So the big Spy/Sniper update for Team Fortress 2 landed the other day, and while the two classes new abilities are getting rave reviews another part of the update is stirring up a bit of controversy. It seems Valve decided to change the way weapons are earned. Before, if you recall from playing the game, special weapons were granted through achievements, some of which were especially challenging. Now, however, weapons are simply awarded randomly during the game like in an MMORPG.
Seems like a much easier way to balance the game, but a slap to the face for those who put in the hard work and dedication to earn weapons previously. It appears that Valve is trying to make the game more friendly to the casual crowd, but they could also just be doing this for the free weekend and then going back to the achievement method. Either way those of you who put all that hard effort into unlocking the Ubersaw are about to run into plenty of people who did none of the work and can brag just as much about having one.
Matthew Razak is Destructoid's Associate editor and co-founder of film site
Flixist. He began as community member "cowzilla" and was since sequestered to write brainy features material. He lives in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife.
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Contest:
8:00 PM on 05.23.2009
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Needs work, though. Perhaps some sort of in-game credit system in the future that isn't based around achievements and time played.
Pretty shitty update.
Not that I play this shitty game but still, at least just playing randomly gets you the stuff.
Duplicates with item trading: Fine.
No Duplicates and no item trading: Fine.
Duplicates that clog up my inventory screen but I'm holding on to them due to the promise that I'll be able to toss them at friends later: Not Cool.
achievement_idle servers help a little bit as they can be left alone and you can come back hours later to see what you got.
Since trading isn't even a feature yet, why are we getting unlocks we already have? It shoulda been limited to the new ones, and then to everything once the feature rolled out.
The only character's completed weapons set I had was of the pyro. Today I got those boxing gloves for the heavy, and got two items for both the scout and medic. Plus I got the razorback for the sniper.
1. the drop rates arent working properly. theyre supposed to be more common than they are right now.
2.You get multiples because theyre implementing a trade system soon. so those extra dead ringers you have? just might be worth trading to some spy player who has an extra medic or sniper item.
No, sir. It's broken and it's completely random. Valve has stated as much.
All strategy just flew out the wnidow.
a) You can play for 24 hours and not recieve a single unlock
b) You could be lucky and recieve 5 unlocks... but chances are 2 of them will be the same item.
On top of that, I've seen someone with 6 ubersaws. Just, seriously... the new system is broken.
"I AFK'd for 29 hours today & didnt get a single unlock!!! You mean I have to actually play the game as intended? FACK U VALVE MANG". QQ moar.
Yes, there's a new system.
No, it's not perfect.
Yes, we are working to better this new system. Please be patient with us.
P.S.
I should say that even in the old system I had a great time getting the achievements. It can be fun if you find the right people.
Since most of the people who got them just went into boosting rooms.
Not saying everyone did but a good amount did.
I like the random thing though it still needs to be a but worked out.
Honestly I would have just gave the charcaters all the new weapons and what as soon as the patch hit.
But thats why I don't make games
And not surprisingly, this is spawning idle servers where people go to sit around and wait.
It's lose/lose either way, because people are still going to farm the shit out of the system. They're just changing methods.
I'll be sure to include something on this in my big TF2 update postmortem tonight.
Thanks, guys.
This sentence is so stupid I would've thought Brad Nicolson wrote it. Yes, exactly like all those MMOs that just randomly spawn new items in the player's inventory. Right.
Protip: This is not like an MMO unless you think anything remotely random in a videogame is "like an MMO".
@Kyousuke Nanbu
As always, your blind hatred for what is easily one of the best multi-player games this generation is painful.