[TF2] Man(n) vs Machine?

[HaemishM]

I thought the second comic was grin-worthy but I'm a huge nerd anyway so fuck off if you didn't like it.

I still like TF2, though I have so many other things to play it's way down the list of priorities. Horde mode won't bring me back, but I can see where it would give folks more reason to buy stuff in the store. Not sure what they mean about the bots dropping cash, but we'll see. I'll probably give it a try then go back to hating Cole Phelps some more.

[Malakili]

Not sure what they mean about the bots dropping cash, but we'll see

They mentioned being able to upgrade things in horde mode, I figure it might have to do with that.

[Korachia]

This look surprisingly interesting! I will be trying this out next week when I return home.

As for the humor, yes it is quite nerdy and over-the-top, but that is what sets it apart and makes it interesting! 

[Ingmar]

For all the talk about the weapons bloat/power creep I still find I use the regular ones or the ones from the first batch of alternates like 90% of the time. The other 10% of the time, I'm in Pyroland.

(Also, unrelated TF2 complaint, random people will NOT stop spamming me with friend invites to try to get their hands on my sweet, sweet bunny ears.)

[Malakili]

For all the talk about the weapons bloat/power creep I still find I use the regular ones or the ones from the first batch of alternates like 90% of the time. The other 10% of the time, I'm in Pyroland.

Oh, it isn't power creep, don't get me wrong.   I use default weapons when I, on occasion, want to play and still crush everyone with them the same as always.  It comes down to refining the experience for me.  There are just way too many weapons all with slightly different abilities and bonuses and you get to the point where there are just way too many things that you can't predict - particularly because some things give passive bonuses which aren't obvious.  For example, last time I played I hit an engineer with a rocket, hit him square on and knew that even if he was full health one more rocket would finish him off, I shot at him, turned away and even heard the hit sound.   I was low on hp, and he killed me with a shotgun blast.  Turned out he had a gunslinger equipped which is +25 hp for him.  In a game of split second decisions, that sort of thing really pisses me off.  I know most people don't play at that level (Yea, I used to play TF2 competitively when it first came out), but for me personally this sort of thing makes the game frustrating to play.

[schild]

For all the talk about the weapons bloat/power creep I still find I use the regular ones or the ones from the first batch of alternates like 90% of the time. The other 10% of the time, I'm in Pyroland.

(Also, unrelated TF2 complaint, random people will NOT stop spamming me with friend invites to try to get their hands on my sweet, sweet bunny ears.)

Huh? Bunny ears?

[cmlancas]

For all the talk about the weapons bloat/power creep I still find I use the regular ones or the ones from the first batch of alternates like 90% of the time. The other 10% of the time, I'm in Pyroland.

(Also, unrelated TF2 complaint, random people will NOT stop spamming me with friend invites to try to get their hands on my sweet, sweet bunny ears.)

Huh? Bunny ears?

It's the mask that lets you run faster.  You get them by beating the running guy in a race.

[Ingmar]

Promo hat from pre-ordering one of the Sam & Max seasons. Apparently they're worth like $60-70 or something now because they're rare? I dunno, people are crazy.

[Trippy]

Max's Severed Head

[Simond]

Oh, it isn't power creep, don't get me wrong. {snip}

Ah, so you liked playing TF2 as an e-sport. That makes sense then. Have you tried Fortress Forever?

[Malakili]

Oh, it isn't power creep, don't get me wrong. {snip}

Ah, so you liked playing TF2 as an e-sport. That makes sense then. Have you tried Fortress Forever?

Yea, it was pretty enjoyable, though at the time there weren't any leagues playing it.  Now that you mention it though I should probably reinstall that mod, it would probably be a lot more enjoyable for me for the random TF sessions I'm looking for.

[kildorn]

New MvM page is up, explaining how the player classes work a bit, and the round upgrade system.

[Trippy]

Demoman got shafted.

[Megrim]

Because crit stickies need buffing.

[Samwise]

When I watched the MvM video and the tank full of robots started rolling up, my first thought was that the demoman should just pop 8 stickies under that thing and blow it into orbit.

[kildorn]

Last MvM page is up. And it's.. confusing?

So to play on official servers, you need a ticket for $1. These tickets are consumed when you win? You gain cosmetic items for winning on these ticket based servers.

I'm not fully following why I'd care about these tickets, or why they're used up in such an odd manner, or if I can earn normal TF2 items during gameplay, or what.

http://www.teamfortress.com/mvm/faq/

edit: nevermind on the "does this count towards normal loot on free servers", it does. Looks like you buy tickets to eventually get hats.

[Trippy]

Holy fuck that's expensive.

[Simond]

Not really.

http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Mann_Co_Store_Pricelist

[kildorn]

I'm a bit puzzled on when I pay them how much to play on their tracked/ranked servers. If it's like, a dollar or two a month cool. If it's a dollar a MATCH, fuck that. I'm also still not sure what the draw is besides hats (which admittedly means I don't fully get most of TF2's transaction model)

[Trippy]

There's a lot more items you can get in TF2 than just hats including multiple weapons for each class.

[Simond]

I'm a bit puzzled on when I pay them how much to play on their tracked/ranked servers. If it's like, a dollar or two a month cool. If it's a dollar a MATCH, fuck that. I'm also still not sure what the draw is besides hats (which admittedly means I don't fully get most of TF2's transaction model)

Because you only have to pay a dollar if you want a cosmetic item? Otherwise just play on the normal servers.

