Team Fortress 2 Megathread - winter is the most chill time of year

[next nymph]

I think you're both right. Like mcoms is correct that live service games need players to be viable and if you don't get the players then it'll fail, but you're right that that this relies on an understanding that valve will keep supporting the game and address the issues of the time (even if they don't "fix" everything and they introduce more issues, as long as they're trying) and there was 0 indication that this would happen. It just was not in the cards to expect the entire community (not just comp) to suck it up for an inferior experience in the vague hope that valve might eventually start treating tf2 like a huge esport

[left sand]

it did not help that it was 3am and i was fighting fortnite's editor to make a simple healing mechanic for 10 hours straight

[languid haven]

to be honest comp is what ruins games if you focus too much, if weapons are built around being fun then on whether they're fair to fight with and against then finally determining if it's too similar to a previous weapon. is the best way to balance a weapon or to add new ones that aren't bad.

no one plays comp because all it does is restrict how you're allowed to play the game fair or not.

there goal of comp is consistent and predictable gameplay, shit that no one watches. 64bit casual matches would make a better Esport.

not because it makes sense or is stupid but the fact it's not always predictable and keeps your attention for more than 5 mins. although not to say random crits should stay in it but instead maybe random minicrits.

[livid oracle]

im going to be honest

everything you just said felt like a slurry of words barely connected to each other

i could not derive any considerable meaning from this paragraph

[languid haven]

give me a break, i only got 2 hours of sleep

also some idiots think sharpened volcano fragment being added to comp somehow matters.

[grim parcel]

biggest change to the meta in years

[livid oracle]

like this one makes zero sense idk what you actually mean here

[limpid panther]

Here it is! The same hardware as my other benchmark, but on Windows 11:

• The demo used is of a 12v12 casual match on pier, with players wearing cosmetics (no unusuals, unfortunately). This demo was chosen because it has a little bit of everything: water, ragdolls, explosions, gibs, fire, things at different lods, cosmetics, etc.
• "high" and "low" correspond to the max and minimum graphical settings that you can set through in-game menus (except for anti-aliasing and blur, which were turned off for every test, but including advanced options like the hud playermodel)
• You saw that right:the x64 beta on high performs almost better than mastercomfig_low and better than low
• The SVG fametime data is averaged over 5ms
• You should open up the SVG file in you browser to easily scroll through the data. If you open it up in Illustrator similar programs you are gonna have a bad time.
• Looking at the frametime data you can see that the improvement is basically the same over the entire demo, this is probably because the demo itself is kind of homogeneous. Maybe I should make a more synthetic demo file to check out where most of the improvement actually lies
• Timedemo distorts the relative improvements between tests, so I'm not using that. Please read the notes under the graphs to understand the setup and options used
• I've included a video of the demo file.
• I will not create a graph that includes both Windows and Linux because I don't believe they are directly and fully comparable, since the game looks slightly different even at the same graphical options on either platform. But SOME comparisons can be drawn: #1072696252162117752 message

[livid oracle]

linuc

[languid haven]

that's a windows 11

[livid oracle]

like 1st sentence is just false on all accounts and 2nd sentence is a nonsense sentence that doesnt seem to mean anything or is connected to anything

[limpid panther]

linux has better averages across the board, except for mastercomfig_low without the beta

[languid haven]

ok so why would useless weapons need to be removed from comp if they have no impact? why would it be so important?

[livid oracle]

does the demo have parts where you look at particles at close range

[kind falcon]

@limpid panther what are the ram timings and speed.

brand and chips

[livid oracle]

what

[limpid panther]

I think a rocket is shot at your feet at one point. You can check that out in the video I included

[livid oracle]

i mainly was thinking of like

the heal particles

or looking at a burning player up close

[kind falcon]

cow mangler too good for sixes

[limpid panther]

(8GBx2) TEAMGROUP-UD4-3000 16-18-18-38

[languid haven]

that has cause my game to suffer when getting close to a lot of enemies burning in the same spot.

[kind falcon]

bless your computer with some netac shadows

🙏

[limpid panther]

hwinfo doesn't list the chip manufacturer, but you can probably look it up with the ram model

[languid haven]

idk why particles would cause lag since i assume they're just supposed to be imgs but could be the transparency or something.

[limpid panther]

I do that in the demo

[kind falcon]

amount of them

(very meny.)

[limpid panther]

also heal and crusader's crossbow particles visible and close by throughout

[languid haven]

do most of them get culled at a distance?

wouldn't make sens for 60 fps at a distances but 5 upclose.

[livid oracle]

they have more pixels when theyre up close

something about having a bunch of transparent shit on top of each other or whatever i dont remember exactly

[limpid panther]

huh?

[languid haven]

idk why there's no way to just calculate the alpha's value and say "anymore particles in this area won't change what you see but can degrade performance"

[livid oracle]

idk waht thatm eans

[limpid panther]

nvm, it has better averages across the board I read the chart wrong

[grim parcel]

impossible i thought the nvidia driver was meant to be doodoo

[next nymph]

its kinda funny to say this because that was moreso grapevine's point and less so mcoms: the main reason comp bans weapons because those weapons are just terribly unfun to play with/against (either in general or specifically because of the format)

[grim parcel]

this is awesome to see though kenaj, great work! :)

[next nymph]

people like comp because the format is oriented towards what's actually oriented to fun, and didn't like valve comp because its got a bunch of unfun stuff too (what mcoms was saying people should just suck it up and play to win)

[next nymph]

have you watched comp before

[potent wolf]

64bit!?

[formal dew]

sixty-four bits

[grim parcel]

i prefer 32bit casual matches personally

[languid haven]

rarely, sometimes good but they don't often allow sniper or demoknights.

[left sand]

fun is extremely subjective

[next nymph]

I'm not sure what your point here is. Sharpened volcano fragment is already unbanned. I think the only people thinking it matters are people under the misunderstanding that it's banned and draw conclusions about their unfounded assumptions

[left sand]

people who use the wrangler are having fun

people who like that mechanic, find it very fun to balance dps, healing, etc and tank an uber

so its not fair to say that comp bans weapons that are unfun

[languid haven]

played on a server that disabled the aim assist, never had more trouble aiming in a game

[left sand]

they ban weapons that are outside of the 6s mindset

whos to say that sniping a medic is fun

[next nymph]

should I have said "prefered game design for the target audience" instead? You know what I mean

[left sand]

its not fun for the medic but because of the mindset of 6s balance, its fair to have a basically perma sniper offclass roamer

[languid haven]

says the sout or spy who kills them

or a demoknight since they directly counter snipers

[left sand]

yes but the target audience is very different when we are talking about 6s players solely and people who want to play tf2 seriously/competitively

so you cant just assume it, thats my whole point

[languid haven]

this is just the average community 2fort player

no really some take it really seriously

[left sand]

the point of competition, and really play in general, is to be given a set of constraints by a ruleset, and to excel within that ruleset.

not to then bend that ruleset to skew play in a prefered direction. that would be a different game.

[next nymph]

idk I feel like this is stretching it. I have extreme doubts that there's this mass of players who want to play competitively and would form the competitive community, if only they had a wrangler. I think it's a safe assumption to make

[left sand]

no, thats not necessarily what im saying

maybe half of those do that

and maybe the other half sucks it up and plays the 6s game

thats my point

[next nymph]

my point is that game design still exists and it's not enough to just want to excel under a set of constraints, those constraints have to actually be what people want to play

[languid haven]

comp is mostly dead because no one likes random rules, it's stupid and we already have that issue in community servers with RTD being in every god damn server.

[left sand]

that is true but whos to say the 6s game is what people want to play?

[small siren]

*that is true but whos

to say the 6s game is what

people want to play?*

- mcoms

[left sand]

and also, pure fun is not equal to enjoyment

theres many types of enjoyment

adversarial experiences, especially where different sets of players can carve a niche, and excel in a specific adversarial climate, is where the best competitive games come from

ultimately, fun is extremely subjective, according to all theories of it. so it depends entirely on the audience, and i cannot see any other way of describing the 6s playstyle as anything other than self selecting

[languid haven]

i don't mind taking the game seriously but if restrictions are even mentioned. just use stock cause it's pointless to argue about which weapons should be removed cause then you get into the arguement of what classes get crits and you end up either removing a class or something dumb.

[left sand]

the point of a game design is not to smooth everything out

[next nymph]

To be frank, I don't know. I haven't gone and rigorously tested tf2's design and analyzed it with design principles. I cannot tell you how to balance the game properly, nor am I trying to.

