Well, they finally did it...

MAGIC

... they made the game suck.

Nice work on making item unlocks random, dumb asses. :shakehead

Thrax

Tell me more. I don't get what you mean? I'm curious about it.

GnomeQueen

Instead of earning achievements, which in stages unlock new weapons for each class, you now obtain those weapons entirely randomly. Like, you just get a notice saying "you have found the backburner" and you have a new weapon, regardless of whether or not you have played that class extensively or done any achievements. The achievements are now meaningless except to say that you have them, and there's no guarantee that you're going to get the weapons you want in a given time frame.

primesuspect

I agree that it sucks for many reasons; but at the same time it makes achievement whoring obsolete, which is a very good thing.

BlackHawk

I can deal with achievement whores more than I can deal with this unlock system.

MiracleManS

I think its nice for people like me capable of getting the items without having to play a class to death. There are some items I'd like to try out that would likely change my opinion of the class (looking at the pyro mostly).

Edit: Just found this interview http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1124

MAGIC

Well, the classes i enjoy are the ones i have even bothered getting the unlockables in: Medic and heavy. The only others i would really care to get them in is sniper and Engi. I played for like 4 hours yesterday trying to get any of the sniper items and i was rewarded with unlocking the Axtinguiser, 4 times. Now whenever i play i will just be annoyed.

Garg

That's really weird. I mean, I'd like a system that makes it a little easier to get the weapons without achievement whoring, but this one sounds ridiculous.

Sciz

primesuspect wrote:

I agree that it sucks for many reasons; but at the same time it makes achievement whoring obsolete, which is a very good thing.

I'd rather deal with the idiots who achievement whore then have my 17 achievements as a spy and not a single new unlockable...Frustrating is an understatement and underwhelming is a decent way to put it. My vocab isn't great so bare with me. Regardless, I have a friend who has been playing all night, literally almost 10 or 11 hours straight (free weekend but he is buying it now). He has only unlocked the natascha randomly as well as the ambassador. In my like 4 hours of playing I got BONK!, Butslauger, KGB, and Kritzkrieg, all of which I already fucking have so I deleted them from my briefcase. FUCK the new update...

MAGIC

Everyone send a bug report and complain about it. Im sure most others are pissed about it. This wont stay like this long im sure.

Linc

It's possible the idea is sound but that last night's play was buggy. Redundant item-getting doesn't seem like something Valve would do on purpose.

Thrax

That sounds pretty god damn lame, not gonna lie. I always saw unlockables as a reward for quality play. I've never received anything but the flare gun, but the sense of accomplishment was great because I knew I played well to get it.

Oh well. Everything gets nerfed for casuals.

Sciz

I have been frequenting the Steam community forums...appraently 99% of the community feels the same way. Plus people have already been getting "hats" as well from the random unlocks. In my playing last night I saw nothing of a hat of any type unlocked. Apparently the Pyro gets a propeller cap, and the engi gets a mining helmet. For now they are just cosmetic. Still though, 17 fuckin spy achievements and 12 Sniper and nothing to show for it...that's just wrong. Let them achievement whore..that's the point of it. Valve says they are making it RPG esque, well newflash Valve, RPG is all about farming...

Sciz

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/giveustf2back?

Join this group and complain.

MiracleManS

From the interview I linked, it looked like they wanted it to be randomly possible AND possible through game play. I think this is broken.

pragtastic

I played from server release to 2am last night, not 1 single f*&%'ing unlock all night. I hate this.

Sciz

MiracleManS wrote:

From the interview I linked, it looked like they wanted it to be randomly possible AND possible through game play. I think this is broken.

Agreed, it's like they are "testing" out the new system on us. Fuck that, just test it yourself first and when you realize it's broken then don't release the update. Take another day if you have to. I'd rather not have the update right now if I knew it would work properly after this weekend then have it be like this.

MiracleManS

Sciz wrote:

Agreed, it's like they are "testing" out the new system on us. Fuck that, just test it yourself first and when you realize it's broken then don't release the update. Take another day if you have to. I'd rather not have the update right now if I knew it would work properly after this weekend then have it be like this.

No matter how hard they test it internally, they don't have a legion of 20-30k+ people playing the game constantly to do the kind of testing necessary for this sort of change.

