and the backburner got an insane +50HP? They realized how dumb that was, and removed it.
18/02/2009 at 00:12 Nimic says:
Y3k-Bug speaks the truth. My confidence in Valve isn’t so much that I believe that they always get it right, it’s that I believe that they’ll fairly quickly realize when something doesn’t work, and try to fix it. Most of my favorite developers share that trait. One of my favourite ever, Paradox Interactive, are infamous for releasing very buggy games, but they always take it up to and beyond expected standard with seemingly endless patches.
18/02/2009 at 00:17 Fumarole says:
There will certainly be an achievement for Scouts stunning another Scout with their own baseball. Count on it.
18/02/2009 at 00:27 Els says:
Prediction:
Roid Rage
-inject self with “X” substance to increase health and melee power at the cost of speed, health slowly degenerates
18/02/2009 at 00:53 Oak says:
I apologize if this is too outrageous an idea to grasp, Nimic, but some people might eat the sandvich or use the killing gloves because it’s fun to do. (Leaving out Natascha, since she’s now an insane tractor-beam of death.)
As for the bat, I preferred Tom Francis’ idea, but will find it easier to swallow if it makes a satisfying ‘crack’ sound and your victim hears a cheering stadium crowd when getting hit.
More than learning about the unlockables, though, I’m excited about the inevitable “Meet the…” video and the possibility of a proper alpine map.
18/02/2009 at 01:01 Nick says:
Scout rush with balls flying everywhere.. potentially amusing and annoying in equal measures.
18/02/2009 at 01:12 Nimic says:
Some people, Oak, maybe. I play purely for fun at times too (of course I play for fun when I play for win too, but you know what I mean). Like running around trying to kill everyone as medic, or using boxing gloves. But I’m not talking about people who do that.
There are of course people out there who just happen to use all those ‘upgrades’ because they find it fun, but I guarantee that there’s quite a few who use them simply because they have the word ‘upgrade’ branned to them. And these are people who seemingly play to win, and not just to do as much crazy stuff as they can.
18/02/2009 at 01:26 wyrmsine says:
Oak’s hit the ball straight on, for me, at least as regards the sandvitch. When a medic starts the round ubercharging me, I tell them to support the pyros – no ubercharge can help me. I’m a terrible Heavy, but have carved out my own wee niche with lunchmeats. I’m a lot more use being a scary, attention getting Heavy who can self-heal than as bait for Medic-killers. Sandvitch (and maybe one day, the boxing gloves…) makes the Heavy fun for me.
18/02/2009 at 01:27 Rich_P says:
If players hate the implementation, Valve will change it.
But now you have pyro air blasts + Natasha (overpowered at the moment, IMHO) + stun baseballs. Way too much snare action going on. The stun baseballs + air blast combo will be devastating against ubers.
Since 80% of my gaming time is in TF2 these days, I’m probably more sensitive than most to changes in a game I really love playing. But I trust Valve to improve the game, even if it takes a few tries to get there.
18/02/2009 at 01:32 markcocjin says:
Do you think they’re going to put up a TF2 sale when this comes out?
18/02/2009 at 02:19 Krupo says:
Sale? You can count on it. I’d be surprised if they didn’t. Oh man, I was going to play GalCiv2 but now TF2 wants in.
I liked the +50HP. ;)
Funny, I’ve unlocked 2 of the 3 classes toys… gotta score some more medic time doing crazy things.
Also, this scout stuff sounds absolutely hilarious and awesome. Looking forward to this.
18/02/2009 at 02:35 Arathain says:
Hitting anything but a firing Heavy or a stationary Sniper with the ball at decent range is surely going to be darned tricky, especially if the ball has any sort of arc. Since the stun is distance based I think this’ll only be truly nasty in the hands of a skilled player. So consistent with the class, then.
18/02/2009 at 02:41 unique_identifier says:
yay. moar. i’m really happy with valve’s tf2 support post release. it’s glorious. i just started playing tf2 again after about a 6 month break. left 4 dead is great with a team of friends and a good opposition, but anything less is frustrating and pointless, where one bad player cripples a team. so, pub tf2 beckons again.
18/02/2009 at 02:46 Rich_P says:
I’m really hoping at least one achievement references Vince and/or the Shamwow. The Scount = Vince meme is friggn’ hilarious.
18/02/2009 at 02:53 Pags says:
Billy Mays > Shamwow
18/02/2009 at 03:47 Red Scare says:
What a terrible idea! Stunning by itself is bad enough, no one likes to get stunned, but there are more reasons why this is a bad move: 1) It will make scouts better against heavies… which should be one of their weaknesses. IMO they are good enough against heavies already. 2) There is definitely already enough counters to ubercharge. Between demomen, soldiers, and pyro’s knocking you around, not to mention the sentry gun… its hard enough! No more nerfing ubercharges! It just makes the game favor defense more.
18/02/2009 at 03:57 dan says:
Baseballs. Everywhere.
