And so it comes to pass, the Sniper/Spy update is live, TF2’s gone free for a weekend, and the price for keeping it has halved. Here’s what we learned. The Sniper got his Huntsman bow, then he got his Razorback shield. Things got weird, Spies started appearing, and then the Spy had two watches revealed, The Cloak And Dagger and The Dead Ringer. We then met the Spy, shortly followed by the Spy getting The Ambassador. Finally the Sniper gets a jar of piss, and somewhere along the way lots of new achievements were announced and a new Payload Race game mode. Enough? Good. Who’s next?
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Alex says:
Why bother playing if you could unlock the next weapon as easily by sitting in Spectator Mode?
The same reason we all started playing games in the first place: for fun! If the game isn’t fun but a chore that you bother with in order to gain a sense of progression, that’s a giant flashing sign that you’re wasting your time.
well at least its not farmed while i play a normal match. why they dont give the new weapons out to everyone and then test the drops for hats i dont know. really why?
@bansama I feel a bit miffed as well. I love all the hype around it, the image/graphics and comedy ect but when i get into the actual game itself i dunno. I never feel like i am having as much fun as i should be. Maybe tis cos i only ever play on pubs. I have racked up about 6 hours game time since orange box came out…I think i did that on left 4 dead in a day.
I have actually been having more fun with battlefield heros than i ever had with TF2
Don’t do the ‘first comment’ bullshit here on RPS please, even if it’s jokingly
I suspect the unlock system will eventually be complemented somehow, as it feels fairly incomplete by now. Valve has talked about adding changes incrementally over time, so it seems like they’re trying to evaluate this system before adding to it. I suspect some means of trading or exchanging weapons. Having the whole thing function on a level separate from the actual GAME, though, seems helpful.
Although it would be nice if they would increase the drop rate and let us do SOMETHING with our five additional flare guns, sometime soon.
Second that. We can happily live without pre-teen one-upmanship here.
Save it for your MMO’s official forums or such like thanks.
I think they are giving them out randomly right now and are planning to spread the weapons with item drop from dead bodies once enough people have them, so that they have enough people who have the weapons and rop them upon dying once they finaly fix this goddamn mess.
i belive its tied to time played on a class, sort of.
so that you are encouraged to try lesser played classes perhaps?
i never play medic so a medic unlock would prolly get me to play him.
We do the thread-based bullying, gentlemen. You are correct, however. Generally speaking, people who FIRST are deleted.
KG
Been playing since the update (and bugfix) rolled out. The system is totally random and arbitary. The amount of time you spend is irrelevant. The number of kills, dominations, achievements you’ve got, action at the time of unlock, the class you favour or currently playing, the number of unlocks present: all totally irrelevant. Incredibly frustrating getting duplicate items when there’s no way to use them or trade them.
Haven’t had a chance to try the new drop-system yet, but I did really like the achievement based unlocks, it gave the achievements some worth, and progression with milestones, however I can understand if people only play TF2 once a week but still wanna try out the new stuff (I thought that’s what achievement servers were for).
Bloody exam getting in the way of Fortress, how dare they?!
Here’s one extra change not many people seem to have picked up on yet:
Spies can now use enemy teleporters
I like the sound of some of these minor changes:
Air burst now extinguishes fire on friendly targets.
The Heavy and Sniper now have new custom death animations.
And is that a fix for dispenser camping?
Well, it seems that all the people who complained about the achievements system being tied to weapon unlocks and how frustrating it had become have had their response from Valve- a random drop system. Granted, it’s not what most people desired/expected, but you have to admit that this has come about as a result of the player base vocalising their displeasure with the current (now previous) system.
Unfortunately, the replacement system seems like it will be even more unpopular, but given that this is the first day its been in operation, you have to expect some difficulties. I imagine it will be tweaked over the coming days as Valve monitor the community response and form a better idea of how to make it work- perhaps an agreed trade system between team players? Who knows.
