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TF2Workbench: Signs of life

Told you I'd check in on February 1st!

So, I'm not really feeling like I can feasibly start updating the blog this month, but I'm thinking I'd like to make at least a start at resuming regular updates. I've managed to build up a decent store of ideas that I'd like to consider.

As I'm sort of soft-rebooting the blog, I'd also like to experiment with new types of posts. Map balance (per my November Dustbowl post) is something I'm definitely interested in doing, but I was also thinking of pursuing stuff along the lines of "game tips" to encourage newer TF2 players. That'd certainly be a bit of a departure from my standard, although I know it's been received pretty well in the past.

For a next check-in, expect to hear from me in early March. Hopefully I'll have a nice set of posts ready by that point!

#tf2workbench #blog stuff

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I want my diamond back

If you've played against a Spy, you've probably seen the Diamondback. It's an awesome-looking revolver that stores crits with each backstab or sapped building.

Diamondback (+) Stores 1 guaranteed critical shot for each backstab or building destroyed with Sapper attached (-) -15% damage (-) No random critical hits

I've also noticed that it's sometimes received with frustration by many victims. Why's that, and does it need a change?

The Diamondback provides a powerful positive feedback system for its users, who are rewarded handsomely for playing well.

It's possible for enemies to guess how many Diamondback crits a given Spy has simply by watching the kill feed (although this does require a high level of attention and/or good team communication). This transparency is good and lets all players understand the capabilities of the Spy wielding the Diamondback.

The reduced damage makes it so that even critical shots are not one-hit kills, which is important to give players a chance to fight back.

On the other hand, the Diamondback can fire a perfectly accurate shot at any range, pinning enemies with 102 damage from across the map. In 2017, the Ambassador was reworked (see Spy section) to keep the Spy's range more predictable, but the Diamondback wasn't.

This is compounded by the Diamondback being hidden from enemies while the Spy is disguised, meaning that shots can come with very little warning.

I'd argue that the chief issue with the Diamondback is how suddenly it can strike enemies for large amounts of damage. To ameliorate that, I'd suggest adding the following to its attributes:

(-) Critical damage is affected by range

One other thing I was considering would be a more complex attribute affecting how easily a Spy could camouflage themselves:

(-) Holding a crit-boosted Diamondback causes your current disguise's weapon to appear crit-boosted

This is a nicely versatile attribute that can affect gameplay in so many situations!

Most often, it's a liability for the Spy, who will appear more suspicious if they're actively holding the Diamondback while disguised. This gives them a choice to make, and opposing players have a chance to capitalize on the information they receive.

In some cases, this can even add authenticity to a Spy's disguise - for example, if they're disguised as an Engineer with the Frontier Justice.

If you want to play mind games, disguising as a friendly class with a crit-boosted weapon can be fun. Watch enemies run from a crit-boosted "Soldier."

However, we should acknowledge that there are a few semi-common visual glitches related to crit-boosting, which can make some people's weapons appear boosted when they really aren't. This is more an annoyance than anything, but does make identifying Diamondback users a little more unpredictable.

It does not do very much to prevent sudden Diamondback attacks, since it's possible to swap to the gun and then fire. This takes very slightly longer than just having the gun out, but it's not a lot of time.

This is very minor, but it might encourage more Spychecking of teammates who appear with crit-boosted weapons, making Frontier Justice users and the like stoke paranoia in their allies.

These are reasonable pros and cons, although I find myself really liking the mind games of the whole thing. If we're focusing mostly on ameliorating the "surprise Diamondback" factor, it might be best to stick with the range-falloff attribute. But that's not to say this other one isn't worth discussing!

#tf2workbench #tf2 #team fortress 2 #primary #spy #diamondback

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[Image description: a graph with a beige background, reading “G.R.U. vs Eviction Notice.” The horizontal axis is measured in seconds from 0 to 40, while the vertical axis is measured both in HP, from 0 to 300, and distance covered, from 0 hammer units to 14000 hammer units. If a Heavy pulls out the GRU, his max health will decay to 100 in about 18 seconds. The Eviction Notice will cause his health to decay to 100 in about 36 seconds. If a Heavy runs for 40 seconds with the GRU, he will cover about 14000 hammer units. With the Eviction Notice, he will cover about 12000, and with neither item, he will cover about 10500.]