18/02/2009 at 04:30 Oak says:
I’m glad Valve have come to their senses and realized that the appeal of Team Fortress was always the chaos of projectiles flying through the air and affecting you in confusing and prohibitive ways.
18/02/2009 at 04:42 Rich_P says:
Billy Mays > Shamwow
Gonna agree with you, Pags. Billy Mays challenged Vince to a pitch-off on the Adam Corolla radio show last week! If that’s not enough, the two pitchmen got into a fight at the Super Bowl, in their company’s private box.
18/02/2009 at 07:12 Naurgul says:
I was also surprised that they threw one of their design principles out of the window. Anyway, TF2 updates are always exciting.
18/02/2009 at 07:27 Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:
Well, if it doesn’t work out they can always nerf this bat. Am hopeful, though. A half-dozen poor Scouts make for decent Sniper practice. Feels like Duck Hunt, except with Spies instead of Dogs.
18/02/2009 at 07:52 Zak Canard says:
I wonder if Pyro’s compression blast will work on the baseballs, can’t wait to try and beat Scouts at their own game.
18/02/2009 at 08:46 piphil says:
My guess – a catcher’s mitt, with which the scout can catch and throw back projectiles such as rockets or grenades; the catch being a weakness to small arms fire.
18/02/2009 at 08:52 monchberter says:
I have a sneaking suspicion this will work like the blinding boomer vomit in Left 4 Dead.
Why not port a good idea? Valve games already share a lot and play similarly, and that’s a good thing.
18/02/2009 at 09:00 clive dunn says:
but will my demo stickies be able to deflect the baseball in mid-air? Sometimes i marvel at the chutz-pah of valve. This may well make scouts ‘fun again’. And less double-jumping has to be a good thing.
18/02/2009 at 09:38 phuzz says:
As mr Jasper points out, being a sniper on update day is always fun :)
Also ++Moon Base map suggestion, it’s what the design is crying out for! Also a good reason for lowgrav hijinks :)
18/02/2009 at 09:59 klo8 says:
Oh wow, I would love to have a Moon base style map. Anyways, this thing looks like fun.
18/02/2009 at 10:14 x25killa says:
Pyro blasting baseballs back towards enemy medics and BURRRRRRN them?
YES PLEASE!
18/02/2009 at 10:14 MedO says:
All your base are belong to us: In a CP map, take part in every capture in a round.
18/02/2009 at 10:37 Aubrey says:
Bit worried that being on the receiving end is going to be frustrating. Any time controls are taken away from a player, alarm bells go off in my head.
18/02/2009 at 10:38 Aubrey says:
Not that it’s not do-able thing. It’s just very, very dangerous.
18/02/2009 at 10:41 Dinger says:
Okay.
Achievements:
Bang-Bang Play: Kill a scout with a bat and die of a bat hit within half a second.
Don’t Blam the Messenger: kill 20 demomen
SpamWow: Kill 5 enemies in 10 seconds with the scattergun.
Batting Cleanup: kill three enemies with the bat in one life
HyperSnyper: get 100 pistol kills.
Grand Slam Home Run. Stun and kill four enemies within 10m of a protected respawn/resupply door.
Weapons: ShatterGun: carries 6 rounds/reload does 2x damage on structures
Wunderbat: dunno
18/02/2009 at 11:55 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Valve does know how to.. pitch their games. *ahem*
18/02/2009 at 12:02 MonkeyMonster says:
Catchers Splat – air blast a scout ball back at him and knock him out and finish him off
Bat to ball to bat – stun and then kill an enemy sniper from over 50 game metres
De Niro – kill a disguised spy with bat near your own spawn
Field of Dreams – knock out defence and cap the point they were on
In a league of their own – survive entire round without dying on cp map – killing or assisting 5 times
Can’t think of other baseball films just right now…
18/02/2009 at 12:18 MedO says:
The Courier of the Czar: Kill or stun an enemy Sniper who is aiming at a Heavy.
18/02/2009 at 12:28 MacBeth says:
Base Bawled – Make an opponent ragequit after stunning him repeatedly (similar to BarbeQueQ)
Quicksand – Stun two opponents simultaneously with consecutive balls
Fly Ball – Stun an opponent more than X distance away
Backstop – Use your bat to defend your last cap point unassisted
Bases Loaded – With another Scout, cap consecutive points with no delay between finishing one point and commencing the second
I’ll stop now as it’s obviously too late for any of these to get in…
18/02/2009 at 12:47 Vandelay says:
I like the sound of this. Recently, whenever I can drag myself away from the best multiplayer game (L4D) to play the second best I have been playing as the scout, so I’ve been looking forward to this update.
Worries about stunning – I can understand what you are getting at and being on the receiving end of one could be annoying depending on the amount of time you get stunned for. Having said that, I expect that the ball is going to be really tough to aim and also that the stun will only last for a couple of seconds. Of course, you will then have to contend with an up close scout, which can be deadly for any class besides the pyro. Certainly for Scout players, I can see this being a lot of fun, but the loss of the double jump may be too much to ask.