[Samwise]

The ticket is consumed upon completion of a Mission (a full map round) on their official server.

Completing an entire Tour (which is some number of Missions) gets you a rare cosmetic item (they say explicitly it's not weapon upgrades or anything like that).

So basically, however many Missions are in a Tour is the cost in dollars of one of these special hats.  From the achievements, it sounds like that number is at least three.

[Trippy]

Not really.

http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Mann_Co_Store_Pricelist

The problem is the items are random so you will end up getting items you already own and there are lots of items you might not care about. Yes you can trade with other players but that's a fucking PITA. If they had an trading house system then it might not be so bad.

[Samwise]

It sounds like these items are coming from a special list, so the odds of getting duplicates are pretty low unless you're getting tons and tons of them.

I haven't yet bought anything from the Mann Co store, but I do like achievements and stat tracking; I might get one tour's worth of tickets just to get my one bragging-rights robot hat.

[Shannow]

Anyone actually gotten into a game yet? Thing seems borked.
And holy flying fruit bats wtf has happened to TF2 load times?!?

[kildorn]

I've been playing. Use the server browser and filter for mvm. What is messing servers up is they are 32 player servers running mvm, which is 6 players. So everyone else has to spectate.

Crazy game mode is crazy. I like it, but it seems like you really need engineers, and snipers are the shitty class.

So. Many. Scoutbots.

[Trippy]

Demoman got shafted.

Watched a video of somebody playing a Demoman and he does get the standard weapon upgrades that were mentioned for most of the other classes.

[koro]

The ticket is consumed upon completion of a Mission (a full map round) on their official server.

Completing an entire Tour (which is some number of Missions) gets you a rare cosmetic item (they say explicitly it's not weapon upgrades or anything like that).

So basically, however many Missions are in a Tour is the cost in dollars of one of these special hats.  From the achievements, it sounds like that number is at least three.

From the PA forums:

a Tour of Duty is 6 missions.

a Tour of Duty Ticket gets you access to the Mann Up Mode servers.
-If you complete an uncompleted mission on your Tour of Duty, you use up the ToD Ticket, and receive 1 item.
-If you complete a previously completed mission on your Tour of Duty, you do NOT use the ToD Ticket.
-If you lose the mission, you do NOT use the ToD ticket.

if you complete a full Tour of Duty (which would need 6 total tickets), you receive 1 Rare item.

So $6 per special hat.

Squad Surplus Vouchers
-If you use a SSV on a mission, if the mission is completed ALL party members receive 1 item. This is regardless of whether it was a previously completed or not mission for your ToD.
-SSVs stack. so if each party member uses one, then each member receives 6 items at the end.
-If you lose the mission, you do NOT use the SSV.

So if you do a complete Tour of Duty, with each member of the party using an SSV throughout it, you will gain 43 total items (6 per game from SSVs, 1 per game for the ToD ticket, 1 rare for the ToD complete.) This roughly comes out to $18.

This shit can get expensive, especially if you try to maximize your earnings. Considering how much it'd end up costing you to play on the official servers combined with how much it'd cost to set up your own dedicated server for this (as you need a full 32-player server that can actually handle MvM, so it's pretty pricy), I can see this not really gaining much ground.

[HaemishM]

Yep, this pretty much evaporated my cheap ass's interest in this game mode.

[apocrypha]

I haven't played TF2 since about a month after it was originally released.

Those comics and the trailer piqued my interest and I was all about to reinstall and give it a go and then I read the last few posts. It's pay per game? What? OK, fuck that. 

[Shannow]

I believe (and I may not be correct) there is a free version of the game (well it's free at the moment) it's just there are no goodies to be won/collected. (big whoop I play TF2 for mindless action fun)

Mind you I managed to log onto a mvm server this morning. Got ourselves setup and as soon as the enemy gate came down we all lagged out so badly that everyone quit.
-1 for initial impression.

[Simond]

Reading comprehension is unfair to some and whatnot.

I'm a bit puzzled on when I pay them how much to play on their tracked/ranked servers. If it's like, a dollar or two a month cool. If it's a dollar a MATCH, fuck that. I'm also still not sure what the draw is besides hats (which admittedly means I don't fully get most of TF2's transaction model)

Because you only have to pay a dollar if you want a cosmetic item? Otherwise just play on the normal servers.

[koro]

My beef is less that you're paying $1 for cosmetic items and more that you have to pay $1 to get on Valve dedicated servers, which tend to be rock-solid stable places to go if you want to just shoot some Tuftoo mans of wildly varying skill levels without a bunch of mods and other bullshit installed onto the server.

[cmlancas]

My beef is less that you're paying $1 for cosmetic items and more that you have to pay $1 to get on Valve dedicated servers, which tend to be rock-solid stable places to go if you want to just play Tuftoo without a bunch of mods and other bullshit installed onto the server.

I think there's something in the water today. 

So, don't play there?  How is this actually affecting you whatsoever?

How can you have a beef with something you haven't paid for and don't want?

 

[Samwise]

There are plenty of stable modless non-Valve servers for the basic game mode.  If the new mode is fun, plenty of MvM servers will show up.

Reading comprehension is indeed unfair to some.