The Gloves of Running Urgently and Eviction Notice are basically just two gradations of the same item. Both increase your movement speed while draining your maximum health. This graph is an illustration of that, meant to provoke some discussion. Note that this does not mean one or the other is flat-out “better” - I’ll discuss why later in this post.

Mechanical stuff These are the unsimplified equations for the graphs, with the letter t standing for time in seconds:

HP: GRU: 300 - 20 - 10t EV: 300 - 20 - 5t

Distance traveled: GRU: 230 * 1.3t = 299t EV: 230 * 1.15t = 264.5t

Hammer units can be a little difficult to visualize, so I’ll give you a few in-game references: - First blue spawn to first red spawn on Upward: ~6700 HU - Third to fourth point on Upward: ~2700 HU - Spawn to spawn on Viaduct, shortest route: ~6700 HU - Blue spawn to second point on Badwater: ~4150 HU - Full Doublecross bridge: ~2600HU - Spawn to spawn on Granary, shortest route: ~12800 HU

I also want to clarify a few mechanical questions: - As soon as you start to switch to either weapon, your max HP drops by 20 and immediately begins to drain. As soon as you start to switch away, your max HP begins to regenerate. - Regeneration occurs at exactly the same rate it drained: 5 per second for the Eviction Notice and 10 per second for the GRU. - Healing does not affect the drain rate. Overheal is always capped at 150% of what your current max health is. - If you have taken damage, your health will drain proportionally: if you are at 30 health when you pull out the gloves, your health can drain down to 10, but no further.

And now, on to the analysis:

Analysis Some people have suggested that this means the GRU is less efficient than the Eviction Notice. This is, well, kind of true, but that does not mean that the EV is flat-out better. It is more efficient at using your health to boost your movement speed, so if you want to get to a place as fast as possible while losing as little health as possible, it’s your best option.

By contrast, the GRU is good for getting you places as fast as possible. For example, I like to use it to roll out if I know my team is waiting for me - I can give them support but not commit to the fight until my health is back to full. There are definitely scenarios where speed is more important than having your health high, and the GRU works well for those scenarios.

I get the impression that a lot of people think of these gloves as rollout tools, used when you need to get to the fight and never after. But you can also use them to reposition in combat zones. If your Medic wants you to take an Ubercharge, you can swap to the gloves to gain some ground before you start shooting. And if you need to retreat, it’s better to lose some max health than lose all your health. That’s one scenario where the GRU far outshines the EV: when you’re running away, moving at “regular class” speed is definitely preferable to moving slower than most other classes.

This is kind of a cursory overview of the gloves, I’ll admit. And it doesn’t change the fact that they’re entirely too similar to each other, making both of them less interesting. That’s something I plan to tackle in a coming post, but for now, enjoy the graph!

#tf2workbench #tf2 #team fortress 2 #heavy #melee #gloves of running urgently #eviction notice

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TF2Workbench: December hiatus

Oh no, he put "hiatus" in the title!

Good news: it's just for December. I'll check back on January 1st, and until then I'm always accessible here and on Steam.

I've found that:

Work is taking up a lot of my time, especially as I try to move up to a more permanent position. I love my job, don't get me wrong, but it takes a lot of energy.

I've felt a general lack of inspiration lately re: TF2, and I'm realizing that I may have treaded most of the ground that I can tread regarding new weapon unlocks. My November post about Dustbowl was well-received, and I'm planning to do more posts about map balance in the future. But for now, it's time for a brief reset.

Thanks for understanding (if you do, in fact, understand). I'll see you January 1st, 2024.

#blog stuff #tf2workbench

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Sidearm sidebows

Firing the Sniper's SMG usually feels a little bit like you're a faceless soldier in a horror movie, frantically and erratically spraying bullets at an implacable foe. Hand me a submachine gun, and I will instantly turn into an Imperial Stormtrooper.

But what if you could miss more dramatically instead? I want to convert the Huntsman into a secondary weapon.

Secondary Huntsman Stats relative to vanilla Huntsman (+) +33% reload speed (+) +50% ammo carried (-) Cannot headshot (-) -30% damage (-) Affected by damage falloff

It has nowhere near the stopping power of the regular Huntsman, but it's an acceptable self-defense weapon. Actually, we have to make sure "acceptable" isn't too powerful, since SMGs are usually around "mediocre" instead.