What intrigues me is what are we going to get behind the other links. Obviously, two of the other five will the remaining weapons and one will be the achievements, but what about the remaining two. Maps are an obvious guess for one of them, probably more alpine maps (and hopefully more payload, no more arena maps.)
Could the final one be a new game mode?
18/02/2009 at 13:20 monchberter says:
It’ll be 2 weapons, a new mode, new maps and a new ‘meet the…’ class video.
18/02/2009 at 13:24 subedii says:
So wait, if this is replacing the standard bat, does this one still have a melee attack? If you can’t stun them and then run up for the *BONK!* then I imagine it might be more of a tactical weapon.
Although having said that, in either case it sounds like a big gain for a big loss. The loss of double jump is probably too much for my own playstyle with the scout, so I’d likely use it sparingly.
18/02/2009 at 13:34 monchberter says:
@ Subedii:
See the three strip pic at the top, that Scout is definitely Boinking the Solider.
18/02/2009 at 13:35 EyeMessiah says:
So long as you can get a bit of a rally going between two skilled Scouts with bats this is awesome imho. Also I agree, a boomer vomitesque ‘stun’ which encourages other players to cover you while you recover is much, much, much better than cheapshot-kidneyshot-gouge-blind-RAGEQUIT type stun.
18/02/2009 at 13:39 monchberter says:
@ eyemessiah
Although a boomer-esque stun in TF2 may be more like Counter-Strike flashbangs, annoying as hell.
18/02/2009 at 14:00 Jeremy says:
I do wonder about this stun mechanic. It says the farther away the stun, the longer it will last. So presumably at top scout speed you’ll be able to make it up to them, but the question is, how long before they come out of it? 1/2 second? 2 seconds? Presumably this will allow you to get a hit or two in on a disabled enemy, but I doubt it will be that devastating (especially if you can’t double-jump and have to take the long ramp up to where they are). This stun will be nice on 2fort. I’m tired of getting auto-sniped from the battlements.
Probably this will be best-used in conjunction with another player. Imagine stunning someone with a friendly pyro next to them. Or stun the invulnerable medic while his heavy partner runs out of range :) fun times ahead.
Achievements:
Speedy Delivery – return the intel at max speed, never stopping
Shootin the messenger – kill x scouts carrying your intel
Double/Triple play – kill 2/3 players within 3 seconds (or however long the kill list stays up)
Aussie rules baseball – bat 5 snipers to death
New York minute – ??
Bonk! – bat 5 players to death in one life
Oh, and new weapon: what with all the city-related stuff, how about a taser for the pistol? Not sure what it’d do, maybe people and make it AoE in water? Stun would be nice, but that’s out with the Sandman. Maybe a motorized bike to go even faster. Or heat-seeking missiles that drop your speed by half. I wouldn’t mind seeing a mine to replace the scattergun. Drop a few mines while you’re running down spiral with people chasing you.
18/02/2009 at 14:17 Vandelay says:
Monchberter – Of course, I forgot about a “meet the…” video. If one of them is a new video that will mean probably no new game mode (3 weapoons, achievements, new maps and new video makes 6.) I’m not too bothered about no new modes, they have enough types and variety all ready.
18/02/2009 at 14:18 Jeremy says:
Someone on the forums had a good suggestion for a weapon alt: a giant hamster ball that protected the scout, but could also be pushed around by bombs/rockets/pyro airburst.
That would be fun!
18/02/2009 at 14:27 shon says:
I suspect the baseball will serve the same function that the flaregun has now : Something to harass Snipers with.
18/02/2009 at 14:29 The right to arm bears says:
What do you like better Christmas or TF2 update season?
18/02/2009 at 18:52 Evil Vitamin C says:
How long has it been since the last class update? Asking ’cause I only just recently got back into TF2 and was really surprised at all the new content that was suddenly there since I last played, and would just like to know how often they release packs like this. Can’t wait to see what they’ll do with the other classes.
18/02/2009 at 19:09 Cyberpope says:
But will other scouts be able to hit the ball back?
18/02/2009 at 21:51 Devan says:
I hope the baseballs have a long lifetime so you could litter the field with them :)
18/02/2009 at 22:23 Fumarole says:
New maps announced:
http://www.teamfortress.com/scoutupdate/watchtower_and_junction.htm
Well, sort of new I suppose. I’ve played Junction previously. Good to see it getting some official Valve Love.
19/02/2009 at 17:38 Chis says:
As a pyro, I want to be able to A) set these things on fire and B) push them back at others. Extra damage bonus for balls of fire!
Otherwise, not interested.
Surely Valve have already thought of this…
25/02/2009 at 21:51 Stretch says:
Played Heavy today after the Scout patch was installed. Hated it. Getting bonked and frozen sucks. Had a fast Scout dead to rights cornered at point blank range, unloaded on him and all I saw was “Miss… Miss… Miss” then he killed me. I think they really screwed this up. The 2 servers I played today were nothing but Scout fests. My $0.02