What is Valve doing with Team Fortress 2?

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Parmenides

Supreme [H]ardness
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It seems like the game is being updated almost every day. They are constantly putting on updates and events. Right now they are having double item drop weekend.
I'm not sure how all this TLC is increasing their sales.

Is this an experiment? Are they trying to make this into an online fps mmo? What is Valve doing with Team Fortress 2?
 
The game became dolly dress-up.. they should work on it.
 
Almost looks like a Korean RPG with all the micro transactions.

I've stop playing it a while ago, it's just going downhill.
 
Making money hand over fist.
 
Parmenides said:
What is Valve doing with Team Fortress 2?
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They are keeping a very fun game constantly updated and entertaining for their community while they get to experiment with various systems (both ingame and outside the game). They have also created the most profitable microtransaction store of any single game outside of stuff like xbox live and psn which are complete platforms on their own.
 
Anyone who plays the game normally has no need to buy the items. Only fish/nubs would even consider spending a single cent for a Mann Co Item. Regular gameplay, you should have easily earned the items 10x over by now. I played on and off since 2007, and have all the items I need. Yeah I missing the set hats and all my crates are unopened, but you don't really need any of those to play.
 
As long as there are enough people to spend money on the micro transactions they offer now then I think they will continue to do so.
 
All I heard from guys at work was how its the best FPS game ever. On and on..... I watched videos and all sorts of stuff...looked cool. So I finally bought it. Its horrible. Can't stay alive more than 15 seconds. There's so much going on that it would take a week of studying to figure it out.....and in that week things will have changed again.

Don't get me wrong, I can play twitch shooters like CS:S and love it. Its not like I'm slow.......but this uber fast deathmatch style play is insane. Wish I could get that $12 back and a week of my life too.....
 
nobody_here said:
All I heard from guys at work was how its the best FPS game ever. On and on..... I watched videos and all sorts of stuff...looked cool. So I finally bought it. Its horrible. Can't stay alive more than 15 seconds. There's so much going on that it would take a week of studying to figure it out.....and in that week things will have changed again.

Don't get me wrong, I can play twitch shooters like CS:S and love it. Its not like I'm slow.......but this uber fast deathmatch style play is insane. Wish I could get that $12 back and a week of my life too.....
Click to expand...

Lol that's the first I've heard TF2 is too fast for a twitch player. TF2 is made for ex CSS players honestly. I'm seriously too slow to play CSS now (about 5 years removed from my prime). TF2 is VERY forgiving. There are no AWPs in TF2, and with overheals, you generally need a charged shot to kill anything. Yeah a kritz'ed Demo can be a problem, but if you don't have a counter uber or competent Pyro to airblast, well that's on your team.

If you play on a pub, the cream rises to the top pretty quickly. Also...if you're playing on a normal, non-instant respawn server, there is hardly any "uber fast DM" action. If you die, you are waiting 15-20s for respawn.
 
Mav451 said:
Lol that's the first I've heard TF2 is too fast for a twitch player. TF2 is made for ex CSS players honestly. I'm seriously too slow to play CSS now (about 5 years removed from my prime). TF2 is VERY forgiving. There are no AWPs in TF2, and with overheals, you generally need a charged shot to kill anything. Yeah a kritz'ed Demo can be a problem, but if you don't have a counter uber or competent Pyro to airblast, well that's on your team.

If you play on a pub, the cream rises to the top pretty quickly. Also...if you're playing on a normal, non-instant respawn server, there is hardly any "uber fast DM" action. If you die, you are waiting 15-20s for respawn.
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Like how CSS is for ex 1.6 players? :p
 
Sigh yes :D
My prime for CS1.3 was...year 2000 I think?

*yes I'm old. I know that.
 
I'm not that good or that bad, but dying every 20 seconds? What? Try being a defensive engineer with a teleport out to the action for other players.

Try a payload race, hide behind the cart or just guard your cart, it usually won't be snipers pushing it, etc.
 
So about the x2 drop rate, does everyone's drop crap reset? Drop cap resets every Wednesday and it only takes a day or two to max the cap, mostly everyone should be locked out.
 
