Summer 2013 Update Speculation and Discussion

[Supreveio]

Blog Post Day 1: Maps
Blog Post Day 2: Weapons
Blog Post Day 3: Workshop

The Summer 2013 update is closing in fast, and Valve is giving us direct information and hints as to what will be in it.


Confirmed Information:
- Many official maps are to be reworked to remove bugs and exploits (in particular, the ones in Badwater Basin)
- CP_Process and CP_Standin to become official maps
- Dead Ringer nerfed. Damage taken while cloaked reduces the time you can stay cloaked.
- Battalion's Backup buffed. Now builds Rage on damage dealt rather than damage taken. Damage reduction while the banner is active is also increased.
- Gameplay-Altering Set Bonuses removed. The bonuses are now part of the weapons within the set, with cosmetic effects for wearing the entire set (hat included)

[black_and_blue]

I like the dead ringer nerf. I'd say that's about what's needed.

I'm disappointed they're only doing blog postings and haven't done a fancy update site though.


EDIT: Bah, how come people always reply just as I'm editing, so it has to show up as an edit? Oh well, anyway, the edit was to add the comment about blog postings.

[Plinko]

I hope they put the inability to be headshot on the danger shield. If they put it on the sydney sleeper that will be a little unbalanced.

[Supreveio]

I hope they put the inability to be headshot on the danger shield. If they put it on the sydney sleeper that will be a little unbalanced.

I think it'd be more unbalanced on the Danger Shield. It makes more sense to be on the Sleeper.

If it were on the shield, you could use a non-Sleeper rifle and be able to deal headshots without having to worry about them yourself. Whereas if they're on the Sleeper, you're giving up headshot damage to become immune to death by headshot.

Personally, I can see the set bonuses going like this:

Milkman Scout (+25 Health) --> Mad Milk. Putting it on the fish or Shortstop would open the way for 165 HP Scouts when using the Pocket Pistol.
Gas Jockey Pyro (+10% movement speed, +10% bullet vulnerability) --> Powerjack. It could technically work for either, but I think +10% speed with the Degreaser/Axtinguisher combo would be ridiculous
Saharan Spy (Silent Decloak, 0.5 second longer blink time) --> L'Etranger. The gun recharges cloak on hit, so it makes sense for it to give silent decloak as well.
Croc-O-Style Sniper (Cannot be killed by headshots) --> Sydney Sleeper
Tankbuster Soldier (+20% sentry damage resistance) --> Battalion's Backup. Could work with either weapon, but the Backup has the whole damage resistance thing going for it.
Expert Ordnance Demoman (+10% fire resistance) --> Ullapool Caber
Hibernating Bear Heavy (+5% crit resistance) --> Warrior's Spirit
Medieval Medic (+1 health regen per second) --> Crusader's Crossbow

[Plinko]

Really, the headshot immunity shouldn't go to anything. At least on the shield, if you get headshot immunity, at least you're giving up all semblance of being able to handle close combat.

Of course, if they would just fix the immunity to mean you take normal damage instead of being reduced to 1, it would be less of an issue since you could still kill the sniper with one shot if you happen to hit them in the head.

Of course, they really ought to just get rid of all the item bonuses unless they're planning to nerf them. All of these will probably get comp banned as soon as they're updated. Especially ones that give extra health.

[black_and_blue]

Really, the headshot immunity shouldn't go to anything. At least on the shield, if you get headshot immunity, at least you're giving up all semblance of being able to handle close combat.

Could put it on the shield, but say that it's only in affect while wielding a melee weapon. That would work.

[CoyoteCreed]

There are ways to put headshot crit immunity on the Sleeper, like if taking a headshot reset the gun's Jarate charge to zero.

[Vi Deo]

Really, the headshot immunity shouldn't go to anything. At least on the shield, if you get headshot immunity, at least you're giving up all semblance of being able to handle close combat.

Because quick scopers need head shot immunity? No thanks. The sleeper is the right call. You give up headshots for not being headshot.

Side note: Hopefully we get that mythical bodyshot damage decrease as well. My knife deals little to no damage if I miss... why do snipers get all the love?