I didn’t mind the old system- as most people have stated, it gave you a target to aim for whilst gaining achievements. The unfortunate side effect was players spamming servers as a particular class to farm the achievements and get the weapons, rather than acquire them through normal play. But I would hazard a guess that the achievement design/content was at fault there, it would be better to have achievements that you can only get during the course of normal play.
Anyway, it won’t stop me playing, because the core game itself is good enough- I unlocked all the Pyro/Medic gear because I play as those classes frequently, so it’s useful. Scout/Heavy, not so much. I’ll get them when I get them, No (Scout) rush ;)
I picked up ‘Slash and Burn’ with my very first spy kill this morning.
Man, in 2Fort, if you can make it to the sniper deck as a spy, you can rack up multiple sniper kills like a buffet.
fortunatly i have a grand total of one unlocked weapon so this random drop thingymajig will at least mean i can get a hold of some of the new weapons without having to grind. Or have to play with a class for 500 hours just to get a screwdriver or somesuch.
Personally I think the unlocking system should come back, except that it doesn’t require so many achievements (e.g only two or three for each) in order to get each unlock. Thus there is tangible reward for playing, everyone who wants can get their unlocks quickly enough to not need farming, and the Angry Internet Mens can find something else to rage about…
TF2 community (at least the vocal part) hates change of any kind for the most part, whether it’s for the better or not. I like that the new unlock system simply rewards you for playing the game, rather than doing weird ‘quests’, seems this update is going to be the sanest one yet in terms of how gameplay is affected.
I hate how these ignorant north americans always confuse Australians with Austrians. Australians are the guys who kill crocodiles with their bare hands. We Austrians preserve urine in jars and throw it at foreigners.
@ matte_k
This guy here has a point why TF2 sucks donkey balls now http://www.spoonyexperiment.com/2009/03/04/wow-team-fortress-2-really-really-sucks-now/
@Shadowmancer did you actually read that article? Achievement farming is the obvious reason for the new item drop method. As others have stated I’d expect drop frequency to be tuned over the coming months, not that I’d really expect to find something during every session though.
Not to mention the false assumption that the unlocks are better than the default weapons.
Better doesn’t matter. What matters is that they are different. A player with unlocks has more choice.
I used to feverish hatred of unlocks in battlefield 2, but if i’m in a tank, heli, jet or apc the unlocks amounted to nothing.
Tf2 lacks the same buffer between haves and have-nots, so it is good that they are becoming less grindy.
Still, i feel that a new player being stunned by base balls, killed faster by piss jars and sniped by spy’s will have less fun than a newbie did early in tf2’s life and newbies don’t know about unlock free servers.
Damn, just when it comes out I’m offline till Tuesday :(.
I dream an Internets with no whine.
To quote Cullnean:
My 3 classes in terms of least played, in order from the bottom, is Sniper, Scout and Spy. I really hope what you say is correct, as I’m going to get a tonne of unlocks involving those classes if that’s the case! :D (of course, assuming you mean the unlocks come with a low play time, so you go “zomg unlock!1″ and play the class more…rather than only those with high play times get the class unlocks sooner…)
Even if unlocks were related to scores, I’d still be gravy with the sniper unlocks as, even though it’s my least played class, it has my highest score in a single life!
I’d say random unlocks are still a world better than achievement farms or people just doing weird shit on a regular server. When unlocks were tied to achievements the achievements were taken far too seriously, now there’s no solid reason to focus on achievements and can become a nice little “ding!” type message as you play normally (or play exceptionally well).
also those who have played with me on the rps server know how terrible i am, so this is great as far as i can see.
Valve are like an abusive spouse I keep coming back to, except that instead of being abusive, they’re tender and loving and devoted and have a great sense of humor.
Within the first half hour or so, I picked up the Ambassador. I thought it was linked to my 7th Spy achievement, but apparently not.
5 hours later… a second Sandman. Feh.
Going to try this out for the first time ever today. I’m 100% sure I won’t buy it but I like free shiny things.
The guy there has no valid points what-so-ever and talks a complete load of rubbish but it’s the internets where everyone is right and talk is very cheap.
