A heavy update

[Prospero]

Incoming next week, and it looks big.

- 2 new maps( cp_steel and a new Payload style map )
- 1 new game mode with 5 "arenas"
- heavy weapons and achievements
- new meet the team related video

http://www.teamfortress.com/
http://steamgames.com/tf2/heavy/

edit: they updated their blog with a clarification about the new game mode

[KallDrexx]

Oh valve how i love thee...

Every time I take a break from tf2 another uber update comes out. 

[stu]

I  Payload maps. CP_Steel looks familiar. Maybe I played a beta version of it? Heavy is my favorite guy to use, but since everyone and their mother will be playing as him, I'll have a chance to rack up some massive Pyro and Medic stats.

edit: Ah, CP_Steel is community-made.

[bhodi]

Steel was developed by a goon and has been running on the lost continent servers for quite a while now in various stages of development and playtesting.

If you stalked me in TF2, that is where I hang out, and you may have played it there.

[stu]

I think I played it on a server called Jimmy Likes Men.

[Prospero]

The heavy melee weapon

[Samwise]

The heavy melee weapon

Woo, I was close with my "berserker boxing" idea, except I figured it'd give invuln instead of kritz. 

Kritz is slightly more awesome, even if it doesn't quite go with the "increased survivability" thing they were talking about.

Interesting that unlike the other melee upgrades, this will only be of any use at all when there are multiple enemies in a relatively small area (so you can run around killing them all before the kritz runs out).

[Samwise]

If you look at the icons for the heavy achievements, the file names spell out generally what each one is.  They look pretty .  By which I mean, none of them sound half as stupid as the "uber scout kills" or "flame a spy that's doing this particular taunt" achievements.  Looking forward to getting these.

[HaemishM]

Another Payload Map. I see this as a good thing.

[Samwise]

Yeah, it looks pretty fun.  Seems like there are more lines of attack for blue instead of narrow Chokepoints of Death like on goldrush.

[Samwise]

New heavy weapon - Natascha.  -25% damage, slows targets down.  That's an interesting tradeoff.

Rumor is that the shotgun replacement is going to be a sandwich.  Supported by the fact that one of the achievements involves sandwich eating.

[schild]

Hayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. Lookit that. I wanted a gun to be called Sasha. I basically got it. ^_^

[Simond]

Acheivement descriptions have been added to the page now, and

Rasputin: In a single life, get shot, burned, bludgeoned, and receive explosive damage.

is pretty much pure 

[schild]

Getting hit with a rocket counts as all 4, rite?

[Samwise]

Heavy Industry: Fire $200,000 worth of minigun rounds in a single life.

That's 1000 bullets, for those of you keeping score.

I like how all the "in a single life" achievements are pretty easy.  Except for the 20 kills one, but at least heavies have a motivation to cooperate with medics on that one now.

[schild]

You can do the heavy industry one in the room during setup. It takes 12 seconds, right?

[MrHat]

can we just .exe this in a week?

[Samwise]

can we just .exe this in a week?

Most likely, unless they're fixing that hole as part of this update.

It still kind of boggles my mind that people don't like getting these things during normal play, but I guess it just makes me that much more special when I get the little trophy over my head.   

[schild]

Why would it boggle your mine? Achievements should be self-achieved (hence the fucking name!), if a game has even one achievement that requires someone else be doing something, I'll just as soon cheat. F relying on other people.

[Samwise]

For the medic achievements as first released, where getting all the weapons relied on doing every single one of the bullshit achievements, I totally get it.  I didn't cheat them myself because I wanted to take a shot at them in-game (and to my immense satisfaction I've gotten a couple of the ones I thought would be impossible), but I could totally understand people cheating because they wanted to try the ubersaw or whatever.

For the pyro and heavy ones, and with the new unlock thresholds, I don't get it.  You can unlock all the weapons and then some without any reliance on other people in very little time, and it's lots of fun to do it.  I wish I could reset some of those achievements and do them again, or have it keep a count of ones I've gotten multiple times over (like OMGWTFBBQ).  The couple of difficult ones beyond what's needed for the unlocks don't do anything but light up icons on your Steam page that nobody but you will ever look at, and you'll know that you cheated to get them so it's not like you'll get any sort of satisfaction out of seeing them all lit up.  I don't understand what the appeal is in that case.

[LK]

I'll probably play TF2 again once this update goes out because I love me some Heavy.

But then everyone will likely be heavy.

[Samwise]

I for one look forward to the day or so of all-heavy teams.  Both from the perspective of sniping the fatties and from being part of a giant mob of Sasha-wielding death.

[MrHat]

Oh, its just for the unlocks.  I LOVE getting random ones that show up based on skill or whatever.

I don't like knowing them before hand and I don't like having to grind anything to get new unlocks.

