FYI: Why there are not very many new weapons

[Will T.]

I need to vent about this a little as the lack of new weapons in TF2 gets mentioned a lot on the 'Net as a whole, but I feel like very few people, Ville or otherwise, understand the reasons behind it.

As a current junior at DigiPen, I can tell you this with some level of authority: Making games is hard. It isn't a simple matter of writing a few lines of code and suddenly having a best-seller. Games require programming, art, music, and design. It is this last point that is behind TF2's lack of new weapons.

Game design is simultaneously the most important and worst-defined aspect of game development. It is what brings the art, sound, and programming together into a cohesive and entertaining whole. The only consistent standard of what constitutes "good" game design is these three words: "Is this fun?" Because literally everyone's idea of "fun" is different to at least some degree, there is no way to write universal rules for what constitutes good design. There is only one way to answer the simple question of "is this fun?", and that is through testing.

Testing requires several components:

-IMPLEMENTATION. A basic prototype of whatever is to be tested must be built. It doesn't need to be complete, and in fact should be far from it as it is going to be changed hugely during this process. If you aim for a final product right from the start, you are doing it wrong. In the case of TF2's weapons, a weapon must have its attributes and capabilities programmed/scripted. Depending on how different the weapon is (e.g. the Flare Gun to Pyro's stock Shotgun), there may even need to be completely new basic code written to create its behavior.
-TESTERS. Testers are real living people who will be answering the question mentioned earlier. And you will need A LOT OF THEM if you are to ensure that your final result is the best it can be. Not everyone will be a good tester though, so you need to pick only those who will answer your questions in a (relatively) mature manner such that you can extract useful information from your feedback.
-TIME. Initial implementation and a first round of testers are only the start. The cycle of testing is: Implement, Test, Repeat Indefinitely. That means that after each test, changes must be made, which could range from minor tweaks to variables to total overhauls of how code works - and in extreme cases, entire portions of your program may have to be rebuilt from scratch in order to optimize processes which would otherwise hinder your outcome. Making things even harder is the fact that, in order to provide the best possible testing results, a new batch of testers is needed for each iterative test. Testers are considered "broken" after their first testing round as they can no longer provide the eyes of an objective outsider when testing your product. In other words, they know too much.

Now, how does this apply to TF2 weapons? This has to be done for ANY AND EVERY WEAPON THAT VALVE WANTS TO ADD. And this process will take no less than several months for EACH INDIVIDUAL WEAPON. And they have to be tested alongside ALL THE WEAPONS ALREADY IN THE GAME to ensure that they do not cause unexpected or unwanted behaviors or imbalances. Would you want to do this? Maybe so, but the TF2 team has other things to focus on, namely keeping up their reputation for frequent content additions.

To compare, here is roughly the process for adding a hat or reskinned weapon to the game:

1.) Get item's art assets from the Workshop, or have your artists create them. (This is its own process, but I won't go into it here, especially since Valve themselves make next to no models for items anymore.)
2.) Create entries for item in appropriate data tables for TF2, add art assets to appropriate directories to be distributed to clients in next update, and attach attributes of an existing weapon to the item if it is a reskinned weapon.
3.) Repeat with more items until ready to push update.

As you can see, adding a hat or reskin vs. adding a weapon is basically the difference between writing down the alphabet vs. writing a successful novel.

Okay, rant over. I just had to make sure that someone else out there understood that Valve are not simply being lazy or shunning the community when it comes to the desire for new weapons.

[InBOUND HD]

now I feel bad for asking for new weapons...
well, off to buy more hats!

[The Domer]

They also need motivation, and there's little incentive when they can make a fortune pumping out cosmetic crap.

[Boss Llama]

The game was fine with stock weapons, and I prefer it with stock weapons. If Valve had never added another weapon to the game, I would be ok with that. It was also fine without hats, see previous statement. And without trading. And without stranges. And without all the many things they've introduced to entice us to spend money. They charge more for a newly released hat then they ask for thousands of complete games on the store. Heck, people are paying to play single rounds of MvM, over and over. It's effective - it's insanely effective - but none of it is necessary for the game. TF2 as released was a damn fine game, and in my opinion, there's little they've done in the last few years that made it better.

[Chaka of the Pakuni]

Someone needs to update the servers...