I have all the Medic, Pyro, Heavy & Scout unlocks from normal public server play, no “achievements whoring” necessary. I see people getting achievements & unlocks on public servers during normal play all the time (surprisingly it’s quite often a Medic achievements even though the Pyro & Heavy ones are significantly easier to achieve).
All 3 of the Scout unlocks aren’t as useful as the default weapons, only the Force-A-Nature is an acceptable substitute in some situations which incidentally was the easiest to gain with the achievement unlocks. The loss of double jump does not justify using the Sandman in any way, shape or form.
Maybe I just don’t suck at internets games as badly as the author of that article.
Playing TF2 after the update can really be tons of fun if you play as pyro and just burn all those pesky spies and snipers. Playing as engineer kind of sucks though, since the spies can kill you and destroy your stuff while they are still cloaked. But I guess that will be fixed soon. (At least I hope so)
The loss of double jump does not justify using the Sandman in any way, shape or form.
Yes it does, in many situations.
Hint: single jump + Force-a-Nature = double jump
“The loss of double jump does not justify using the Sandman in any way, shape or form.”
I often play a defensive Scout as my speed lets me patrol the back field quite well as I hunt for spies and the occasional lone attacker. I use the Sandman ALOT to stun Ubered enemies right when they think they are going to take down the sentries. Heck, I spy check with the Sandman which is hilarious in it’s own way.
“You could potentially just never get a particular unlock you want to play with”
Yep, this is the shitty thing about the new system. I jumped on a server last night and got 2 new spy weapons right away. I never play spy. One of my friends who plays Spy constantly played all night and got not a single unlockable of any sort.
This system really screws hardcore players. They should allow you to unlock with achievements OR with randomness … your choice.
The update is a bit of a letdown in the sense that the whole point of the update is the promise of new unlocks. Now it’s like: “You might get them. You might not. Ha ha.” It’s like playing the lottery. Today could be your lucky day.
The unlocks need to be tied to something; playtime, achievements, skill, corpses… something.
On a side note: The Expedables – a live action TF2 movie?
I played for 5 hours last night after this stuff went live and didn’t unlock anything. I’m not angry though cause I had a great time ;) I got back stabbed by spys more than any other time I’ve ever played lol. running out of the flag room (DEAD) running into the enemy base (DEAD) The guy I was playing against had the watch that let you be invisible forever if you stood still O.o I hate that thing.
Man, I am the worst spy IN THE WORLD!
I think all the people complaining about these updates aren’t the regular players. What Valve is trying to do is keep things interesting and fresh for the experienced players. Personally, I have over 400 hours logged on TF2, and I was finally starting to loose interest. Then they come out with another update which mixes things up enough to make the game exciting a game. Perhaps it isn’t as perfectly balanced as it was six months ago, but that doesn’t matter to me. I just want new ways to play my game.
at DF7
yeah granted, but i liked unlocking weapons, it was a better system and encouraged differnt play styles to gain the achievements. now its just dumb luck
Nothing with computers is dumb luck unless Valve has some kind of random number generator in their server center (Which I doubt) They’re probably just using clever maths to make it appear random. Someone will come along and figure it out over the next month or so and figure out exact how long it takes you get x amount of weapons for x amount of play ect.
Clint Lolzwood, I’m willing to bet you that I am in fact the worst spy in the world… I was given the Cloak and Dagger watch while playing as the heavy (Finally got my damn KGB gloves too!), and switched to the Spy class to try out the new toy. I have 40 min of total playing time as the spy… I suck SO hard at him, lol. The new watch let me slowly work my way behind enemy lines, but I was only able to kill maybe 4 snipers the entire round… :D I’m not used to the delay from uncloaking to being able to backstab, and the snipers would kill me half the time before I was able to stab them, haha. Fun times tho!
I’ve been jumping back in to it this week after a ~6month hiatus, and I can barely understand what everyone is complaining about.