Sciz

MiracleManS wrote:

No matter how hard they test it internally, they don't have a legion of 20-30k+ people playing the game constantly to do the kind of testing necessary for this sort of change.

Problem is they don't have to. You realize how broken the system is?? People are sitting in servers afk all day now and getting random unlocks when they get back. You don't even have to fucking play, they could've tested that and you know it.

BuddyJ

They said they're quite willing to use the public as guinea pigs as a way to see if things are good or bad. I think the reaction thus far is it's not a popular change. Hopefully they'll see it as such.

Sciz

Buddy J wrote:

They said they're quite willing to use the public as guinea pigs as a way to see if things are good or bad. I think the reaction thus far is it's not a popular change. Hopefully they'll see it as such.

Agreed, the public is saying "fuck your new update give us back the old TF2" so I think they will listen. If they don't I think people will literally stop playing TF2 until it's fixed. I mean seriously, sitting in spec all day and earning unlocks...that's pathetic.

Sciz

Just found this posted on that group I joined. Funny shit.

It was the 21st of May.
And happy was thought the Day.
That Valve would let us Play.
But the update took too Long.
And the Weapon Drop System was Wrong.
New weapons to no player Belonged.
For Valve did not Say that they threw Pro Players Away.
For this Valve will surely PAY. $$$

MiracleManS

Sciz wrote:

Agreed, the public is saying "fuck your new update give us back the old TF2" so I think they will listen. If they don't I think people will literally stop playing TF2 until it's fixed. I mean seriously, sitting in spec all day and earning unlocks...that's pathetic.

Meh, I don't think its that big a deal. The weapons themselves aren't exactly game breaking, I think Valve did a good job of making sure they fit with the style of the game.

I dislike the idea that I have to spend countless time getting weapons that obviously have a use. I LOVE playing the Heavy class, so I managed to get the unlocks, but there are times that I need to play other classes and not having some of those situational weapons basically makes me question playing those classes (despite the need of the team) because I can't be effective in that role that is needed.

pragtastic

Yeah, I understand the idea of making weapons accessible to those who don't play the other classes very often, but the flip side of this infuriates me.

I have countless hours logged as a sniper. I can continue playing my class all day long, earning all the achievements and never 'find' one of the unlocks. There is absolutely zero control over it, which in my opinion, makes it about as stupid an idea as is feasibly possible in its current state.

MAGIC

You dont raid in an MMO to get gear for a class you dont play. The time you put into playing a particular class should be rewarded with advances for that class, it only makes sense.

pragtastic

At the very absolute minimum, Valve should have incorporated a system where player's would basically auto-find items after meeting baseline game play levels. My suggestion would be something like a forced unlock (it could still be random I guess) after every 2 hours of game play or 10-20 achievements unlocked.

This way players can actually do *something* in the way of obtaining items on a predictable basis rather than just hoping you mysteriously *find an item* for no apparent reason.

Thrax

AQ Gates.

Myrmidon

Whoa.

Man, I'm glad I already have all the unlocks for the classes I play.

Winfrey

Valve,

fix this shit

Thanks,
Winfrey

CB

I do think that the system of forcing people to whore achievements to get the items was not working, personally. Those who play casually or who aren't very good at the game were being discouraged from playing (yes, that's a bad thing).

I don't think that this new system is working the way they intended it to. It just doesn't make sense, but I'm glad they are trying to do something other than basing it on achievements.

Frankly, a better system than this new one would just be to give everyone access to all of the items. Maybe make the cosmetic items something that need to be earned, but let everyone have access to the game-changing stuff.

This isn't an MMORPG.

Norge

I don't play the game but to me this seems pretty ridiculous. Having weapon rewards be 100% random makes no sense and is just discouraging. An experience based system seems more reasonable. That way they can adjust the experience curve. Set it so when you swap to a new class you have to put some time into it but not so much to discourage playing it. With the experience curve set right a player new to a class would have enough play time in to understand the class well enough to actually know how to properly use the new weapon they just received. Hardcore players will get their weapons without having to wait on the random aspect. It means hardcore players will have all the weapons fairly quickly but that is the end result this random system will give anyhow.

Norge