But I'm pretty confident tf2's current state is not there, and I think it's a reasonable concern that valve was probably never going to embrace tf2 to the extent of dota or csgo to do what needs to get there (for a variety of reasons that this would not happen)

[languid haven]

comp is, have you seen the configs some use? it's like plastic

[left sand]

but when the choice is between giving valve a chance and not, why would you choose the latter

what is the downside

can you please explain that to me

whats the downside of sticking through comp for a few months

people abandoned it first day

you can still play scrims, you can still play in the 6s community

just queue for ranked matchmaking in your normal playing sessions

[languid haven]

you mean CS:2. unlike tf2, csgo was completely abandoned.

tf2 a least gets fixes everynow and then but it really was the end of the line for CSGO

[potent wolf]

cs2 is ultimately still csgo

[languid haven]

it's not, can't even run it without better hardware.

i can run switch games at 30 fps but can't run cs2

[small siren]

*i can run switch games

at 30 fps but

can't run cs2*

- jimbimbum

[potent wolf]

what does hardware have to do with balance

[languid haven]

graphics and major engine changes making you need beefier hardware

[next nymph]

See this is where I think you're fairly correct mcoms, I think ideally it wouldn't have been abandonned as quickly. Especially from valve's perspective and for the ultimate state of the playerbase, I think it would've been much better to

My only hesitation is that "opt into a worse experience for however long it takes and maybe things will get better eventually, no promises though" is a very hard sell, and it's tough for me to blame the playerbase on rejecting that

[small siren]

*graphics and major

engine changes making you

need beefier hardware*

- jimbimbum

[languid haven]

do i just fucking speak in haikus?

[left sand]

csgo launch was rough.

dota launch was rough.

there was no indication that these games would really succeed.

[languid haven]

yeah if people wanted that they can just go play overwatch 2. look what happened.

[left sand]

but the pro players thought well, between choosing languishing just as we always have, and valve supporting our competitive scene

then well,

we should choose the option that has a chance of valve supporting our competitive scene

because lets say valve fails

then youre in the same place

no harm

if you dont support valve at all, youre in the same position as if valve failed

[languid haven]

anyone remember that comp tf2 servers that had it's own kernal anti-cheat that still got bypassed?

[left sand]

and maybe played through like a culmulative 100 hours or so of bad matchmaking

dota literally did the first international without all the heroes, a lot of the skills were buggy or half implemented, none of the art was there

the meta of the first international was so skewed because counters to heroes did not exist since they were not implemented

[next nymph]

I think csgo and dota had a major advantage in being singificantly different games. People wanted to migrate to them because they could see there was something there as a tangible improvement over dota 1 or css. There was an understanding that these would get stuff sorted out eventually because they were ramping up

TF2 wasn't in the same situation and it certainly didn't feel like that was a safe bet

[languid haven]

thing is what does valve even get out of comp? that's why tf22 has paid to enter comp matchmaking because they get something out of it.

[left sand]

cs:s was abandoned entirely at that point.

it felt like valve was out of their element for cs.

[languid haven]

csgo is too at this point

[left sand]

no one had much confidence in cs:go

but they knew it was the game's future

so they gave it a shot

[languid haven]

it looked fun but not something i'd care if it were an esport

[left sand]

and i have no idea how on earth you could claim that tf2 wasnt in the same spot

everyone was bemoaning how tf2 comp was languishing

[small siren]

*everyone was

bemoaning how tf2

comp was languishing*

- mcoms

[next nymph]

they weren't releasing tf3, that's what I mean

[left sand]

and valve comes out with a huge new matchmaking system

yes but they were releasing a new matchmaking system

it was ramping up

they literally launched an entirely new feature that completely reworked how the game was played

[languid haven]

i prefer valve pub servers honestly. less bots too

[left sand]

how can you see that launch and go, oh valve isnt doing work on this

[small siren]

*how can you see that

launch and go, oh valve isnt

doing work on this*

- mcoms

[languid haven]

because CSGO and CS2 are not the same. it's a port to a engine with more graphics.

[left sand]

gun mettle was literally a revitalization to the game's balance to be more competitively oriented, and they continued to make improvements update after update (tough break after that)

[languid haven]

was it entirely finished on launch? no, did it need more time in the oven? yes but what game doesn't these days?

[left sand]

and then they launched meet your match

[runic dew]

valve added turbine to the map pool, removed it after backlash, and secretly added it again later

[left sand]

how could you not see that as valve trying and the game being on the up and up

[languid haven]

i knew gunmettle wouldn't be permanent and i hate it for that reason.

it just wasn't long enough.

instead i'm stuck with a shitty contracker that is just sitting in the background being useless.

[left sand]

they literally sucked the soul out of the game, all for competitive players

removed almost every casual mechanic in the game, including the sandman

[kind falcon]

2forts

[languid haven]

yeah, kinda why i hate comp. let them decide and they'll decide to force it down everyone's throats which is why i don't want them to get even an inch cause they take a mile then they'll try to take everything. theey have vscript andd sourcemod. comp is a community thing and needs to stay that way.

if they want to hold events sure, don't expect valve to do it for you and with people giving a shit enough they can make their own rebalance or changes on their own servers and if no one likes it then just don't play on it but the way gun mettle did that shows why the game can't be competitive, it will ruin it for everyone else.

i still haate that stupid GRU change

i know heeavy is strong but 100 HP is less than a scout

[small siren]

*i know heeavy is

strong but 100 HP

is less than a scout*

- jimbimbum

[languid haven]

i hate this bot

[unborn pecan]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/1085675210021281842.webp?size=48&quality=lossless&name=STARE

don't disrespect haiku bot

[languid haven]

no, it has no soul, it's not real.

[unborn pecan]

you are not real.....

[stuck locust]

hi haikubot

[unborn pecan]

I love you @small siren

[languid haven]

is jarareking ok? they've been typing this whole time even through my rant.

[next nymph]

it's tough to be in this kinda argument because on the one hand I understand where you're coming from and I agree with some of your main points. Like yeah, valve was making changes. Some of them were big changes! But I remember feeling back then that it felt kinda like it was taking quite some time, and even that felt like a burst of effort by a smaller team that probably wouldn't stick around and maintain pace (let alone accelerate it) even if valve comp was a reasonable success. It sucks that it flopped that hard and it's stupid that some of the contributing factors were essentially misinformation by players, but it was obvious it was never gonna eclipse dota or cs or anything like that. And it felt like it had to do that to be sustainable. And sure, people could've sticked around to try longer, as far as the playerbase goes it would've been great to, but I don't think it's fair to blame (a small subset of) the playerbase for something that was realistically not going to happen

I dunno mcoms, I just feel like you're using reasonable perspectives on playerbases to make unreasonable arguments against a relatively small subsection of the playerbase. It's stuff like going from "the mindset should be about exceling under the game's constraints" to "they literally sucked the soul out of the game" -- two seemingly incompatible stances in my mind (do the particulars of the constraints matter or not?) that are only held together by "fuck comp players" -- that makes me thing you're overstepping the argument

[left sand]

sorry for the negative connotation

i should have said, sucked the original soul out of the game and inserted a new soul

tf2 when it was made was very care free and casual oriented

its not about saying fuck comp players, the point is that they hard committed

and just steered tf2 into a new direction, for nothing

all for nothing

like im saying the very essence of decisions that led to the sandman being a stun

those were sucked out

in favor of a new approach

which can be argued, yes is better, especially if you want to be a competitive game

but to drastically change the vision and pillars of the game

all for a comp playerbase that ultimately did not help

i feel like your feelings may have been a mix of valid sentiment as well as bias, as they always are for anyone

if you look back at it, they did everything fast

[next nymph]

I've done a bit more thinking about it and I guess the way I'd put it is "all these problems are excusable as unavoidable or blameless unfortunate circumstances -- unless they could have something to do with comp players, in that case they're the ones who are wrong." Like seeing what playerbases do as nothing more than just responding to circumstance, but not extending that same courtesy to the comp playerbase

[left sand]

we were just viewing things through a certain emotional lens

because the comp player is motivated and directed

they bemoan the objective of trying to get their comp scene off the ground

the casual playerbase has no centralized directive or motive

they just wanna play the game, and it really isnt opinionated

[next nymph]

oh absolutely, but my point is more "I remember the emotional lens I was viewing it from, and I understand that many (most?) other players viewed it in a similar way, so I think it's hard to critique the actions of the playerbase as if they weren't under that emotional lens"

