TOM FRANCIS
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Thoughts On The Team Fortress 2 Christmas Changes

Disclaimer: this expression does not faithfully represent my feelings on these changes.

Left 4 Dead has ceased to be a regular fixture in my schedule, but it somehow made TF2 feel old, or overfamiliar. So I’m mega-, perhaps even ultra-pleased with the timing of the pretty dramatic overhaul that just went live.

Also, Scout update is next, thank God. I was wrong about the Spy hint in the previous TF2 blog post title. I asked Robin about it a while back – he was amused by the extreme scrutiny speculators subjected his wording to. He just has the TF2 script doc open and selects a line at random.

• The Engineer’s teleporters can now be upgraded to level three. It will recharge faster the higher level it is
  Great news. They pretty much confirmed this ages ago, but it wasn’t clear if they’d work it into the Engy pack or release it as a separate tweak. It seems like this has to add more variety to viable engy tactics, and just as importantly, more variety to the litany of complaints we can level against our Engies when they inevitably ignore this new ability and hunker down behind their ill-positioned Sentry.
   
• The Engineer’s dispensers can now be upgraded to level three. It will give out metal and heal faster as it is upgraded
  Yay. But I’m guessing this still means placing it right behind you and your Sentry is still the only logical position. One of the main Engy changes I’d like to see is making it viable to place your dispenser where your team most needs it without crippling your own ability to keep yourself and your Sentry alive.
   
• Spies will be able to recharge their cloaking ability by picking up ammo off of the ground or from health cabinets
  The health cabinets thing has been suggested three times a day since the dawn of time, though I can’t say I’ve ever wanted it. When I run out of Cloak, I’m in the enemy base. Because I used my Cloak. You know, to get past enemies. Gobbling up ammo to replenish it is much more interesting to me, because it means less waiting around without encouraging me to walk all the way back to base.
   
• Some changes to the second part of the first stage of Goldrush to give the attackers more of an advantage
  Okay, but I can’t say this is the stage that usually gives me trouble as an attacker. It’s always, always stage 2 cap 2, and trying to assault a good defense of that point is the most miserably futile experience you can have with TF2.
   
• Any weapons that fire bullets (shotguns, sniper’s machine gun, heavy’s minigun, etc.) can now break apart the Demoman’s stickybombs
  Wow, okay, yes. Anything that’s bad for Demomen is fine by me, even when I’m playing Demoman. I didn’t expect them to do this particular nerf, though. One of the few things I like about Demomen right now is they don’t over-abuse their ability to place stickies where it’s impossible to see them before they kill you – more often they use them out in the open for area denial, warning people off a cap. If everyone can destroy them now, I’m a little worried that Demomen are going to learn to always put them in hidden places, and I’ve never discovered any way to anticipate or counter that tactic. Even if you’re looking in exactly the right direction as you round a corner, you’re surely not going to be able to destroy them all before the Demoman can right-click to kill you.
   
• The icon on the HUD for a person calling for Medic will now give more information to the medic (if the target is low on health, on fire, etc.)
  At freaking last! This seemed like such an obvious thing, I thought there must be some complicated technical reason why they didn’t do it in the first place.
   
• Added an achievement tracker that will allow people to choose specific achievements that they are trying to get
  omg tf2=wow ffs valve gay ferrets tldr. Actually this’ll be quite useful. But I’m still not doing most of those Medic ones.
   
• There is now a custom icon for death messages when the player was killed from a critical hit
  GOOD. Now the world shall see that not only am I killed by a critical hit every time I die, but it’s always in a situation and with an amount of health that would guarantee I survive an equivalent non-critical hit and Valve will realise their game is entirely random, sob for a little while, then remove crits forever and issue a public apology. (Hey guys, let’s get into a discussion about whether crits are a good thing.)
   
• Added a new particle effect for when a player enters the water
  +5% to review score.
   
• Added smoke to the feet of a rocket jumping soldier
  +10% to review score.
   
• Players will now have some particles swirling around them so other players can see when they are overhealed
  I heartily endorse this. I think everything mechanically important should be visually apparent (except Cloaked Spies). Now they just need a way to show how hurt players are.
   
• Attempts by player Pentadact to connect to any servers now result in immediate timeouts, ensuring he can no longer play the game at all
  This is the only one I’m not crazy about. I realise I’m inevitably biased, but it just seems unlike Valve to make such a specific tweak. And personally, it’s starting to diminish my enjoyment of the game.
   

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