The game isn’t any more broken or unbalanced than it ever was, IMHO. Is it just because there’s new stuff in there you have to learn to deal with? Sure life expectancy probably averages about a minute, but that’s always been the case. I’ve never been amazing at this game, but hold my own with my favoured classes. Still do.
Achievements have always been easy to get in normal play, except for a few silly ones, but there have never been enough of those to prevent getting unlocks. I’ve got nearly all of the medic and pyro ones, and only don’t have the others since I don’t play those classes often, or haven’t been playing long enough since their updates.
There are no unlocks that are game breakers. The Sandman is annoying, but hardly anyone uses it in my experience. It might help that the servers I play on have a ~3-4 slot limit per class (2 each for spy and sniper at the moment).
Honestly, find a good community and it makes a bigger difference to the game than all of the unlocks and achievements and (still waiting on) silly hats combined.
The random unlocks are an absolutely terrible blunder. I got ONE of the new weapons from over two hours of play, and had very little fun watching others play with the things I had been looking forward to using like a child awaiting Christmas for a week. If we still had the achievement system I could have easily had 2 weapons (not via cheating, mind you) in that time. The fact that some people are getting repeated drops of things they ALREADY HAVE just exacerbates the problem. This “resolution” has no benefits that another system would not have (for instance just giving everyone access to all weapons right away so they could all try them out and get it out of their system), and all of the negative aspects (still have to “grind”, now it’s just your teeth as you patiently wait for hours upon hours to get the things you really desire). The “random” quality gives one absolutely nothing to work towards, and denigrates the value of the achievements in my opinion. This is a severely broken system that has denigrated the quality of TF2 as a game for me. I will not be playing it, my favorite game, until the issue is resolved.
I still love that cartoon where there is a sign that says “silly hats only” Then the guy walks up with the normal hat and they call club him to death , classic.
My longest life is 24 minutes as an engineer O.o That must have been a boring match.
These complaints about the random unlock system is insane. It has no effect on the game play what so ever, you’re just inpatient. The point of the game is to play the game, not get unlocks. I like the new system I’m guessing they’re going to keep it. It takes the focus on achivements and more on playing the actual game.
There are all sorts of ways this could be more enjoyable:
– the old system, flawed as it was.
– if you only unlocked items you didn’t already have.
– if you only unlocked items for the class you were playing at the time.
– if the chances of going several hours with no unlocking were very low.
– if it were in some way influenced by achievements, kills, captures, points, or team wins.
– if, when you gain an unlock, it was just a token you could cash in for the upgrade of your choice.
And yes, Serondal, we are impatient. Valve just spent a solid week getting us all excited and fired up about the new stuff.
I do, in some ways, actually like the fact that we actually can play the game as it’s meant to be played, instead of farming achievements. But overall I think I’d rather spend a few hours farming achievements than not knowing whether I will ever get to use the Huntsman or Cloak & Dagger.
@Dave… over exaggerate much?? Just play the game, you’ll get the your precious Huntsman and Cloak and Dagger watch soon enough.
I think this may be tied into how much you already have unlocked.
I have all the other unlocks and I’m not getting any of the new ones. New players seem to be getting quite a few.
I don’t have any unlocks atm Walter and haven’t gotten any either.
@DF7
I have over 400 hours as well, and I am complaining.
I like the content of the updates, I just don’t like that there is no way to EARN them. If the drops really ARE random, then, although most people will get what they are looking for, there will be a small percentage of players who never get what they want. And a slightly larger percentage will have to wait a very long time to get the drop they want.
So yeah, this system really screws the hardcore players.
Walter, it’s completely random. I had all the previous unlocks and received the Cloak and Dagger while playing a heavy, The Sandman and Force A Nature while playing as a pyro, Natasha and the KGB while playing as a sniper, and the Axetinguisher whie playing as a spy. Like I said, I already had all the previous unlockables, so it’s totally random. I got the Sandman and FAN within 5 min of each other, and the other stuff about 1 hour apart. Each time I received a little notice in the lower left of the screen letting me know what I had received, and I wasn’t doing anything other than just goofing off.