Love owning all the folks with their Mann Co gear using my mad skills, and aimbot.
 
omg i really hate what they did with the game. I used to love it but they just ruined it with all these different items :-(
 
nobody_here said:
All I heard from guys at work was how its the best FPS game ever. On and on..... I watched videos and all sorts of stuff...looked cool. So I finally bought it. Its horrible. Can't stay alive more than 15 seconds. There's so much going on that it would take a week of studying to figure it out.....and in that week things will have changed again.

Don't get me wrong, I can play twitch shooters like CS:S and love it. Its not like I'm slow.......but this uber fast deathmatch style play is insane. Wish I could get that $12 back and a week of my life too.....
Click to expand...

So the game sucks cause you suck at it? ? ?

find different servers, start on stock servers, not modded servers for one.

i hate stock servers, normal TF2 games are slow as molasis versus modded servers.
 
Mav451 said:
Lol that's the first I've heard TF2 is too fast for a twitch player. TF2 is made for ex CSS players honestly. I'm seriously too slow to play CSS now (about 5 years removed from my prime). TF2 is VERY forgiving. There are no AWPs in TF2, and with overheals, you generally need a charged shot to kill anything. Yeah a kritz'ed Demo can be a problem, but if you don't have a counter uber or competent Pyro to airblast, well that's on your team.

If you play on a pub, the cream rises to the top pretty quickly. Also...if you're playing on a normal, non-instant respawn server, there is hardly any "uber fast DM" action. If you die, you are waiting 15-20s for respawn.
Click to expand...

i dunno, i play BFBC2, CS:S.....and no problems playing those....perhaps i was joining the wrong servers? maybe i should try it again, it just seems like there's far too many options in it. CS:S is very basic, you choose from a small array of weapons and that's it. No special powers, no modifiers....no relying on a particular class of team mate like you described above in order to play and enjoy it.

and im not a score whore either. quite honestly i usually keep a very "poor" kill to death" ratio, no matter what game. I play games for the fun of it. If I can win great, but if i dont particularly like the game there's no way im playing it just to win...

i guess its just not my style, bit too complicated, too much to remember and keep up with, i might try again and get some of you guys to teach me some bits one night..
 
Valve have admitted that TF2 has become its testing ground, because it's a cartoony game they can try all sorts of wacky stuff like micro-transactions without upsetting too many people.

The fact is that valve like most other businesses are trying to pull in as much money as possible, that means one thing...casual gamers. Casual gamers are destroying all kinds of serious gameplay, consolization is really just the effect of a larger problem, which is game developers reducing game quality in order to appeal to a wider audience (casual gamers), if you look at games such as WoW you'll see this effect quite strongly, all the tough end game raiding that existed at launch is all but gone and the whole game is newb friendly now, it happened with ultima online before that and countless other game series/franchises.
 
spindoctor said:
They are keeping a very fun game constantly updated and entertaining for their community while they get to experiment with various systems (both ingame and outside the game). They have also created the most profitable microtransaction store of any single game outside of stuff like xbox live and psn which are complete platforms on their own.
Click to expand...

Citation needed.

Mav451 said:
Anyone who plays the game normally has no need to buy the items. Only fish/nubs would even consider spending a single cent for a Mann Co Item. Regular gameplay, you should have easily earned the items 10x over by now. I played on and off since 2007, and have all the items I need. Yeah I missing the set hats and all my crates are unopened, but you don't really need any of those to play.
Click to expand...

I think it's a case of luck. I've played since release and don't even have all the Valve-made alternate weapons, let alone community ones or any hats bar the halloween things. 216 hours according to steam.
 
Jellylesg said:
Citation needed.

I think it's a case of luck. I've played since release and don't even have all the Valve-made alternate weapons, let alone community ones or any hats bar the halloween things. 216 hours according to steam.
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I've played on and off, since 2007 - but usually in spurts. I.e. I played vanilla alot...but took a break. Came back about half a year later and played some more. Obviously came back when they had the whole soldier/demo hilarity. All this time, I was either getting weapons through achievements or normal play. I have 334 hours :D, but alot of that has been this past year, during the release of many of these weapons. Good timing for me I guess, but crafting very easily can fill in whatever you don't "find" in game.
http://tf2wiki.net/wiki/Crafting

My backpack has been maxed for a quite a while. Are you sure you don't even have the ingredients to craft the weapons you don't already have? I mean I had enough to craft a hat the hardway, but I changed my mind after clearing half of my backpack that way. I still have 3 reclaimed metal sitting atm - and with the increase drop rates, my backpack is already at 70% full with the increased drop rate in the past week.

