Team Fortress 2

* Added new community map cp_freight
* Added missing physics models for several items
* Added jiggle bones to the Sam & Max items, and The Buff Banner
* Added Crit-a-Cola


Dedicated Server

* Linux optimizations.
* Fixed Linux servers not relisting correctly after a master server restart
* Fixed a case where servers could have "ghost" players consuming player slots


Engine

* Marked the "snd_show" convar as a cheat


Gameplay Changes

* Pyro changes
o Flamethrower direct damage reduced 20%.
o Burn duration reduced (10 -> 6 seconds).
o Airblast re-fire delay reduced by 25%.
o Airblast ammo usage reduced by 20%.
o All reflected rockets/grenades/arrows now mini-crit.
o Airblasting enemies into environmental deaths now awards the death credit to the Pyro.
* Heavy changes
o Minigun spin-up/down time reduced by 25%
o Minigun firing movement speed increased to just under half-normal (from 80 to 110).
o Throwing a sandvich to a teammate now earns a full bonus point (was half a point).
* Bonk! changes
o Post-use movement penalty removed.
o Now has a re-use cooldown time, like The Sandman.
* The Chargin' Target changes
o Direct charge hit now does 50 damage + 10 per head (up to 5 heads).
o Capped the turn rate from +left and +right while charging.
* The Huntsman changes
o Removed restriction that arrows need to be aimed before they can be lit by a Pyro.
o Bow can now be lowered without losing the lit arrow.
o Changed bow so you can start charging it while you're jumping, but you can't fire until you're on the ground.
o Fixed bug where flame effect would get stuck on if you change weapons with a lit arrow.
* Backpack changes
o Moved Crafting button out to the root class/backpack selection panel.
o Dragging and dropping items in your backpack now makes appropriate sounds.
* Bot changes
o Bots don't retreat to gather health as readily if they are in combat.
o Bots no longer retreat when moving to block a point capture.
o Bots should now equip an appropriate combat weapon and fight while moving to collect health.
o Bots who are roaming the map and hunting now chase down their victims, following them around corners.
o Bots That fire projectiles (ie: rockets/grenades/etc) don't hold down their fire button for a minimum time. This was causing Soldier bots to fire rockets into nearby walls as they strafed, killing themselves.
o Soldiers bots now switch to their shotgun after firing all four rockets when engaging an enemy.
o Added a few more bot names from community suggestions.
o Fixed a behavior loop with Engineer metal gathering.
* The Sandman change
o Added a slight speed reduction to stunned players.
* Community requests
o Added ConVars log_verbose_enable and log_verbose_interval to report player positions in the server log at regular intervals
+ log_verbose_enable default: 0
+ log_verbose_interval default: 3 secs
o "Last-weapon" initialization on respawn now sets itself to be the melee weapon if you don’t have a selectable secondary weapon (like The Razorback).


Bug Fixes

* Fixed an case where The Gunboats didn’t apply their damage reduction properly.
* The amount count in the HUD now flashes red when you’re low on ammo.
* Extinguishing a burning teammate now earns a full bonus point (was half a point).
* Fixed a permanent overheal exploit involving dispensers.
* Fixed a bug in spectator mode where the user aborted out of freezecam, setup a spec mode (like IN_EYE), and would then have the setting stomped after the freezecam timer expired.
* Fixed bug with disguised spy sometimes seeing his own name in the disguise status HUD.
* Fixed a client crash that could result from players with arrows embedded in them.
* Fixed items that can be worn by any class having the wrong model when worn by a disguised Spy.
* Added missing map prefixes to server browser game types.
* Killing yourself with your own sentry no longer increments the sentry's kill counter.
* Fixed dropped hats sometimes having the wrong team color.
* Fixed crit-boosted players not getting critical hits if their weapon has custom no-crit behavior.
* Fixed the achievement dialog taking a long time to pop up, and completed achievements now sort to the bottom of the list.
* Fixed Spies disguised as Medics hearing the autocaller sound.



They have buffed Heavy and Pyro now. Finally. Good update from what I can see.

TBH, that's more of a nerf to Pyros, a large damage reduction.

That looks like quite a nice update

pyro -20% what is the actual point. They keep making "balances" that ruin the game more, leading to more "balances" that ruin the game more. CBA

You guys get off lightly compared to say, the Illusionist in EQ2.

The Illusionist in EQ2 is now compared to the toilet cleaner at your workplace. You want him around, but you would never want to be him.

I don't get what you're saying exactly? Like noone will want to play pyro now or something? xD

Yeah. Except people will still play the Pyro whereas they won't play an Illusionist

I guess, although it would be fairly pointless playing it now really. The pyro always had an advatage in a sense that you could "surprise" someone (never bought this myself because after 10 mins of playing the game you expect pyros round corners)... so now with reduced damage a solly will easilly kill and have plenty of time to get some health.

Being on fire for a reduced time makes this more possible. Can't even do enough damage to heavys with the nice increased spin up time.

There will still be mouse1 pub heros who can't aim for the life of them - but I honestly can't see the justification for such changes? Do valve ever even test the changes they are making to the game

This is a good point; they could do with some more public testing. Updates seem to fly out of nowhere like they've been playtested to oblivion.. but probably haven't.