Milkman Scout (+25 Health) --> Mad Milk. Putting it on the fish or Shortstop would open the way for 165 HP Scouts when using the Pocket Pistol.
Gas Jockey Pyro (+10% movement speed, +10% bullet vulnerability) --> Powerjack. It could technically work for either, but I think +10% speed with the Degreaser/Axtinguisher combo would be ridiculous
Saharan Spy (Silent Decloak, 0.5 second longer blink time) --> L'Etranger. The gun recharges cloak on hit, so it makes sense for it to give silent decloak as well.
Croc-O-Style Sniper (Cannot be killed by headshots) --> Sydney Sleeper
Tankbuster Soldier (+20% sentry damage resistance) --> Battalion's Backup. Could work with either weapon, but the Backup has the whole damage resistance thing going for it.
Expert Ordnance Demoman (+10% fire resistance) --> Ullapool Caber
Hibernating Bear Heavy (+5% crit resistance) --> Warrior's Spirit
Medieval Medic (+1 health regen per second) --> Crusader's Crossbow

I... think I like all of these. Very good. And double yes on not giving the degreaser any thing more. It doesn't need it.

[Zork Nemesis]

I'm not sure how they can rework the extra health regen on the Medieval Medic stuff. Crossbow is actually a popular weapon already being the most equipped Medic primary that isn't stock, while the current Amputator already has no drawbacks compared to stock (perhaps that's something they're looking at). I realize the Crossbow is difficult to use already, I run it full time outside of MvM, but it's already pretty powerful in it's own respect being able to heal allies for up to 60% health with a well-aimed shot.

I do have another concern. The post talks about the Battalion's Backup, but what of the Escape Plan? TF2Stats reports that close to 40% of all players use it, while the next most equipped sidegrade (Equalizer) is 13%, with stock shovel coming in around 16%. While not as blatant as the Backup-vs-Buff or Dead Ringer, it's still considered by many the top choice for any Soldier worth their salt. This concern also carries over to many other melee weapons, in particular the Axetingusher and Ubersaw come to mind as potentially on the balancing block as those two are reported equipped by twice as many people than their respective stock weapons and even more compared to other sidegrades.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what they have planned, if anything.

On a side note, here's an interesting thing concerning percentages of people equipping whatever, if you guys like number crunching like me.
http://tf2stats.net/items/

One other thing, what hat is that Pyro wearing in this screenshot from the blog?
http://media.steampowered.com/steam/new ... tacked.jpg

[Supreveio]

One other thing, what hat is that Pyro wearing in this screenshot from the blog?
http://media.steampowered.com/steam/new ... tacked.jpg

It's hard to tell, but it might be this one:



From this Polycount contest entry.

[The Domer]

I like the dead ringer nerf. I'd say that's about what's needed.

I actually don't think the dead ringer really needs a nerf. It's popular and fun to use, much like the phlogistinator is for pyro, but it's not better. Good spies know how to use all three watches, which each have a different role, but the best watch in most situations is still the invis-watch.

That said, the proposed nerf is surprisingly novel, and just may actually work.

[OmgOhnoes]

I like the dead ringer nerf. I'd say that's about what's needed.

I actually don't think the dead ringer really needs a nerf. It's popular and fun to use, much like the phlogistinator is for pyro, but it's not better. Good spies know how to use all three watches, which each have a different role, but the best watch in most situations is still the invis-watch.

That said, the proposed nerf is surprisingly novel, and just may actually work.

Thing is that watch isn't actually OP unless you use the set. Even a good spy is easy to locate once it's triggered, you can easily hear it, and god forbid they aren't using the set you can almost always hear them uncloak.

It basically takes one or two decent pyros to make it ineffective. Even on frontier with lots of places to hide i find it more difficult to play with a decent pyro against me.

I honestly think the main nerf they'd need to do is using the DR and spycicle. THAT is irritating as hell and harder to play against as pyro. Something like a visual effect of water falling off the player as the spycicle melts.

[Supreveio]

Day 3

The TF2 Team explains how they decide what items get into the game.

And there are going to be 64 Gold Star items added in the update.

[Vi Deo]

Sadly, the gold star system doesn't support weapons it seems. So just 64 more cosmetic items.

Hopefully this doesn't prevent valve from adding weapons on their own. Community or otherwise.

[Zork Nemesis]

Sadly, the gold star system doesn't support weapons it seems. So just 64 more cosmetic items.

Hopefully this doesn't prevent valve from adding weapons on their own. Community or otherwise.

Weapons are difficult to add. Beyond cosmetic reskins like we see a lot of, to add new weapons means coming up with rules, statistics, and balance which requires extensive testing and additional work. In particular Medic and Engineer weapons have been cited to be very difficult to make due to those two classes being the easiest to imbalance (which is part of the reason Engy never got a proper item set). I'm betting there will be new weapons in the next major update, but probably not this one since they're already rebalancing a lot of currently existing ones.