[left sand]

yes but the csgo playerbase, the competitive players

realized this

they were like

oh shit, we need to get out of this emotional state

because this is the future of the game

the future of counter strike as an esport

we could be big now

if the comp players are going to direct the developer to change their ways, and then not participate in the very thing they asked for, the thing that would help them get what they want

then i can absolutely blame them for that

im not even saying everyone is faultless, this is your position

i am just merely pointing out the fault of one group

i did not exclude anything else

and yes, sure, valve could have CERTAINLY just thrown money on a million dollar tournament and that would have just shut everyone up

i can concede that

but in terms of the risk to them, thats a much larger risk than people sucking up a non-perfect matchmaking to play their favorite game

[next nymph]

I dunno, I can't help but feel that last point is a little hollow when it's been repeatedly pointed out "this required a lot of things from every area of the playerbase" and your response has mostly been "but it's the comp players who are at fault here" as if implicitly every other subgroup is excluded from this

[left sand]

or at least, a variant of their favorite game

i definitely think the onus is on the competitive players more than any other group

and i explained why above

the competitive community is a relatively small, but very visible group. most of the streamers and clip creators at the time were competitive or competitive oriented. they are also largely aligned on their goals to make a tf2 esport for their own benefit. the general playerbase is just a chaotic soup of whatever. you cant really point to anything there.

and again, valve could have thrown $1 million to a tournament

and shut everyone up, got everyone participating that way

but for some reason, they didnt want to take that risk before they reshaped the community

and thats their fault, perhaps, for not taking that risk

but i can also criticize the competitive playerbase, which is largely homogenous with maybe slight variance (especially comparatively so to the entire population), which has the largest voices in the community, etc

which just completely dropped the ball as an advocacy group

advocacy groups dont have to be the entire population

they just need to be enough eager, motivated people who advocate for a goal

and for people who largely keep saying omg it sucks that tf2 didnt become an esport

well, i cant really see it as anything else besides what i have said

rather than being an advocacy group, they instead contributed to sabotage.

like why would you do that?

and this happens every time

i remember even before valve stepped in, other major esports players, i believe one in the UK (maybe it was faceit?) offered to make tf2 into an esport (like 2011?) and the community just couldnt get it together

and its like, okay, well if you wanna just keep being this small 300 person thing forever, cool.

do that

but dont claim that you did everything you could and its just that everyone else wasnt fair to you!

[next nymph]

yeah, I can agree there for the most part. Maybe it's just a "agree to disagree" situation but I don't know how much of comp players are as an advocacy group, though: the chaotic soup of whatever that is the general playerbase was absolutely needed to make valve comp a success, and I don't know how much b4nny saying "we need to get our shit together and make it work" would be listened to by the general playerbase

[wheat moon]

Teeth Fart Dress 2 c:

[left sand]

i dont specifically label comp players as an advocacy group just because they are comp players

i do that because how much they bemoan the loss of tf2 as an esport

as if it was just everyone mistreating them

and they had nothing to do with sabotaging their own chances

like if youre going to constantly and consistently complain about conditions, why actively try to keep those conditions

[next nymph]

they did, absolutely. But I don't think tf2 would be an esport in an alternate universe where the comp community as a group did everything right

[left sand]

i do think so

because you can see that happen in other games

and sure

observationally, we cant really know for sure

but i would say theres a heck of a big chance

and one day, valve is going to pick tf2 up again out of boredom

or the tf ip

and i hope to god

that this time

the comp community will welcome them with open arms

[next nymph]

I think that's really the root of it. We're arguing over hypothetical untestable alternate universes. I can't say for sure that tf2 wouldn't be a major esport if things went differently, but I'm not taking it on faith that it would be either

[left sand]

but why not have that positivity to at least try?

like at the end of it, we're advocating for either a completely angry community which spits on everything handed to them

or a community that is welcoming, forgiving, understanding

even if it didnt turn out great

i would have felt it was more pleasant if there was a body of comp players that earnestly give everything a chance, give constructive feedback after that period, etc.

and tftv is definitely not where that happens

and unfortunately, thats where the community is

[next nymph]

I think the tf2 community, and in particular the comp community, should become more welcoming, forgiving, and understanding. But I think it should do it for its own sake, I don't know if it ought to be motivated by financial success and social prestige

[left sand]

for sure

im just pointing that out as a consequence

which is why i was talking about mindset, taking things with more humility rather than ego

[next nymph]

fair enough

[left sand]

and yes, the tf2 community should be better but IMO tftv is a much worse cesspool than reddit

like at least reddit is largely socially liberal, very accepting of people, etc

tftv is just a step away from an imageboard

[next nymph]

too many unchecked chuds on tftv

then a big thread about a serious topic like sexual assault comes out and all the serious members of the community say "we need to do better" and the chuds get downfragged and then a month later nothing changes

[cursive peak]

Too many meme lords and not enough people at the top telling them to fuck off.

It did at least seem to get more toxic when the old guard of the top talent started bleeding off.

At least on the HL side.

[misty plover]

Honestly that's the entire valve community as of late for whatever reason

If its slightly different to what they want they throw a tantrum

I saw perople complaining about the half life remaster even though its amazing in every way

[zealous pond]

Most cries for "balance" are smokescreens for self-serving agendas. 😀

[cursive peak]

Right, fixing under/over powered weapons is just an agenda.

[zealous pond]

Yup.

[left sand]

ego driven agenda

[cursive peak]

How much of a piece of shit do you have to be to think that "Gee willikers, it's awful to fix a game!"?

[potent wolf]

you really can't go 5 seconds without insulting someone, can you

[crisp cedar]

there needs to be a papyrus/scroll emote

📜

oh

perfectr

[cursive peak]

Who's ego driven agenda was it to split the Equalizer?

[small siren]

*Who's ego driven

agenda was it to split

the Equalizer?*

- steamworks

[zealous pond]

Fix a game based around what, exactly? If someone advocates for the Wrangler being OP, what is the objective basis for that? Because it interferes with the advocate's preferred mode of play? Because it wastes that person's time with stalemates? Because it centers the entire game around it irrespective of mode, format, map, or condition? Spoiler: it's not the latter.

[zealous pond]

People that don't like being one-shot by Soldiers moving at Scout speed.

[small siren]

*People that don't like

being one-shot by Soldiers

moving at Scout speed.*

- lordexor

[cursive peak]

So it'd be perfectly fine to have a weapon with a hitbox big enough to kill everyone on a map that does a million DPS?

Fixing it would be wrong.

[zealous pond]

I said most not all.

And there are conditions where such a weapon could have a legitimate use in a game loop.

[cursive peak]

It'd just be some shit agenda by people who didn't like it.

[small siren]

*It'd just be some

shit agenda by people

who didn't like it.*

- steamworks

[cursive peak]

I'm talking a TF2 weapon with that design.

Just spawn and hold down mouse1 to kill the entire other team constantly.

No counter play at all.

[zealous pond]

And how many weapons in the history of TF2 satisfy that condition.

[cursive peak]

You're the one insisting anyone wanting an OP weapon fixed has an agenda.

A selfish one at that.

[zealous pond]

"Most..." And specifically within the context of TF2, there have been very few weapons that are egregiously OP to the point where the opposing players may as well just give up and uninstall.

[cursive peak]

There was a brief time where the arrow hitbox for the Festive Huntsman was broken. You could fire the damn thing down a hallway and hit anyone standing in it. Might as well have been an arrow wider than Heavy.

Should that have been left?

[zealous pond]

That's a bug.

[cursive peak]

It made it overpowered, though.

[zealous pond]

But it's an unintended bug. I don't see how that factors in here. We're not discussing bug fixes.

[cursive peak]

Maybe you have an agenda ignoring the overpowered nature of the damn thing and dismissing it as a bug.

"Everyone who takes issue with balance is a narcissist"

[potent wolf]

seems pretty fun, they should bring it back

[cursive peak]

Yes, it's fun to be hit by an arrow 10 feet to your left. Fuck off you ignorant piece of shit.

[potent wolf]

LOL

[cursive peak]

This is why you're human filth.

[potent wolf]

LMAO

[tough locust]

you must be fun at parties

[zealous pond]

That example is not a balance issue

[left sand]

steamworks, i feel like we have given you way too much leeway

you can't be this toxic to people

even if they frustrated you by saying different opinions in a non combative way

if you do it again, ill have to ban you

[cursive peak]

There's not a better way to shut down the jokes.

[zealous pond]

And I also never said that people proposing balance changes were narcissists, merely that they tend to have personal stakes in the issues they're deeming problematic. A Scout main or someone playing 6v6 claiming Natascha is bad for TF2 because it impairs mobility in a game supposedly defined by its advanced movement (two out of nine classes are defined by advanced movement) is self-serving. Someone that plays primarily Engineer is probably not going to care what minigun the Heavy uses and typically isn't the person making a thread about it on r/trueft2. They're overstating the impact of this weapon because they want to advance a narrative that portrays something as far more of an issue than it is.