Indeed, I just think why bring out an update that hasn't been clearly thought out. After 10 minutes of play you could see updates shouldn't have been brought out to "improve" the game.

This leads to more extreme balancing, the 2x cap for the soldier for example.

The beuty of tf2 was the class balance where you're strong against one, weak against another but that isn't so clearly obvious now...

Don't get me wrong some updates have been good such as the airblast. But you wouldn't bring out a map that hasn't been tested that's full of bugs etc. In fact community maps fine tuned are the ones eventually made official.

I feel valve have gone the wrong direction with this game, so I'm looking forwards to TF3 now (though the game already is!) and hope they don't change anything about it if it works. (if it's not broken don't fix it).

It's good to see valve put so much effort into their community. I mean you can't argue it's purely for business as they'd just bring out CS2 (css has as many players as cod6 online playing "regularly), FAR more than any valve game). But they could at least think things through before releasing things.

I agree, the updates have gone heavily downhill. The medic one was good (a lot of options that suited the class and didn't affect balance) as was pyro and heavy, but the rest have been a bit off the mark.

I thought the Spy ones were ok, but didn't think so much of the Sniper ones.

(Trying to talk as much about EQ2 as possible)

In EQ2, the Shadowknight is blatantly the most overpowered class in the game. You get hit; you heal yourself. You make any attack; you drain their life and transfer it to yourself. You take less damage because you wear plate armour. You can one-shot people with Harm Touch which everybody seems to have an innate weakness to. You can massively increase your ability casting and reuse speed, and refresh the ability every time you make a kill.

People complain that the situation with Shadowknights has got rediculous now. They are nigh on unkillable in PvP.

So what do they do?

Update Notes:
Focus: Death March now adds 10% damage reduction to On the March in PVE Combat and 5% damage reduction in PVP Combat.

So they take even less damage...

I think some updates could be argued useful, the ability to recharge cloak time by picking up ammo crates for example which helped counter the fact as people play more they become more clued on the game (the daedauleus [cba spelling] vid shows how bad people were when it comes to spies on launch of the game ).

But the deadringer....seriously? The pistol was also crazy.

I admit the charge and charge (or whatever) did make me lol the first time I saw it as I had no idea it existed until a demoman was attacking me with a samarai sword...

and rofl at the eq2 thing .

It would be like css update - awper now has increased running speed and does 10% more damage so leg shots kill....wait what?!

The dead ringer was horribly broken and still isn't truly fixed, AFAIK.
The CnD, from what I heard, is pretty useless as a cloak unless you want to do nothing for ages.
The ambassador is ok, but doesn't really add anything except "lololol headshot" (which kinda goes against the haphazard shooting styles of most of TF2).

With the Cloak and Dagger, I would argue that it depends on your play style. And the Dead Ringer was pretty powerful on release, but the last time I tried it they'd fixed it, you couldn't spam it anymore, it did what it was supposed to do (make it look like you'd died).

I still think fake deaths are silly. As for the CnD, what I read about it was it was pointless unless you were camping a lot, rather than infiltrating. I guess you could be clever with it, but whatever, I'm not a spy player.

The Pyro nerf is to eliminate W+M1, but they've done it poorly since they're going against everything they said the Pyro should have been used for- ambushing (how you are meant to ambush when your opponent simply turns around and kills you when you ambush them only VALVe seems to know).

Not all is lost though.
Note that most of his buffs have something to do with his AIRBLAST. You gain points for using it, and you MINICRIT anything you reflect, and they made it faster to reflect and less costly. The Minicrits mean that damage falloff is eliminated so you can heavily counter Soldier and Demoman is you time your airblasts right by doing up to 150 damage per explosive direct hit, and with the increased speed you'll do this even better. You can effectively now shut down a Soldier or Demoman as any of their main weapons you can reflect back at them and minicrit them back, forcing them to retreat or die. Soldiers if they have the shotgun could try to take you on but that's where your own shotgun comes in handy or your flare gun. With a teammate with you though, you can effectively shut down Soldiers who REALLY needed a counter since they were on the verge of being too powerful due to their matchups being neutral or in their favour only.

As for the Heavy vs Pyro, the Heavy would mostly win unless you did the PuffnSting tactic which is still viable but more difficult now that the Heavy spins up faster. I'm pleased they finally did something useful to Heavy. As for Pyro, those that airblast will love the buffs, those that don't will QQ because their w+m1 tactics are now useless.

UPDATE. The Pyro patches were an accident. A TF2 beta player confirmed they were testing codes sent into the TF2 Beta but were released in the public patch by accident.

Most likely these changes will be removed soon. It is a good sign however that things are being tested once again in the beta.

Even what they have done to the pyro makes sense, meaning that an ambushing pyro can use the backburner while the offensive pyro will use airblast. The buffs may even make the pyro a class that could be used competitively but would require more skill.

I would still say the flamethrower is probably too weak now, if it was less drastic (half the reduction), then it would probably be alright.

Watch this video on Youtube.

Wynney you thought the hit reg was dire enough in TF2, take a look at the screwed up hitboxes

Guess as with everything VALVe do, they fix one thing and break 5 other things...

Watch this video on Youtube.

Engies, enjoy the fact you can build a lot of sentries!


Watch this video on Youtube.

Met, your favourite glitch is back!