I can understand frustrations during the idle server days...but those days are LONG over.
 
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The game is blatantely a free to play MMORPG now. Valve turned a fun arena shooter into a hack and slash/shooter PvP MMO with customizable costumes, inventory loadouts, item drops, grinding (regardless of how random it is, the length of time spent playing correlates to how likely you are to get crafting supplies, weapons, etc.), and even a store and microtransactions.

I uninstalled the game. I'm never touching that horrible thing again. I really miss Team Fortress Classic. I want some TFC Dustbowl and Avanti.
 
Most complaints about the game are unwarranted. The art style is still the same and the gameplay is the same. Obviously if you did not like those the game was no fun from day 1 but none of the hat updates or micro-transactions have changed the core of the game. Honestly the hats are nothing but visual appeal. Sure the hat sets are a change but they give no real unfair edge. The game is still the same just different hats.
 
Spare-Flair said:
The game is blatantely a free to play MMORPG now. Valve turned a fun arena shooter into a hack and slash/shooter PvP MMO with customizable costumes, inventory loadouts, item drops, grinding (regardless of how random it is, the length of time spent playing correlates to how likely you are to get crafting supplies, weapons, etc.), and even a store and microtransactions.
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You are so incorrect its not even funny. The game is still the same, if you dont care about hats just dont mess with them.
 
i lost interest the instant they added the unique item system. at that point it started to become a grind.
 
It becomes a grind only if you have some obsession with having every item in the game. How many times do people have to say it: you don't need any of them to play TF2.
 
LOL at the purists in a game, since the start, with the spy using a watch to cloak or disguise himself, most classes surviving a direct hit from soldier rockets, a sniper rifle that paints a visible 2-inch dot where it aims and gains power, and the engineer building a dual-chaingun rocket launcher from spare guns and scrap.

They also need to stand on glowing circles to secure combat dominance. And in some deaths, corpses become little red giblets.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
Valve have admitted that TF2 has become its testing ground, because it's a cartoony game they can try all sorts of wacky stuff like micro-transactions without upsetting too many people.

The fact is that valve like most other businesses are trying to pull in as much money as possible, that means one thing...casual gamers. Casual gamers are destroying all kinds of serious gameplay, consolization is really just the effect of a larger problem, which is game developers reducing game quality in order to appeal to a wider audience (casual gamers), if you look at games such as WoW you'll see this effect quite strongly, all the tough end game raiding that existed at launch is all but gone and the whole game is newb friendly now, it happened with ultima online before that and countless other game series/franchises.
Click to expand...


Actual valve admitted to wanting to test so many things they have released team fortress 2 Beta as to not affect the main game.
 
I am not obsessed by them but I find them immensely irritating along with all the stupid notifications who has found what, what achievements have been unlocked (I hate achievements) and all the pop up messages and hats and weapons superfluous garbage stacked onto the game.

Give me a button to hide all that, to disable achievements, to disable finding items, to disable the appearance of hats, hide the whole personalization and crafting menus completely etc. That wouldn't be too hard. Continue grinding for your items and achievements and wearing your hats if you want to, just make them invisible to me.

It's also not true that the gameplay is the same. The existence of such things along with people hunting for items and achivements means people are playing for those things instead of trying to accomplish the objectives. There's nothing that pisses me off more in team gameplay in videogames and in real life sports, etc. where people are playing for selfish reasons, get distracted by personal stats, get distracted by other aspects of the game/sports, lose focus of the actual objective and start doing other things instead of working together for the one thing that really counts -> for the team to win. You can see this for example in real life capture the flag paintball where people get distracted trying to get the most kills instead of trying to capture the flag. It's the same in the virtual world.
 