And rinse and repeat for the majority of weapons people complain about, especially now.

[left sand]

if you're joking, i dont think people are in on it

please make it more clear

[cursive peak]

I was talking about others throwing in jokes in the middle of serious conversations.

[zealous pond]

He's saying it's a good way to stop joking, not that it's a joke.

[left sand]

i think all you end up doing is aggravating the conversation

[unborn pecan]

if you want serious conversations, discord ain't the place for it, or at least this one for most part

[cursive peak]

So then what has been all this talk in this thread for the past day or two?

[small siren]

*So then what has been

all this talk in this thread for

the past day or two?*

- steamworks

[zealous pond]

Bored people talking about silly hat game.

[unborn pecan]

Yeah, not as serious as you think it may be

[cursive peak]

Yeah, coms and jarateking from a couple hours ago was just all giggles.

[unborn pecan]

I wasn't here a couple of hours ago, so I wouldn't know

[small siren]

*I wasn't here a

couple of hours ago,

so I wouldn't know*

- potasiummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmicrowave

[unborn pecan]

love you, haiku bot

[cursive peak]

What else would you call that?

[unborn pecan]

The tone doesn't seem that serious, although they are talking quite in-depth

[potent wolf]

this server is extremely serious! if you make a joke, you'll be executed 🙀

[unborn pecan]

I just don't see the tone there

[unborn pecan]

about time.....

[cursive peak]

That's a serious conversation.

[unborn pecan]

maybe to you it seems serious, but maybe you're misreading the convo

[cursive peak]

If that was happening in person and someone burst in screaming a joke, wouldn't that be inappropriate?

[grim parcel]

me when i join a 6s server

[paper sluice]

#community-archived message

self post throwback,.

[unborn pecan]

Well this isn't happening in person, and this is happening in a discord server where people know each other well, and are comfortable with one another

[unborn pecan]

omg

;vom

I remember ;vom

ulteriormotives... good times

[potent wolf]

that would be pretty funny tbh

[cursive peak]

It shouldn't make a difference.

[unborn pecan]

Well, who are you to dictate how a conversation should be

[potent wolf]

also, just because you don't like it doesn't mean you can be an asshole

[cursive peak]

Let's just go spam memes in all the help threads.

[potent wolf]

oh god what ever will we do. it would be the end of the world

[unborn pecan]

Whatever you wanna do, buddy

[cursive peak]

You know that'd be inappropriate.

[potent wolf]

#1072696252162117752 message and this is an appropriate response?

i can pull up more if you want

[unborn pecan]

it really ain't

[cursive peak]

Responding to someone's request for help with just gif spam?

[potent wolf]

they would literally die if someone did that

[grim parcel]

that'd be funny

but sadly

i see no gif spam

[potent wolf]

oh actually remember that one guy

[grim parcel]

there or in this channel

someone made a simple joke

that's it

[unborn pecan]

Yeah, I don't see how gif spam equates to a joke

[cursive peak]

Haha funny le epic meme gif

[unborn pecan]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/275004607690702848/1212826647741341757/dougie_funny.gif

dougie 15mb gif attack

[cursive peak]

Yeah, how about we spam that at you a hundred thousand times next time you have a question?

[jagged pawn]

it's not about "allowing" it's about demoknight being an objectively worse way to play demo, you're just making yourself play worse lol

obv you can get away with it in casual bc people are bad there but demoknight is the equivalent of those old muselk "can I get a 20 killstreak with only my pistol" videos

[unborn pecan]

I never ask questions here so

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[unborn pecan]

idk but something about this is wrong....

[cursive peak]

Do you have no empathy for anyone asking for help and just getting memes in response?

[grim parcel]

who was asking for help

[unborn pecan]

You're bringing up a hypothetical that does not exist, and is irrelevant to this conversation

[jagged pawn]

lol so real

[cursive peak]

It's inserting jokes into a serious discussion.

[unborn pecan]

Which is, about your insulting other people at the drop of a hat whenever they say something you don't like

[potent wolf]

you are literally going to die if someone makes a joke

[unborn pecan]

Furtheremore, why can't you understand that because some people may be having a conversation that is discussing something in-depth, it's not neceissarily serious. There is nothing necessarily serious about this server tbh, especially when it comes to TF2

It's all casual

[potent wolf]

and that justifies you being an asshole

[cursive peak]

Yeah, all that talk about Palestine is just jokes.

[potent wolf]

this is a tf2 thread.

get over it

[unborn pecan]

and the talking about tf2 is serious?

[grim parcel]

it's not neceissarily serious

[unborn pecan]

we can have serious talks, but nothing about tf2 is serious

[cursive peak]

"There is nothing serious about this server"

Sure, none of the devs have ever had serious TF2 discussions.

[unborn pecan]

I can edit my statement to fit in an exception you brought up steamworks

Does not change the reality of the sitatuion

happy now?

Do you want everything dictated verbatim for you?

[cursive peak]

So, what? I'm not welcome because I want actual discussion and not jokes?

[jagged pawn]

oh man I know a good conversation is happening when I just see "8 blocked messages"

[potent wolf]

and others aren't welcome because they want to make jokes?

[unborn pecan]

am I blocked https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/508272488610922497.webp?size=48&quality=lossless&name=funkeuhh

somebody tell grapevine to unblock me.....

[potent wolf]

@jagged pawn you should block hurricane

[unborn pecan]

I would like to appollogize over freaking out over your DM, which was an over reaction on my part 100%

[cursive peak]

But this isn't a serious place. That apology is just a joke.

In-depth conversations? Just jokes.

[jagged pawn]

anyway I think the comp discussion lost the plot a little. like I think the problem was that there were so many issues with the comp launch that it satisfied no one. there was the group of weird nerds that didn't play because it had no dx8, sure, but then there was also the group that didn't play because of the poor weapon balance, and another because it was all 5cp and there was no variety, and another because they kept getting put against top players bc the matchmaking sucks. there were so many reasons that different people didn't give comp a chance and I think it's dismissive to say that it was all just "comp players being unfair"

[jagged pawn]

https://tenor.com/view/peter-griffin-popular-vibe-fortnite-fortnite-dance-family-guy-gif-5744247130420082937

[unborn pecan]

i think tf2 comp is destined to be doomed

[unborn pecan]

holy shit it's peter griffen

big fan

[cursive peak]

Competitive TF2 should be up there with CS and Dota.

[jagged pawn]

lol

[potent wolf]

and yet it isn't

that's the reality of it

[grim parcel]

same. my whole view on it changed after funke said that having a difference between specialists and generalists made the meta stale

[unborn pecan]

like

if you wanna make tf2 hyper-optimized

so go play like

cs2 or whatever

[cursive peak]

There's that attitude that you can't play TF2 in any way other than being friendly or whatever.

"Go play CS if you want teamwork" "Go play CS if you want to communicate with teammates"

"Go play CS if you want to play the objective"

[unborn pecan]

I never said anything about being friendly

So stop putting words in my mouth

[grim parcel]

i like to think of it more as "go play CS if you want a lively comp scene most of the playerbase enjoys"

[unborn pecan]

yeah

[crisp cedar]

oh great

[unborn pecan]

in CS2

[crisp cedar]

not this shit again

[unborn pecan]

The comp and casual game are basically the same

[grim parcel]

https://tenor.com/view/ah-shit-here-we-go-again-gta-sa-cj-gta-again-gif-20425950

[crisp cedar]

cs2 is great as a ocmpetitive sport

because

[unborn pecan]

despite like differences in round numbers etc

[crisp cedar]

its a pretty simple game to understand

[jagged pawn]

my whole view on it changed after funke said
average tf2 player

[crisp cedar]

valve has the perfect esport in their hands

[unborn pecan]

also

[crisp cedar]

its an insanely simple spectator sport to watch

[unborn pecan]

I LOVE FUNKe

HAHAHAHAHA

[grim parcel]

fuck you dyno

[grim parcel]

[grim parcel]

im glad i can keep the circlejerk going

[potent wolf]

too much trolling 😔

[jagged pawn]

the generalist/specialist thing would be fine if they played on maps that actually needed specialists anywhere other than last

[unborn pecan]

european weezer....