The real hurt here is the ranged damage falloff. At best, you'll be doing 84 damage on a fully-charged shot at close range. Uncharged shots can do up to 35. That's generally weaker than a shotgun, which is what we're aiming (pun intended) for.

With all the work I'm doing to make this a weak weapon, you might be thinking, why bother making this? Couple reasons:

Slow-firing weapons often feel better to use and play against, especially when fast-firing weapons would feel weak or impotent (see: the SMG).

Projectile physics give an inherent learning curve (pun also intended), especially with the charge mechanic of the Huntsman. This gives players more depth than your average SMG. (This is why I don't just give the Sniper a nerfed shotgun).

Granted, these may not seem like solid justifications to you. But I think I might enjoy using this secondary in tandem with my rifle. Am I underestimating the number of people who like to use the SMG? If you're an SMG enjoyer or Huntsman hater, I'm sorry.

...So, last question: do I tag this as secondary, primary, or both?

#tf2workbench #team fortress 2 #tf2 #secondary #sniper #huntsman

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It's beginning to look a lot like Dustbowl

This is something a little new for the blog that I'm hoping will be enjoyable. I'm going to talk about individual maps in the game, especially those known for being unbalanced. What better way to start things off than with Dustbowl, one of the original six maps?

Dustbowl tends to be very difficult for the attacking team to win. This is in large part due to the way the map is set up. Let's take a look at some key spots on the map.

As we go through these pictures, I'll ask you to bear one thing in mind: if a team has to go to somewhere, the goal is to minimize the damage they take while getting to the point. This is something that is a major problem on Dustbowl: there are many areas where BLU will have to expose themselves to sentry fire, explosive spam, Sniper shots, and more if they want to even have a chance to kill the defending team.

The first major struggle for BLU team is getting to the first point. All three spawn exits lead to wide areas of open ground leading up to the capture point. RED can easily shelter in the building, but there's very little cover for attackers to benefit from, meaning they take a lot of damage as they rush up.

Approaching the second point can be tricky. BLU has great holding spots in the mineshafts just before this area, where it's almost impossible for RED to root them out. But to approach the point, they have to take one of two routes: through a narrow, straight stairwell directly into the RED hold, or across a wide swath of open ground that's easily visible from RED spawn.

Second stage, first point. It's quite difficult for BLU to get inside the house leading to the point, and RED can resist them fiercely by spamming into the narrow corridors. The main path also gives RED the height advantage, particularly while they hold the shed near the front, which lets them bombard all BLU spawn exits.

After the first point, BLU has to go through a couple of choke points, most of which emerge right in the heart of RED defenses. Defenders can set up on the patio this photo is taken from, but they can also build fortifications on top of the mineshafts, allowing them to hit emerging BLU players from both sides.

This area is BLU's best bet for taking the next point. They can come out the one-way door on the right and go into the building, which has ammo and health reserves. But it's an enclosed space, meaning RED can spam the entrances with explosives. At least it gives the attackers an area to hole up in.

This isn't the hardest point to take on Dustbowl, but it's easily second-hardest. The building to the right of the image has a height advantage and narrow windows from which RED can fire out on BLU spawn. Behind the building is a great place to build dispensers and sentries. And the path near the top-middle of the image is just outside RED spawn, giving the defenders easy control of a sightline that BLU will have to walk through to reach the point.

This straightaway is between the first and second points on the final stage. BLU turns left into a long corridor in which they have little cover, while RED has a height advantage and can easily spam the corner. To boot, see those windows at the very back? Those are very easy for RED Snipers to hide in and take shots at attackers. It's common for Dustbowl to end with the BLU team unable to advance past this corner.

This is why the last point of Dustbowl is the hardest. BLU has very few options for the attack; the main route is straight and has no cover. There's a flank route on the left side of this image, but it requires crossing the main path, which means crossing a RED sightline. An alcove on the right is an easy holding point for defenders. The only other flank route requires attackers to pass through a wide-open ravine that is in full view of defenders, who will have the high ground.

Conclusion If I had to pick one thing that makes Dustbowl difficult, I'd say it's the open spaces. Because BLU has to take points, they always have to move through these spaces if they want to progress. But because there's so little cover, they are forced to take damage as they move. This is an attacker's disadvantage, and on other maps, it's mitigated by giving them more cover, including (often) a high-ground position and more viable flank routes. Dustbowl:

has little cover for attackers;

has few flank routes;

has extremely narrow flank routes that are open to defending spam.