[Jesus_Faction]

The game was fine with stock weapons, and I prefer it with stock weapons. If Valve had never added another weapon to the game, I would be ok with that. It was also fine without hats, see previous statement. And without trading. And without stranges. And without all the many things they've introduced to entice us to spend money. They charge more for a newly released hat then they ask for thousands of complete games on the store. Heck, people are paying to play single rounds of MvM, over and over. It's effective - it's insanely effective - but none of it is necessary for the game. TF2 as released was a damn fine game, and in my opinion, there's little they've done in the last few years that made it better.

Do you think TF2 would be nearly as popular as it is now if it weren't for all the updates and additions? I certainly don't.

[YoullNeverWalkAlone]

Agreed JF, I'm not sure I would have even found the game if it weren't for the updates that kept the game popular. I came pretty late to the party (the free to play update), and you have to wonder would people have still been playing a game that hadn't received an update for years. Not saying that the game needs the updated stuff to be fun to play, just that these updates keep a pretty old game interesting to a player base that likely would have wandered away from the game.

Or perhaps we would be on TF5 or some such.

[MasterChef]

I agree that games need to be updated to stay relevant in today's day and age. But, for me TF2 seems to just spit out a crap ton of new items for the hell of it. I honestly don't play it anymore because there is just so much junk that's been added that's just ruined it for me. I miss when it was just Valve doing the class updates on a not so regular basis. And even then, much like Alizee Fan, I still rather the vanilla weapons.

I'd rather updates be towards making new maps, new game modes, and the occasional class update.

Hats and such didn't bother me when they first came out. There was a time, when it seemed like they were at least trying to fit the aesthetic of the original TF2 game. Now....random dude creates hat PUT IT IN THE GAME!

[F13ND]

The game was fine with stock weapons, and I prefer it with stock weapons. If Valve had never added another weapon to the game, I would be ok with that. It was also fine without hats, see previous statement. And without trading. And without stranges. And without all the many things they've introduced to entice us to spend money. They charge more for a newly released hat then they ask for thousands of complete games on the store. Heck, people are paying to play single rounds of MvM, over and over. It's effective - it's insanely effective - but none of it is necessary for the game. TF2 as released was a damn fine game, and in my opinion, there's little they've done in the last few years that made it better.

I like the sandvich too much to completely agree

[Soltan]

The game was fine with stock weapons, and I prefer it with stock weapons. If Valve had never added another weapon to the game, I would be ok with that. It was also fine without hats, see previous statement. And without trading. And without stranges. And without all the many things they've introduced to entice us to spend money. They charge more for a newly released hat then they ask for thousands of complete games on the store. Heck, people are paying to play single rounds of MvM, over and over. It's effective - it's insanely effective - but none of it is necessary for the game. TF2 as released was a damn fine game, and in my opinion, there's little they've done in the last few years that made it better.

How about stock plus first set of unlocks? Medic without the ubersaw/kritz would not be as fun. Same goes for heavy without the sandvich.

[MateoTheBold!]

I did stop enjoying the updates as much once they were done with the class updates, even before the pyro update; to me the quality and balance went down. But I can't begrudge valve; its a F2P game, so they are simply supporting that model at this point.

Servers exist out there that are stock weapons only, and you can simply ignore all the extras and current unbalance if you want to be playing that way.

I guess the only downside is that the focus on updating TF2 is that it just delays TF3 even longer (although you could argue that stock TF2 at launch compared to today makes what we are playing now TF3).

[prang]

I like that they add a ton of cosmetic stuff. I think if they are going to make money off a free game then that is the way to do it. It allows us to decide if we are going to spend time and money dressing up our silly characters or if we are just going to play.

I agree about maps, I wish they were a higher priority for Valve. It is so nice to see process and snakewater added into the mix but there are a ton of awesome community made maps that would be great updates for TF2's stale map list. Barnblitz_pro and Viaduct_pro are just two examples. How long has it been since a great new payload map was added?

The big thing though is weapons. My Oscar the Grouch opinion is that we have too many items that might be fun to use but are simply not fun to play against. I'm so sick of having to sit waiting to spawn because an opponent chose a weapon with guaranteed crit mechanics and killed me before I could even react. I play rocket jumping soldier half the time, I have no right to complain about cheap tactics or weapons, but still... there is nothing more frustrating than a pyro running in to a room, realizing he's screwed, then turning on his invulnerability and kritz and chasing your medic down. Don't worry guys! I equipped the phlog!