[crisp cedar]

hurricane 5 mins dont post funkeLETSGO challenge

[potent wolf]

lmao

[unborn pecan]

STFU UP DYNO YOU PIECE OF SHIT

[crisp cedar]

(easier to stop doing crack)

[unborn pecan]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/666008714393944064.webp?size=48&quality=lossless&name=funkeHmm

[grim parcel]

comp players just need to use GRU more

[unborn pecan]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/508272488610922497.webp?size=48&quality=lossless&name=funkeuhh

[grim parcel]

they don't understand how the game is meant to played

[jagged pawn]

lmao

[unborn pecan]

comp players need to wash their bootain stains out of their underwear

[jagged pawn]

I do think it's worth noting that even in nr6s, absolutely no one played heavy unless they were defending on payload, because he sucks at everything else. it's not a "he would be played if we unbanned x" thing

if people want him to not be that then they need to beg valve for rebalancing lol

[unborn pecan]

guys I have family members who lvie in Bellvue

should I go over, and breaking into valve's offices

yes or no

one yes from skyrym

https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/1105627858455506964.gif?size=48&quality=lossless&name=SteamHappyDance

[potent wolf]

yes and ask them to shut tf2 down permanently

[cursive peak]

Why not just get a tour of the place?

[jagged pawn]

wtf discord wiped my saved gifs

[unborn pecan]

honestly, I wonder if I email the right people and say

[jagged pawn]

I was gonna send the one of steamhappy detonating a nuke

[unborn pecan]

"Hey I am literally right next to your office, could I get a tour"

[summer steeple]

I don't think they really do tours anymore outside of content creators

[unborn pecan]

I would honestly rather go talk to the

Steamdeck people

than tf2 people

[summer steeple]

I know recently a mapper got a tour and talked with eric

[crisp cedar]

just make sure not to promise the tf2 community a qna

[unborn pecan]

helll no

I'mma turn off my phone in the building

[cursive peak]

Can't hurt to ask at least.

[jagged pawn]

hey guys cipherlock here

[crisp cedar]

they will flay you alive for asking about the next comic issue

[summer steeple]

funny you mention that rayne

[grim parcel]

leak the sex update

[unborn pecan]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/666008714393944064.webp?size=48&quality=lossless&name=funkeHmm

[crisp cedar]

you know that part of the us that disney owns

[unborn pecan]

ok poookie wooki bear ❤️

[crisp cedar]

valves working on that one too

[summer steeple]

https://blog.tf2maps.net/a-chat-with-eric-at-valve-hq/

[grim parcel]

good on em

[crisp cedar]

COMIC #7... IS LOST MEDIA?

wtf

[summer steeple]

No Access

[unborn pecan]

fard media

[potent wolf]

I brought up mod projects related to TF2. Eric acknowledged that Valve had been working on better support for mods within TF2, as an alternative to outside projects that Valve may object to for intellectual property reasons or violations of the Steam Subscriber Agreement.
carefully worded

[summer steeple]

most shocking thing

[unborn pecan]

is this

#bar🍸

[potent wolf]

tos violation! reported!

[summer steeple]

they actually test maps

[crisp cedar]

no

i dont know what it is and i dont care enough

[unborn pecan]

ok pookie

[crisp cedar]

why you callin me your pookie

[jagged pawn]

ah yes they pick maps based on if they're fun, for sure man I believe them

[small siren]

*ah yes they pick maps

based on if they're fun, for sure

man I believe them*

- grapevine

[unborn pecan]

oh true

getchoo is my only pookie

[crisp cedar]

exactly

we dont share things in common

you dont meet the criteria nor have you unlocked said dialogue options

[unborn pecan]

truue

[grim parcel]

hurripoo we should reenact the tick tock video

[unborn pecan]

waht tik tok video

oh the joji one

[crisp cedar]

you wouldnt play fortnite festival with me

[grim parcel]

https://mydadleft.me/hacks

[crisp cedar]

so you dont qualify

[unborn pecan]

yes great idea getchpoo

[grim parcel]

WHO REMOVED MY EMBED

[unborn pecan]

rayne probabl;y

[crisp cedar]

i didnt do shit

wtf

[unborn pecan]

ok whatever you say

bear

[summer steeple]

i'm cooking

sidenote this orange i sampled from the logo is gross

[potent wolf]

wow i could actually get away with murder

[unborn pecan]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/666008714393944064.webp?size=48&quality=lossless&name=funkeHmm

[paper sluice]

whats this for

[unborn pecan]

who are you murdering first

[potent wolf]

you

[summer steeple]

my ADHD

just organization stuff

[paper sluice]

real real

[cursive peak]

There are official color swatches available if you want to choose a different TF2 color.

[summer steeple]

yeah i was just about to grab it

[potent wolf]

it's a nice color :(

[unborn pecan]

😳

[summer steeple]

on the dark background it looks kinda gross imo

very like... dirt

[potent wolf]

use light mode

[summer steeple]

look at this

its like a pumpkin

[potent wolf]

maybe i just have bad taste, i think it's fine

[summer steeple]

i think i just prefer brighter more saturated colors

bruh i think the color they use for the main logo isn't even in the palette

[jagged pawn]

contracker be like

[summer steeple]

LMAO

[potent wolf]

omg you're right

[summer steeple]

its true

[limpid panther]

what is this?

[summer steeple]

^

I decided to open up hammer for the first time in a while but i just realized i lost the most recent version of my map when my HDD died

and i don't remember what changes i made

10 months ago since i last comitted

and i don't even know when i last worked on it

god this map is SO BAD lol

but i have no clue what to do with it

[hoary geyser]

place it on a flash drive and mail it to gabe personally

[livid oracle]

youre like

projecting what you like onto everyone

like

i don't consider the csgo comp community dead just because i dont like it lol

*doesnt play it* wow! nobody plays this!

come on

[jagged pawn]

no you don't get it my opinion is gospel

[livid oracle]

literally

[jagged pawn]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/798643815652917318/1179159921892266044/i-text.gif

[livid oracle]

you can definitely dislike tf2 comp i just think youre acting like your surface level opinions are facts

[crisp cedar]

https://tenor.com/view/tyler-mcvicker-sackclan-neon-prime-valve-valve-software-gif-26926513

[livid oracle]

it's literally the shit with ppl saying that comp bans every non stock weapon even though almost everything is on the whitelist right now

same people with really strong opinions about it

[left sand]

the whitelist has definitely regressed backwards

[livid oracle]

i personally think that valve shouldn't change weapons for community comp

not even hl

[livid oracle]

they have their whitelists and shit

[livid oracle]

det and scorch are unbanned in eu right

[left sand]

this is EU

[livid oracle]

huh was it the other way around

[left sand]

yes

but yeah, there was a big push a few years ago and there was some amount of progress made

but idk if you were in those whitelist meetings lmao

[cursive peak]

RGL 6s currently bans 0 Pyro weapons.

[left sand]

it was just a guy for each weapon moaning about a specific scenario he didnt like in one of his scrims

it was completely subjective and based on personal pleasure not competitive viability or interesting choices or anything like that

b4nny was pretty much the only person earnestly pushing for it at the time

and now that effort has been abandoned

global whitelist is gone

and people are banning more and more weapons again for no reason out of nowhere

for example loch n load

just because one person complains about it performing well in a very specific scenario

which is literally the point of unlocks

it was like oh demo with lnl can reach further with pipes and theyre faster

yes you just described the weapon

it also has downsides

competitive games do have separate casual and comp rulesets, thats entirely fine

[radiant merlin]

woah why is the detonator banned? 😂

[left sand]

but tf2's is without a doubt completely based upon the comfort of a few people

not for the health of the game, its viability for competitive play, or spectator sport

[livid oracle]

i think that a lot of weapon bans definitely have very weird theorycrafty reasons, but i really really doubt that more people are gonna be playing or start watching comp because they can use the loch

[left sand]

thats not really the point of all of this

for one, it does close off opportunities for play

some people prefer stalemates and defensive playstyles

some people find that interesting to watch too

other thing is it affects balance is really weird ways and actually fucks over 6s' metagame

[mystic turtle]

what's going on here btw

[livid oracle]

its just that none of the weapon unbans ever have increased player count or made it more super interesting to viewers or suddenly less stale

the statue got unbanned and it didnt like

make 6s suddenly super unstale

just some medics used it more

[mystic turtle]

That checks out
Having a simple gimmick won't suddenly attract more players

[livid oracle]

and i think adding things can take away

[cursive peak]

NR6s didn't seem to attract all that much attention.

[left sand]

i think it improves some stuff

[livid oracle]

what the statue took away was there was less ubersaws, whether you think thats good or bad idk but it did take something away

[left sand]

and also its a big opportunity to advertise, oh we unbanned all the weapons for real

i mean, valve did look at this themselves

[mystic turtle]

That also could make sense, given it literally just becomes closer to casual

[left sand]

weapon variety does improve the game

[livid oracle]

imo this an often ignored consequence in general in regards to game design

[mystic turtle]

Personally, we'd have to do a bit more testing, as some weapons could be nice to have
I mean, coming back to an old point, why is the Detonator banned in comp? Because they don't like Pyro having extra mobility?
Because it gives the pyro a cheap AoE fire explosive that can be mitigated by spreading out, and doesn't even have the Scorch Shot's endless streams of shit?

