OCR TF2: Stab stab stab!

[Powerlord]

Gunslinger just changed slots to replace the Wrench (it replaced the Pistol before).

[SporkNinjaDraken]

Now that hurts me deeply because now I have to choose between punching people with a Metal fist of justice with third hit crits or actually being credit to team with my Wrench.

Edit: Also do you think Valve is missing the point a bit with Battle Engineering? I mean the idea is you're supposed to hide the little sentries for some sneaky kills then they give us a sentry which is supposedly designed for it but it does half damage and has a great big light ductaped on top which is probably gonna be a bit of a give away.

[Dark Chocobo]

Now that hurts me deeply because now I have to choose between punching people with a Metal fist of justice with third hit crits or actually being credit to team with my Wrench.

I don't think it can't upgrade, it just can't upgrade your own sentries - you can surely upgrade others. Team up with someone who has a Wrangler. You can be the advance guard.

[ParanoidDrone]

Something tells me that the mini sentries can't be upgraded at all, even by vanilla Engineers, hence the visual distinction.

Also DAMMIT VALVE UPDATE THE BLOG.

[Kiyobi]

@Spork: It seems to fit my concept of Battlegineering just fine.

[SporkNinjaDraken]

@Spork: It seems to fit my concept of Battlegineering just fine.

Eh it's more the great big light on top that bothers me.

[atmuh]

Engine

-Fixed client crash related flashlight usage.

-Fixed several issues related to alt-tabbing (invisible players, etc).

Team Fortress 2

-Added The Frontier Justice.

-Added The Wrangler.

-Added The Gunslinger.

-Added The Southern Hospitality.

-Added 35 Engineer achievements.

-Engineers can now pickup & move their buildings.

-Added Engineer main menu music.

Added 4 new maps:

-Thunder Mountain, a 3 stage Payload map.

-Hightower, a Payload Race map.

-Upward, a Payload map.

-ColdFront, a community built Capture Point map.

Item tuning:

-The Sandvich now uses a cooldown timer, instead of the health pack recharge mechanic.

-The Gunboats now reduce self-damage by 60% (was 75%)

-The Tribalman's Shiv bleed duration reduced to 6 second (was , and its damage penalty increased to 50% (was 35%).

-Added better feedback sound for Pyros on when their flamethrower is doing damage.

-Fixed blood effect on bleeding player.

-Added a glow effect to Payload carts.

-Added Romanian language support.

[ParanoidDrone]

Update is live, I'll let FireSlash or Powerlord put up the list of changes. Coldfront is the new community map though.

Predictably, the Steam servers are hellabusy.

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT ATMUH

[Black Waltz]

Engine

-Fixed client crash related flashlight usage.

-Fixed several issues related to alt-tabbing (invisible players, etc).

Team Fortress 2

-Added The Frontier Justice.

-Added The Wrangler.

-Added The Gunslinger.

-Added The Southern Hospitality.

-Added 35 Engineer achievements.

-Engineers can now pickup & move their buildings.

-Added Engineer main menu music.

Added 4 new maps:

-Thunder Mountain, a 3 stage Payload map.

-Hightower, a Payload Race map.

-Upward, a Payload map.

-ColdFront, a community built Capture Point map.

Item tuning:

-The Sandvich now uses a cooldown timer, instead of the health pack recharge mechanic.

-The Gunboats now reduce self-damage by 60% (was 75%)

-The Tribalman's Shiv bleed duration reduced to 6 second (was , and its damage penalty increased to 50% (was 35%).

-Added better feedback sound for Pyros on when their flamethrower is doing damage.

-Fixed blood effect on bleeding player.

-Added a glow effect to Payload carts.

-Added Romanian language support.

Don't get why they reduced Gunboats self damage to 60%. It's totally useless anyways so why the nerf?

[Dark Chocobo]

Oh thank God the Shiv was nerfed. About time. It was already more powerful than every other melee weapon.