For the uninitiated, I recommend the delightful early-TF2 meme "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Dustbowl." (Maybe don't listen to it in polite company.)

Is Dustbowl unbalanced? Yeah, sure. But - and I want to stress this - it can still be fun. It's not like every match on Dustbowl is a guaranteed RED win, and individual players can have really great moments regardless of which side they're on.

And what's even more important is that Dustbowl was one of the first maps. Valve and many, many community mapmakers have been practicing their art for over 15 years now, meaning that, if you start on Dustbowl and move through maps in chronological order, you can feel how much designers (both Valve and community) have improved. When you're on Dustbowl, there's nowhere to go but up.

#tf2workbench #team fortress 2 #tf2 #map review #dustbowl #images described

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Direct grenade

18 November

The Soldier has the Direct Hit, so it's no wonder that one of the more common suggestions for a grenade launcher is one that mini-crits blast-jumping (or knocked-airborne) targets. Curiously, this has never been added, even on the Direct Hit-ish Loch-n-Load. Why might that be?

(+) Getting an airshot is a great moment, and having the positive feedback of a mini-crit feels wonderful. It's a huge high moment for the person who hit the shot. This is a big part of why we'd want this grenade launcher in the first place.

(-) Grenades are harder to aim than rockets, and grenade launchers can't take projectile speed attributes without altering their effective range, which can really disrupt enemy players. So a grenade launcher with +70% projectile speed is a no-go - although you certainly don't need that to hit airshots.

(-) The Direct Hit's airshots are not its only selling point and are mostly icing on the cake for advanced players. What users will notice the most are the other attributes: the projectile speed, blast radius, and damage. As we've discussed, the projectile speed has to be toned down a lot, and as I noted in the Direct Hit post last month, high-damage point-blank explosives can often frustrate opposing light classes.

So if we're to design a grenade launcher that can get mini-crits, we'll want to include something else to make it really unique - but we probably won't be able to do a high-speed, high-damage build like the Direct Hit.

Hey, wait: there is a grenade launcher that can get mini-crits. It's the Loose Cannon, and it's really fun to use. Is there another way to do our mini-crit launcher while still using regular grenades?

Mini-Crit Grenade Launcher (+) While blast jumping or knocked airborne by an explosive: grenades mini-crit (-) -25% blast radius (-) -25% clip size

I've found that the only thing as satisfying as an airshot is landing grenades when you yourself are in the air, whether it's a stickybomb jump or an enemy rocket that knocked you airborne.

(+) This weapon gives huge positive feedback for the user and rewards them for cool tricks, but it's also not terribly hard to activate. (+) Because the mini-crit boost disappears once you touch the ground, there's no reason to spam grenades while airborne, hoping that you'll get a mini-crit later. (+) Because of the high health cost of sticky jumping, this weapon has pretty clear limitations that the enemy can play around (although the Sticky Jumper does sort of offset this). (-) 135 damage on a direct hit is a lot, especially since it one-shots light classes. Granted, the Loose Cannon can do this too, but it usually is more predictable because it doesn't often come from above. (-) There's no visual indication that grenades are mini-critical, which means opposing players can't as easily tell how much damage they're about to take. (-) Like the Air Strike, a lot of playing with this weapon is trying to get yourself in situations where you can use its upsides. This isn't necessarily a bad thing because of how easy it is to reap its benefits, but it doesn't necessarily add as many new interactions as the Loose Cannon.

Overall, I'm hopeful about this idea, mostly because I love doing a high-speed bombing run and landing a few grenades before I'm gone. But I also acknowledge that it might not be the most enemy-friendly weapon out there, which could really make or break the design. I wouldn't mind hearing what you think about that!

#tf2workbench #team fortress 2 #tf2 #primary #demoman

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For a limited time only

A recent post on charge meters has given me an idea for a new type of charge bar: one that controls ammo for a weapon, specifically a flamethrower.

Charge Flamethrower Iteration 1 (*) Uses a charge meter instead of ammo. Continuous firing will drain the meter in about 5 seconds, and airblasts will subtract 20% of it. The charge meter regenerates fully in about 8 seconds when not firing. (+) Damage increases as charge decreases (up to +50%) (+) Airblast refire rate decreases as charge decreases (up to 50% faster) (-) If the meter is completely drained, it takes 3 seconds before it starts to recharge.