[livid oracle]

adding features can take more than they add

[mystic turtle]

(IDK, just an outside observer's viewpoint)

[livid oracle]

like with the loch and n load example you mentioned, i think the ban is stupid

but if i use your logic with subjectivity

[next nymph]

there is something that feels "pure" about the whitelist being stock + kritz + gunboats. I don't think we should go back to that, but it does have strengths over what we have now

[livid oracle]

what if i like watching players play with rollers

what if loch eventually overtakes the ib/stock and takes epic roller play away

[next nymph]

remember when darwin's was basically "if you have a sniper you should run darwin's because you will win every sniper fight then"

[mystic turtle]

wait, was this back in the day when the Croc-o-Style Kit gave you headshot immunity?

[next nymph]

the easiest example of "more variety is less" is when one of those options is a degenerative strategy

[mystic turtle]

or does this have to do with an old version of the Darwin's?

[next nymph]

it was when they removed set bonuses but buffed it to give you enough resistance to survive an uncharged headshot

which is most of what sniper fights are so

[mystic turtle]

oh, I see, I see
so it's essentially similar, yeah

[next nymph]

the only thing about the set bonus is that you couldn't use stock sniper with it, so it wasnt a free win in a sniper fight

sydney sleeper is powerful for other reasons, but not so much for sniper fights

[cursive peak]

I liked how UGC handled the sets. Instead of banning any of the weapons, they banned the hats.

[summer steeple]

bro no fucking way they have lnl banned thats insane

I can't believe my eyes i checked too

like you know what else has faster projectiles so that they go further and also does more damager? the direct hit????

arguably direct hit is better because it still explodes on contact with the ground, shoots even faster projectiles, does more damage to everything and not just buildings, and it doesn't even have a smaller clip

[left sand]

you need los with dh

[cursive peak]

I do think RGL might have the less restrictive whitelist.

[summer steeple]

market gardener banned???

wtf is etf2l on

just shoot the soldier

[cursive peak]

EU used to ban almost every single unlock. It was, like, everything except Kritzkrieg and Ubersaw.

[summer steeple]

you're right though, RGL is much less restrictive

its etf2l but without the actually insane bans

[cursive peak]

EU had Gunboats banned back in the day.

[livid oracle]

got owned too hard

[summer steeple]

what running 3 projectile classes does to a mf

[livid oracle]

also like i liked watching meds hit ppl with the ubersaw because it looked funny but they just use the statue now because theyre cowards

[cursive peak]

Wish I could remember which match it was where a Med getting a clutch as fuck Ubersaw hit totally flipped an all but lost match for the team.

[next nymph]

if I wanted to make a big comparison between loch and dh it'd be that stock rockets are still relatively easy to hit because of splash, while rollers are only reliable as spam area control and not an actual direct attack. dh doesn't make it easier to hit in general (only airshots), while loch feels like cheating with how easier it is to hit in general

[grim parcel]

i think a new class would be a really cool way to shake up the meta

maybe even make it a woman

[mystic turtle]

meet the tf2c deathmatch merc

[summer steeple]

tf2 should add a new class every few months

[mystic turtle]

or hell, Miss Pauling

kidding ofc

[grim parcel]

i would 100% be a miss pauling main

[next nymph]

guard dog (girl) 😳

[tacit flare]

The pure amount of unbridled salt that that would cause would be a sight to behold.

[grim parcel]

good, get the bigoted oldheads out of the community

they can go back to quake

[next nymph]

weapons:

• primary: lesbian pride gun
• secondary: throwable pronouns
• melee: dyed hair

[livid oracle]

@crisp cedar

[crisp cedar]

do it

do. it.

[grim parcel]

guaranteed that secondary would be banned in 6s

[livid oracle]

is this still the guard dog (girl)

[grim parcel]

too broken

[crisp cedar]

https://tenor.com/view/just-do-it-words-of-wisdom-encouragement-advice-life-lessons-gif-4413390

[next nymph]

yeah she is a furry also

[grim parcel]

mg level broken even

[languid haven]

come up with a concept first then you can make it a woman, but if we're going for diversity i'd prefer an actual dog because they're more cute and more scary.

[potent wolf]

[languid haven]

also it pisses off peta which i fi d funny

[languid haven]

btw this is the exact naming scheme a roblox dbz game had.

[grim parcel]

the concept is a woman

[languid haven]

the concept isn't good enough just like some random guy isn't a good enough concept, you need character instead of a netflix exclusive main character.

[grim parcel]

the character is woman

[hoary geyser]

ok fine, the woman

not a woman, the woman

[next nymph]

what is a netflix exclusive main character

[languid haven]

ok if its only "the women" she'd have no weapons because you didn't state any and even if she did we all know how many fucks would use the frying pan cause they think it's funnier. or people go around trying to melee her wwhile making a domestic abuse joke every 5 god damn seconds. you don't have a character theen all you get is the bottom of the barrel shit.

[potent wolf]

[livid oracle]

sounds good

[potent wolf]

valve needs to add this

[hoary geyser]

I'm so excited for the domestic abuse update!

[languid haven]

god damn it

[potent wolf]

LOL

[languid haven]

what if she could use banner type weapons but her primary grenades with varying effects.

the banners autocharge over time but the grenades would be ike prefortress grenades.

if you headshot someone with a grenade it bonks them for 2 seconds XD

[next nymph]

can i have "she'd have no weapons"
we have "she'd have no weapons" at home
the "she'd have no weapons" at home:

[languid haven]

no

[summer steeple]

huh, apparently the x64 update is not going to support mac

source:

[left sand]

yeah but this is in october 2024

so its after he finishes the mac x64 stuff

[potent wolf]

?

nvm

no more funny client symbols smh my head

[languid haven]

can'tt blame them, there's no gamers on mac.

[next nymph]

steve jobs was a monkeyball gamer

[languid haven]

he also did drugs and became a hippie for a short time.

[next nymph]

not my stevie

[languid haven]

you'd be surprised

[jagged pawn]

in europe this is definitely true, etf2l sucks ass

[jagged pawn]

so based

anyway yeah I think etf2l is the caricature that non-comp players have in their heads of banning things because they hate fun

like every complaint that yall have said here about comp absolutely does apply over there

I think it's a philosophical thing about where they should experiment though, because:

• etf2l has absurd weapon bans but are very willing to try out new maps all the time. the weapon bans exist to allow more unique maps to stay fun without getting cheesed
• rgl has a pretty reasonable whitelist but they refuse to play on any even remotely weird maps because they always end up getting cheesed by some unlock

it's a difficult problem to solve because either way you're sacrificing variety

[languid haven]

that's one of the best summaries i've ever read

although i hate comp but i want the airblast cone back, not for comp but because that big box is just bullshit. feels fair for projectiles but unfair for players. projectiles it feels good.

they shouldn't be airblasted so easily since it can be easier abused when you don't have to aim.

[mystic turtle]

so, I had a class earlier, but I'm back
a bit of spitballing:
In order for the Administrator's secretary to be a viable concept, we'd need to somehow figure out how to give her a niche that doesn't make her gunspy on a diet
altho now that I think about it she could also specialize in buffs/debuffs, IMO something not too often explored in TF2
I mean, you have throwables, banners, mediguns, and that's mostly everything. None of the classes really revolve around inflicting status effects, exempting Jarate sniper and banner soldier

Oh hey, I'm basically the average tf2 redditor now lmfao

I mean, they already kinda did this with the TF2C civilian, where he could minicritboost others

It's also in character for her, especially when she's the one passing around contracts

[languid haven]

like a reverse mark for death that whomever kills the contracted player they get a overheal or something?

[mystic turtle]

Oh, that could be interesting
it would need limited range tho or we could have demoknights or roaming soldiers charging in, getting the pick, and leaving for free
We'd preferably want something that isn't simply "free minicrits"; many classes already provide that stuff

Perhaps she could also see enemies' HP

[languid haven]

an item has that although if she doesn't take advantage of it there would be no point and worse is that mechanic snitches out spies.

although she does work with both teams so might be so bad

maybe if she had a dart gun primary with varying effects (or push reload or attack 3 to cycle the effects) and a disruptive secondary of some kind

[mystic turtle]

Oh yeah
I think they also did this in TF2C, partly, with Spy's tranquilizer gun

[languid haven]

yeah but that just debuffs enemies by slowing them down and desaturating their game to black and white. it's funny though

even if it has minimal gameplay impact and i've never seen some die from it.

i love it as a troll weapon but it just doesn't do enough.