[LK]

It's all quaint until you start to get tired with a game. Then you look for a way to "complete" it as fast as possible.

[schild]

Yup. I've been tired of the game for a long time. 100 hours will do that to a game.

[Samwise]

Oh, its just for the unlocks.  I LOVE getting random ones that show up based on skill or whatever.

I don't like knowing them before hand and I don't like having to grind anything to get new unlocks.

But if you .exe them you'll never get the random ones, because once they're checked off you'll never see yourself get them.  Is getting the weapons a week early worth depriving yourself of that joy?

Just don't look at the achievements and don't think about the unlocks.  If the Pyro ones are any indication, you will have all of the unlocks automatically after maybe a dozen rounds played with that class, whether you try to or not.  And you'll have 20 of those wonderful little "gratz, you just did a cool thing" moments along the way.

Also:

It's all quaint until you start to get tired with a game. Then you look for a way to "complete" it as fast as possible.

Yup. I've been tired of the game for a long time. 100 hours will do that to a game.

Uninstalling is the purest form of completion.  SWG taught me that.

(edit) I just now wondered how many hours I've been playing TF2 so I went to my stats page to figure it out.  165.  Goddamn.

[MrHat]

Let me clear it up, since I'm brain dead tonight.

I don't like anything tied to new weapons.  If they were just cosmetic, maybe, but they're not.

It's new mechanisms added to the game, which make it more fun imo, but I don't want to have to play a certain way in order to 'unlock them'.

I like acheivements.  I like trophies.  I like that stuff.  It's fun, and does add a certain something to shoot for when you're having a blast anyways, and a nice surprise when you're not paying attention.

I do not like having to unlock new gameplay modes which is what the new equipment is for me.  I don't like it fucking Soul Caliber, I don't like it in TF2; I do not like having to unlock content which is right fucking there.

[Samwise]

So you have moral objections to the concept of unlockables and therefore feel compelled to spite... someone... by circumventing the unlock mechanism, even if doing this removes a part of the game you'd otherwise enjoy, and you'd get the unlockables either way?

That's sort of insane, but I guess I understand it.  I mean, I was sort of annoyed to find out that the new weapons were hidden behind achievements, but not to the extent that I felt compelled to sabotage my own fun as a form of protest.     At its best, the process of getting the achievements is the most fun part of the game for me, and even at its worst the satisfaction of finally getting a tough one is usually worth whatever pain in the ass it took to get it.  Like that goddamn gnome launch.

The unlocks don't even factor into it at this point because after the pyro update they happen automatically.  If you like playing the class, you'll get all the weapons faster than you get used to them.  And if you don't play the class, why do you care?

[bhodi]

But if you .exe them you'll never get the random ones, because once they're checked off you'll never see yourself get them.  Is getting the weapons a week early worth depriving yourself of that joy?

Yes. Yes it is. I get my joy from CRY SOME MORE, not from "Look at me, I have a brief trophy on my head, now it's gone." Fortunately, the unlock.exe will very likely work and I'll be slowing people on the first day.

I think you and I have fundamentally different ways of enjoying some things. For example, I would never, ever do the gnome launch. You, on the other hand, would probably play Desert bus if it e-mailed your friends upon completion.

[Samwise]

See, not liking achievements at all is one thing.  You hate fun, that's understandable.  But Hat said he likes achievements.  Hence my confusion.

[bhodi]

I'm going to make a game; it's a white box with a red button in it. Each time you push the button, a counter in the corner goes up.

There's a separate achievement for each time there's an additional digit, and every time you hit an achievement the windows 95 trumpet sounds.

Just for you.



Hat? He's crazy.

[Samwise]

I'll tell you what I tell everyone who pitches me game ideas: If carrying a gnome around is more fun than your game, you need to refine your core gameplay.

[eldaec]

I'm pleasantly surprised to see that the new minigun has actual tradeoffs.

But it does make me suspect that the 'slowed' opponents will be practically rooted to make sure that the unlockable is hideously overpowered.

[MrHat]

God damn.

I LIKE Achievements.  I don't like equipment unlocking.

Wtf is confusing you guys?

Tying the two together is stupid.  Give me a "You killed 20000 Soldiers!" trophy, put it on a page so I can stroke myself at home or at work, but don't say "You killed 20000 Soldiers, here's a nifty new gameplay element!"  Just give me the fucking gameplay element.

[KallDrexx]

God damn.

I LIKE Achievements.  I don't like equipment unlocking.

Wtf is confusing you guys?

Tying the two together is stupid.  Give me a "You killed 20000 Soldiers!" trophy, put it on a page so I can stroke myself at home or at work, but don't say "You killed 20000 Soldiers, here's a nifty new gameplay element!"  Just give me the fucking gameplay element.

qft