By itself, the way the charge works is a little bit restricting, since the regular flamethrower can fire for a lot longer than five seconds. The good news is that the numbers can be tweaked and adjusted to make the flamethrower more comfortable to use. 

The increasing damage (plus faster airblast) is the main draw of this flamethrower and gives you choices to make regarding how much charge you’ll consume. There’s a fine line to tread: you can only use this flamethrower’s benefits for a little while before you lose them entirely, but if you’re careful, you can extend that window of time where you’re most effective. Your enemies are also encouraged to keep the pressure up to see if they can get you to burn out your flamethrower, giving them a clear goal to work toward.

There are just a few things that I want to worry about:

1. Flamethrowers can be frustrating weapons to die to because of how quickly they kill and how hard they are to avoid once you’re in range. This increases with damage boosts - see how people react to dying to a Phlogistinator, for example. Would this weapon cause that kind of frustration? (Of course, this is no longer a problem if we make the weapon give a benefit other than increased damage.)

2. It’s hard for the enemy to properly judge how much juice is left in the Pyro’s flamethrower. I would like there to be some kind of visual indicator - possibly a change in the flame particles? - but I can’t think of a way to make it intuitive to viewers that the Pyro is working with less charge. Would this cause confusion and/or frustration?

Frankly, these are relatively minor concerns to have; I can’t see either of them causing a huge amount of trouble. I’m very pleased with the elements of pacing, risk, reward, and counterplay that this relatively simple idea introduces. Happy flaming!

#tf2workbench #tf2 #team fortress 2 #pyro #primary

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Do not pass spawn

Long ago, I discussed the idea of a Eureka Effect-like portal for the Spy. With this, I want to sort of elaborate on that idea, but for the Scout instead.

Scout Portal Iteration 1 Secondary (+) Allows you to build a respawn anchor, which has 100 health and cannot be upgraded. When you die, you instead return to the respawn anchor with 1 HP. (-) Requires 10 seconds to recharge after being used. If you die while it is recharging, the anchor is destroyed. (-) Leave a glowing trail after using the anchor, as if you had just used a Teleporter

I’m immediately suspicious of this idea for a couple of reasons. For one, it gives you and your enemy fewer choices than the version I talked about in the aforementioned post (though that was for the Spy). For two, a good Scout can already seem to be everywhere at once, even after you could swear you just killed them.

But at the same time, this does give the Scout an interesting new way to play. There’s strategy involved in placing this portal, as well as in using it in a way that won’t give yourself away or get your anchor destroyed. That’s good!

On the flip side, I fear that 10 seconds may not be a very long time to wait. Although it might be boring to the Scout (not ideal), enemies don’t have much time to recover, especially if the portal is placed near a health kit and/or in a place that they might not look. There are ways that we could make it less frustrating to enemies, but those would risk making it unusable for the Scout, who can only wait so long for a recharge before they lose interest.

I don’t want to harsh this idea too badly, though. It’s the kind of item that would need a lot of playtesting, but opens up cool new avenues of play that help keep TF2 feeling fresh. That’s the core of why we make weapons. And who knows: it could be a cool item for another class, or maybe even a way to reimagine the Dead Ringer. Even if this exact idea might be a bust, that doesn’t mean we can’t explore similar things in the future.

#tf2workbench #tf2 #team fortress 2 #spy #secondary

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The clock is ticking

Last month, I posted an idea that I liked quite a bit, talking about a flamethrower that would only fire for a short while, but would give benefits the closer you got to an empty fuel tank. Building off that, I want to make a minigun that works similarly.

Charge Minigun Iteration 1 (+) Uses a charge meter instead of ammo. Continuous firing will drain the meter in about 8 seconds. The charge meter regenerates fully in about 10 seconds when not firing. (+) Damage increases as charge decreases (up to +50%) (-) If the meter is completely drained, it takes 3 seconds before it starts to recharge (-) -25% damage

My first impression is that, unlike the flamethrower discussed previously, a minigun is a little trickier to fire on a whim; you can’t just tap the mouse to drop some of your charge. Whether that’s good or bad is up for debate: while it makes the gun easier for enemies to play around, the user has some difficulty using the gun “pre-drained.”