[languid haven]

nice reoad anim

[sonic folio]

not mine btw but like thats the demoman reload on scout's ☠️

[languid haven]

i still like it more than default

[sonic folio]

real cuz the default kinda sucks

[tacit flare]

TF2 needs more stun mechanics.

[grim parcel]

ana sleep dart

[broken haven]

instead of comp tf2 lets practice for fncs

i think the most defining moment of my tf2 career was getting a free ffw and getting called out on tftv

it doesnt rly matter anymore

[limpid panther]

Custom HUD shootout: Doesn't really matter, at least not on linux

from heaviest to lightest is about 5 fps or about 3% performance

ellshud is notably lighter than the rest of the ones tested

[grim parcel]

now i need to make the most bloated hud possible

[tough locust]

already exists it's called coolhud lol

[tough locust]

ur doing the Lord's work with these tests love these

[limpid panther]

thanks! any requests?

[tough locust]

new idea: wearing the HHH head automatically gives an AoE stun in a 4096 hammer unit radius every 5 seconds

[tough locust]

yeah still interested in that mat_picmip test

[next nymph]

magnumhud/jofrehud

[limpid panther]

but jofrehud performed fine!

[next nymph]

https://tenor.com/view/thanos-impossible-marvel-shocked-gif-15104180

[cursive peak]

Omphud and GoatHUD

[jagged pawn]

I didn't even think about this being a possibility lmao

[jagged pawn]

middle mann

[limpid panther]

every little bit helps

[jagged pawn]

I suppose

don't tell comp players about this or they'll start playing hudless

sidenote I'm not shocked at all that kbnhud was the worst one you tested, you can tell it's not optimized even just while using it. so much of it is just duct taped together

[next nymph]

it's one of the oldest continuous lineages of huds

I'd give it some slack for that

[jagged pawn]

it has the same problem as the game itself so honestly it's the most faithful hud

[limpid panther]

I can't help but point out that if my test is representative of real-life performance, you would not be able to notice the difference

about 1.5% change from default, and no change in variance (not pictured)

[jagged pawn]

oh I just mean in the sense that nothing fits with each other in design philosophy on kbnhud, I'm not saying I can see the game lagging more lol

[limpid panther]

that's cool! I didn't know that

[limpid panther]

ah! ok!

[jagged pawn]

though this does make me a little curious now if a HUD exists that actually does offer a noteworthy performance boost. I have to imagine not but if something actually got, say, halfway between no HUD and default HUD performance-wise without removing any info that would be commendable I think

[next nymph]

yeah thats what ellshud was supposed to be

but I think the root of it is that just having the bare minimum incurs most of the cost

whatever is on top of that is relatively minor in comparison, if jofrehud is close enough to ellshud

[zealous pond]

Just use Zeeshud.

If that fails, Shrekhud.

[jagged pawn]

fair enough, makes sense

[limpid panther]

ellshud performs notably better than the rest, as you can see in the graph

[jagged pawn]

yeah I see that I just didn't realize it was intentionally made to do that and was wondering if it could be done better

[limpid panther]

after I finished testing I noticed that Hypnotize also has another one called "lighthud"

but it seems to be less light than ellshud, at least by the looks of it 😭

[small siren]

*but it seems to be

less light than ellshud, at least

by the looks of it 😭*

- kenajcrap

[next nymph]

Maybe. I don't know how much difference it'd be. It might be better by not having the friendslist

[jagged pawn]

I think lighthud is less about being resource-light and more about just not having a lot on screen

[next nymph]

ellshud does stuff like unaliased text, but I wouldn't take it on faith that this has any practical significant effect on performance (or possibly even any whatsoever)

[left sand]

it does not iirc

[languid haven]

actually i heard that cosemetic with the axe prevents you from getting stunned by the HHH

[tough locust]

it does same with paper bag masks iirc

[glass pollen]

Only with the Saxton Hale mask

I've completed all contracts in all Scream Fortresses since 2015 and I still don't have all the class masks to craft the Saxton Hale one

[languid haven]

my question is it stun immunity or just from HHH?

[crisp cedar]

boo

[radiant merlin]

next summer update will be hl themed

[cursive peak]

https://vxtwitter.com/RGL_gg/status/1764827288489599167

[grim parcel]

pl_vigil is a cool map

[jagged pawn]

true

[floral sandal]

MAGA county?

[cursive peak]

Some invite team with a shit name.

https://www.twitch.tv/rglgg

It's about to start.

[languid haven]

lol

[tough locust]

@limpid panther I was wondering what software you use to collect frametime data while you run these benchmarks, I have a laptop that I often play on with an anaemic GPU and I was wondering how you get such accurate tests since timedemo isn't the most accurate measure of performance

[kind falcon]

naur...

[kind falcon]

https://github.com/Kenajcrap/demoknight

[mystic turtle]

https://youtu.be/5yqF4Xi7CUE?feature=shared
random vid

If bro really wanted absolute trash graphics, they should've gone with mastercomfig very low and cleantf2+

they overall made decent points, but IMO the fact he has a buff PC kinda skews his view
When you have a good CPU and a great GPU, you take that for granted
so while his preference for high graphics partly arises out of his ability to run them, for folks like me it's moreso a "nice-to-have"

As one of the comments pointed out, old comp players made their game look like shit back in the day due to weaker hardware
and old habits die hard

[mystic turtle]

anyways, it was so awkward watching him attempt to explain the console commands that change graphics quality
at least he mentioned the TF2 wiki as a source

[grim parcel]

should’ve actually used puddin config

actual banger

uncletopia ban worthy at one point even

[kind falcon]

most of the mods in the puddingfig dont give any extra perf

[grim parcel]

yeah they do

[mystic turtle]

wasn't this that one fullbright mod exhibited here at one point

(part of it I mean)

[kind falcon]

ok sorry the only mod i contributed to that does not. i am simply blinded by my ignorance

[jagged pawn]

lol tried out lighthud out of curiosity and it's so bad. they removed wayyyy too much, including the vacc meter so you just have no idea when you're gonna get a new charge

[kind falcon]

u sure

ah right it has the uber charge counter and thas it

vacc user = cheter

[jagged pawn]

real

but yeah I feel like the counter is NOT enough information to use the vacc well

[jagged pawn]

lol the discussion earlier got me going down the hud rabbit hole again and it's crazy how like 90% of huds are unfinished

reinstalled rayshud for the nostalgia and despite saying it's updated it just breaks with certain weapons and game modes lol

wish there was a tag for "actually works" but obviously it's hard to check everything

[sonic folio]

not really unfinished but more like they have some work they still have to do

most huds are totally very usable

[limpid panther]

I made a small tool to help me with that. But keep in mind I'm not a developer.
https://github.com/Kenajcrap/demoknight

[limpid panther]

oh

[kind falcon]

i love you bro

[fleet kite]

I too choose this guys bro

[summer steeple]

so as I think I mentioned a few days ago i'm getting back into mapping

jesus christ my brushwork on this old map is HORRENDOUS

[tough locust]

I don't blame u I opened up one of my maps from like 6 years ago and there were SO many textures that you couldn't see that weren't nodraws and I wondered why the map ran like shit

keeping brushwork clean and tidy is a constant uphill battle

[summer steeple]

that won't really affect performance

plus if they were in walls then 90% of the time vbsp will remove them anyway

extra faces really just affect filesize from extra lightmap data

and of course how easy it is to edit stuff

[tough locust]

interesting I never knew it culled the faces when it's compiled

making maps is so much fun but making fun maps is so hard, it feels like good gameplay is some sort of arcane magic that you have to understand to make a map balanced. A billion iterations and complete overhauls when u just want to finally be able to do the artpassing

[summer steeple]

this specific map is on alpha 6 (for stage one alone for a payload map) and has gone through several complete overhauls

[summer steeple]

including once (maybe twice?) where i just deleted the entire map and restarted from scratch

[formal dew]

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games/issues/5557

[craggy ridge]

Rate jane

[kind falcon]

cheatre

[misty plover]

Jane is cool

They can be a bit though

[potent wolf]

a bit

[misty plover]

Jane will tell you the most obscure source wizardry one minute then gaslight you into thinking pyros gloves have no fingers the next

[potent wolf]

they don't have fingers though...