[ParanoidDrone]

According to TF2stats, the Southern Hospitality is that WatchMaker guy's wrench, which causes 5 seconds of bleed on hit but can't randomly crit and makes the user take 20% extra fire damage. That's...nonsensical at best, but okay...

[Powerlord]

Servers are updating now. Sorry, I was busy when they first pushed it.

Edit: Fireslash beat me to it

[ParanoidDrone]

Servers are updating now. Sorry, I was busy when they first pushed it.

You mean you're not a robot permanently plugged into the server? What madness is this, other than Sparta?

(Stop editing while I quote you...)

[Powerlord]

The server's map cycle, which is used by the map vote, is current messed up.

Valve overwrote it with a list of all the game's official maps, wiping the one we had before with some customs on it without keeping a backup... stupid thing.

Also: Coldfront is an official map now.

[atmuh]

why are there class limits

why would you want to ruin the last update

once again

the LAST update

[Powerlord]

why are there class limits

why would you want to ruin the last update

once again

the LAST update

We put on class limits every update.

Besides, it's only limited on BLU.

[atmuh]

fireslash bahamut and everyone on irc already agreed not to for the start

[DarkeSword]

Remove class limits please.

[Powerlord]

Re-add class limits please. Stalemates are NOT fun. Playing the first stage of a PLR map for the entire 30 minutes (more, because the map doesn't end) is NOT fun.

Screw it, I just won't play it while this continues. Or administrate the server in any way.

[Secret Agent Man]

Screw it, I just won't play it while this continues. Or administrate the server in any way.

...

Grow up.

[Arek the Absolute]

So I got the game and can finally join in the fun and drama.

Good times ensue.

[Powerlord]

...

Grow up.

I'm sorry, I took flak from the two other server superadmins in private and then here in public for using a server plugin for the very reason we installed it for the first place: to restrict classes that are fairly useless in large numbers directly after their class update came out to prevent the server from being overloaded with them.

If our goal was to turn both of our servers into achievement farms, congratulations, we succeeded.

I also find it hypocritical that the same superadmins who set it up back when the Spy vs Sniper update came out were asking me why class restrictions were on now.

[atmuh]

and you say i hate fun

[ParanoidDrone]

FWIW, I support the idea of limiting the number of Engineers until the update hype dies down. It doesn't even need to be 2 or 3, hell 5 would still be acceptable in my book. But when you have 9 Engineers stretching out a single PLR round to over a half hour, something's wrong.

[Bahamut]

My thoughts - there are some negative aspects to not having class limits, and I originally iterated as much in IRC. I scaled back my thoughts closer to the update thinking perhaps it can workout, and people seemed really enthusiastic about the engie update. In addition, there were several people like me who for the most part played engie spoiler classes (soldier/demo/spy), so I felt like a team full of engies would learn quickly that they would need to be flexible with the class balance for this update, moreso than before as the sentries require quite a bit of forethought just to get them up (unless you got the Gunslinger through a drop).

I feel like my suspicions turned out correct, as for a good portion of the games I was in, people were forced to balance out the classes to ~half at most. However, we can still take a wait and see approach whether some form of class limits are needed - perhaps on plr maps it is necessary, as plr_highland was pretty terrible with mostly engies for example, which would've been even worse had Vahn not used a pocket medic & demo to wreck through sentry encampments. I think we will need to tweak map specific config files to adapt to this with some restrictions for some maps.

I should also mention that I've seen at least a few regulars become pissed at some of the antics of mass engies, partly because many of the games played during the update aren't normal with all the people experimenting with the engie stuff. Be patient, it will get better! If there's any particular maps where it becomes unbearably bad, feel free to mention it so we can react accordingly!

Suggested server settings:

pl_thundermountain: change it to perhaps 2 rounds max instead of going by time. We exhausted the whole 30 minutes on all 3 stages on offense before due to how vast this map is.

plr_highland: engie class limit enforced to maybe 5 max. This was a brutally bad map to play with mass engies, and there was some visible tension between players over the non-action from engies camping & not doing much and those pushing the cart.

There may be more settings that might be a good idea, but currently I'm at a loss of thought for them as I am tired as heck.