Spare-Flair said:
There's nothing that pisses me off more in team gameplay in videogames and in real life sports, etc. where people are playing for selfish reasons, get distracted by personal stats, get distracted by other aspects of the game/sports, lose focus of the actual objective and start doing other things instead of working together for the one thing that really counts -> for the team to win. You can see this for example in real life capture the flag paintball where people get distracted trying to get the most kills instead of trying to capture the flag. It's the same in the virtual world.
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I don't know if you realize this, but most online FPSs have this problem lol.

AceCR42 said:
It becomes a grind only if you have some obsession with having every item in the game. How many times do people have to say it: you don't need any of them to play TF2.
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Yeah sadly nobody is listening.
 
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TF2 is fun, gameplay has not unbalanced with added items and store.



But - these expensive microtransactions are annoying. First of all, Im a bit of a compulsive personality myself and while I've only bought 2 keys out of curiosity and will never buy more, there is still something tempting about letting loose and gambling the shit out of my wallet to get that cool item I don't have.
It's no problem, but it means that the game isn't as enjoyable as back in the day for me.
This game is now a Farmville-ish money scheme in my head.

Also, two other things:
1. There are a lot of idle and trade maps, and when I join a Premium server (happens often) there is likely always a ton of visual shit going on.
2. The community is now reduced to shit IMO. I usually use the Steam forums to discuss, give tips, etc, and with a game like Killing Floor, it is all the greater because the developers actually post in threads, listen to and comment suggestions, things like that. I'd rather reuse toilet paper five times than partake in the TF2 forums these days. Half of threads are about items/trading, the other half pointless clown threads by 12 year olds - if you comment with so much as a hint of rationality in any of those, you will be flamed.
Example: Killing Floor/TF2 collaboration sale mid-December - KF got a fantastic christmas event and added pyro character, while TF2 got a pyro hat and necktie. The majority of threads about this event on both games' forums that week were by zealous TF2ies and were whining about vintage/nonvintage hat+tie or about inflation/trade/"value" on same items.



I do find the whole implementation of a lot of community made stuff into TF2 appealing, but I fear that the insane paychecks now going to the creators of the polycount-items have now broken the principal of it.
 
Mav451 said:
I've played on and off, since 2007 - but usually in spurts. I.e. I played vanilla alot...but took a break. Came back about half a year later and played some more. Obviously came back when they had the whole soldier/demo hilarity. All this time, I was either getting weapons through achievements or normal play. I have 334 hours :D, but alot of that has been this past year, during the release of many of these weapons. Good timing for me I guess, but crafting very easily can fill in whatever you don't "find" in game.
http://tf2wiki.net/wiki/Crafting

My backpack has been maxed for a quite a while. Are you sure you don't even have the ingredients to craft the weapons you don't already have? I mean I had enough to craft a hat the hardway, but I changed my mind after clearing half of my backpack that way. I still have 3 reclaimed metal sitting atm - and with the increase drop rates, my backpack is already at 70% full with the increased drop rate in the past week.

I can understand frustrations during the idle server days...but those days are LONG over.
Click to expand...

Positive, I have one full page and about three items on the second. I did have a bit of fun with crafting when it started but I just one refined metal and then my unlocks. Only one or two duplicates.

Mav451 said:
I don't know if you realize this, but most online FPSs have this problem lol.
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It's far more prevalent in TF2. In fact that's my main gripe with the game, not the drops system. I don't care about that, whatever, but TF2 is a teamplay-oriented game where exactly 1% of the players play as a team. There's not even any stats tracking to explain it, the people playing it are just the worst gamers.
 
I decided not to spend time or money on this whole items thing and continue enjoying the game, other people enjoy hats, good for them.

now seriously, as an engineer in Double Cross, how to get on top of the enemy rooftop? It didn’t work when I tried but I guess building a dispenser and jump from it is a way. any other ways?
 
Must we have another one of these threads every month?

This game is that same as always, if you cant get over "the hats", quit playing.
The other 20,000 of us that play everyday, wont miss you.

I've been playing this game for 2 years now. They've added new weapons and hats. Oooooooooo, big game breakin stuff there.... gimmie a fucking break.
 
So they did add micro transactions? I was going to let my 4 year old play (like we used to) but I see the micro screen and said "You can't play this game anymore." I thought it was a joke, but apparently not. He loved to be the scout with the baseball bat and just run around and hit people.
 
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