[misty plover]

You don't have fingers

I ate them

[potent wolf]

🙀

[tough locust]

lol that's awesome

I would give a trillion billion dollars for them to restore the feature from half life/gmod that makes the characters lips move according to the voice chat

[tacit flare]

Makes me wonder if there are other features like that

[summer steeple]

I know that the voice chat thing is possible with vscript, at least in some form

there's someone doing a port of quake (some SP, mostly MP i believe) and they made the face texture change when voice chat is enabled

and there is this...

actually I seem to remember ficool randomly posting a video (as they tend to do) of the characters faces moving with voice chat, but I think they did that as a joke via editing the game's code rather than vscript

found the video
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/337790132126089222/1001813548290281482/lipsync.mp4?ex=65fac892&is=65e85392&hm=88df066e1578f85d8c2b5dbcdd57a032ac88a0d27eca916a1f8fe060df8d6a12&

[languid haven]

i need this to be real!!!!

[crisp cedar]

i think they do this in goldsrc games

cs 1.6 does this

(allegedly)

[summer steeple]

yeah

i think its in TFC too?

[kind falcon]

yes

skibidi dop dop

[languid haven]

they used to do it in gmod but removed it as a feature

[livid oracle]

yeah it uses the same thing that the hl1 scientists use

[tough locust]

lmao this is just as awesome as id hoped

[languid haven]

the hl2 one was improved greatly

[coarse spruce]

me noticing 132 instances of "ptrace attach of tf_linux64 was attempted by steam" in dmesg after playing on official casual with the 64bit beta using that silly trick, meaning VAC hasn't been loading all this time

https://tenor.com/view/vince-mcmahon-scared-nervous-gulp-wwe-gif-16736664

But then how the hell did it let me ingame in the first place, if VAC fails to load it yells at you before you can even connect

oooorr the new flatpak runtime is missing CAP_SYS_PTRACE for steam, kek

[radiant merlin]

new challenge: recreate a tf2 match with the sounds

[rare creek]

just disable vac

[kind falcon]

i wonder how those bots with vac bans were able to play

[languid haven]

hey after the 64bit update and higher object limit, would it be possible for anyone at valve to work on sfm or is that just too much? i'd love to use it but it crashes when copying lights and lots of other shit.

surprisingly it's one of those things that if it's steamdeck verified then that's really bad.

[proper tangle]

doubt

sfm didn't receive updates even when valve was actively updating tf2

I mean, it did receive a few until like, the bread update

but you know what I mean

that was almost a decade ago

[languid haven]

i know i know, it'd just be great if bugfixes were done

[radiant merlin]

they didn't promise higher object limit as far as i know

[coarse spruce]

seems like I was right, after adding it manually with setcap, it no longer logs that nvm?? bruh

[heavy solar]

@coarse spruce has leveled up! (3 ➜ 4)

[radiant merlin]

you just confirmed what i said

[misty plover]

The intent seems to be more on the "we want to do this soon™️"

[radiant merlin]

you just confirmed what i said

[misty plover]

Not particularly? "They didn't promise as far as I know" has the connotation of "this won't happen to my knowledge"

[radiant merlin]

the keywords are "allow" and "would like"

[misty plover]

And that's leaning more into the side of this will happen

Especially since they've already played around with it prior. Ficool even has a demo video of it.

Jane being a bully 😔✊

[languid haven]

as in after 64bit they're gonna see if the limit being raise would cause problems or affect nothing at all.

you can already raise it manually and seemingly doesn't affect anything but that might trigger VAC and wouldn't change the limit crashing a server since that'd need it to be changed as well. shounic did a video on it i think

the limit seemingly just triggers a crash. that's all i've heard it do.

[next nymph]

jane is being correct

[languid haven]

oh bw facial flexs add onto the object limit in tf2 which can cause crashes in servers with a lot of player models.

[languid haven]

to be honest this sounds useful and beter future proofing

also idk if it's similiar to pooling entities that are similar or the same.

[misty plover]

From my point of view it doesn't matter

[languid haven]

one could be a partial ram leak.

[misty plover]

Unless C++ doesn't try to allocate dynamically sized arrays contiguously in memory which would be stupid lol

[next nymph]

C++ vectors do allocate contiguously

[languid haven]

i have noticed the game using 6GBs of ram which whether seen as good or not, 2fort probably shouldn't need that much ram.

[next nymph]

the issue with a dynamic array in this situation is essentially that it's more complication to handle edge cases for relatively little gain.

You want this to be consistent and not crash by using up too much memory, so reasonably you should set a limit, and you should be confident that at least that limit will always be available. So... just allocate it all up-front

[summer steeple]

wait the beta or release

because x32 can’t use 6GB

that would be a memory leak

[summer steeple]

sorry, replying to this

[languid haven]

not is literally not possible. game would crash or if it was my os. my computer would be dead.

beta

[potent wolf]

big array mean big file size!

[misty plover]

Wait did they say that

[languid haven]

yes but it means no more having to go around it and what does the entity list pre-allocate anyway?

[misty plover]

Oh my god they did

My brain completely filtered that out cause "no one could be that wrong right?"

[small siren]

*My brain completely

filtered that out cause "no one

could be that wrong right?"*

- undefinedbhvr

[next nymph]

a pre-allocated list is basically just "here are all the slots in memory for things to go, even if we don't have anything to put in those slots yet"

[misty plover]

Tbh the memory savings wouldn't be particularly meaningful anyways

Unused memory is wasted memory™️

[next nymph]

note that I'm not disagreeing with increasing the size of the list at some point, but it should still be a fixed size

[languid haven]

cause if it just loads everything including hats. it means a dynamic one would have significantly less ram usage.

[misty plover]

Memory used by a linked list is also wasted memory

[potent wolf]

CreateInterface 🙀

[languid haven]

this is wrong

[misty plover]

This is not wrong

This is a fundamental truth

[languid haven]

seriously, if my ram gets to 14GBs being used my pc stutters and lags bad. 500MBs left and it locks up.

[misty plover]

The three principals of good software are:
Use as much memory as you need for fast accesses (disk reads are painfully slow, avoid them at all cost)
Use cache efficient data structures (reading from memory is painfully slow, fit as much of the working set in the cache as you can.)
Don't use Python / Don't write OOP

[languid haven]

unused ram is more like a buffer incase something happens or it's needed but no more ram means a hard os crashor freeze that it'd be faster to force a restart of the pc.

[misty plover]

Windows lies about how much memory is actually being used, protip

[languid haven]

i use python for an auto key spammer

[languid haven]

i don't use windows

[potent wolf]

well, there's your first problem

[misty plover]

Mmmm, the only time I've had an OS lock up from high memory usage was specifically on arch linux

Still not sure why it did

[languid haven]

their ui looks more sterile than having a vasectomy.

[languid haven]

proably zen kernal. oh it's great for gaming i hate morons

[misty plover]

Never used it, don't play games on any of my linux machines

[languid haven]

blasphemy

[limpid panther]

gaming kernels are one if the stupidest things I've ever heard to make games go faster

[misty plover]

I always return to windows, its like my abusive ex

[languid haven]

mac is bad and linux does suck when you use ubuntu or have to set up everything manually i used endeavourOS arch cause i'm lazy asf

[misty plover]

Tell that to that one "debloated" windows install that cut out all security features and protections, even disabling windows defender

Forget its name

[languid haven]

also wayland sucks causeit either doesn't work or needs to be setup manually

[potent wolf]

wayland is going to be the only option in the next version of fedora 🫡

x11 is dead

[misty plover]

Deranged

[next nymph]

i remember seeing someone swear by some bios settings that supposedly improved performance by a few nanoseconds

[languid haven]

only time it's needed is when pirating, do not pirate.

[misty plover]

That is... not true in the slightest

[languid haven]

when does a virus get installed? because you downloaded it, installed it and gave it admin perms.

[potent wolf]

should've used linux

linux doesn't get viruses because nobody can make them work properly on linux

[misty plover]

Simply should have used a mac, they're virus proof didn't you know!

[languid haven]

linux has viruses too but you can't get infected through wine 99.99% of the time.

someone did then it got patched cause everyone can see the sourcecode

[small siren]

*someone did then it

got patched cause everyone can

see the sourcecode*

- jimbimbum

[potent wolf]

what

afaik wine has absolutely no sandboxing

[languid haven]

it's not that they don't have viruses, it's that their 3rd party support sucks.

[misty plover]

I don't think it sandboxes at all yeah, its not an emulator

[languid haven]

you can remove read and write perms to Z which is your normal directories but you can also just use bottles for that.

[languid haven]

it can it just normally doesn't due to no reason, it's used as a compatibility layer instead of a VM replacement.

[potent wolf]

the bottles sandbox isn't part of core wine

[limpid panther]

you are joking, right?

[misty plover]