This is a pretty minor concern, all things told. The only other things I worry about are 1) how it would work with nonstandard mouse designs or other control settings and 2) how strong it can be to give a minigun extra damage. 

The former is a user interface issue that can come up a lot with the Heavy simply because some people can’t hold their secondary and primary fire at the same time. I don’t have a great solution for that, despite the fact that I’ve played on a Magic Mouse for years now.

The second one is something we deal with whenever miniguns are involved. Because they output such incredible damage, it seems that some folks react to them with frustration, perhaps because it feels like there’s nothing that can stop the Heavy from mowing them down. I don’t think it would be that much worse with this weapon, especially because the bonus damage can’t be sustained for very long.

Other than that, one thing I’m wondering is what other effects we could give this minigun; we don’t necessarily have to have charge affect damage. I briefly revisited my minigun with firing modes, but couldn’t find a good way to integrate that with the charge meter. Frankly, the charge meter itself is interesting enough to stand on its own, but I feel like there’s many other ways it could adjust the weapon’s functionality. Thoughts?

#tf2workbench #tf2 #team fortress 2 #heavy #primary

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Group therapy

All of the Medic’s Ubercharges are seriously limited in that they only affect one target at once, and even swapping targets reduces their overall duration. I want to experiment with changing that, building an Ubercharge that affects every teammate in a radius.

Group Medigun Iteration 1 (*) Ubercharge provides 50% damage resistance and regular Medigun healing to yourself and all teammates in a radius

So, it’s kind of like the Battalion’s Backup, but more so. And like the Backup, it has upsides and downsides, especially when contrasted with the other Ubercharges.

Exponential utility It’s always good to have teammates supporting each other, but this Ubercharge takes it to the next level by requiring that teammates stick close to the Medic. Depending on how large the radius is (I’m imagining it roughly equivalent to the Amputator’s taunt), quite a few teammates can benefit from it at once. That can be a huge asset that a single Ubercharge target, no matter how invulnerable, might not be able to match. We’ll explore best- (and worst-)case scenarios further down in the post.

Exponential danger 50% resistance doesn’t equal invulnerability, and any time a bunch of players cluster up, they’re at increased risk of splash damage. Soldiers, Demos, and Pyros can output large amounts of damage against a clustered group despite the damage reduction. Moreover, because teammates can sometimes block their allies’ shots, there are real dangers to clustering up, just as there are advantages. This is a good thing; we want this weapon to have reasonable counter-strategies.

Communication requirements Because it requires that the team move and act as one, this charge’s effectiveness can be very different depending on how willing and able teammates are to play along. This will make it complicated to balance, since we need to account for the best- and worst-case scenarios.

On a related note, I’d like there to be a “forgiveness” period when you walk out of the resistance radius - say, half a second where your resistance stays the same, allowing you to move back into the circle without being penalized. This is just a simple anti-frustration feature designed to account for the fact that teammates won’t always move in the exact same way.

Healing through walls One thing that’s worth mentioning is that, for the Amputator’s taunt, it will continue healing a target within the radius as long as that target had line-of-sight to the Medic when the taunt started - even if they move behind a wall during the taunt. For the purpose of this charge, I’d like it to not affect targets behind walls. This forces the Medic to put themselves in danger and is more intuitive for both the users and the enemies.

Against other Ubercharges More than any other charge, this one can range between incredibly powerful and barely noticeable, simply because it depends so much on how many teammates are using it. But we’ll have to play out both situations to determine if and when the weapon is fun for both teams.

Against the stock Ubercharge, a well-coordinated team can’t outright kill the Medic/pocket pair, but they will almost certainly be able to survive the duration of the Uber with minimal losses. Classes like Pyros will have an easier time pushing the invulnerable duo around, too.

But in the worst case, this is just a worse version of the stock Ubercharge, since it charges no faster and doesn’t give total invulnerability. Barring an extraordinarily bad class matchup and skill differential, the stock Ubercharge will likely stall this Uber in its tracks.

The Kritzkrieg is probably the strongest charge to use against this. 50% damage resistance is a lot, but it won’t stop a sustained critical barrage, especially from area effects. The worst-case scenario for the Kritz pair is that they die prematurely, but they’ll likely be able to do serious damage to the enemy - and because they charge faster, they’ll be able to do it before this group-Uber is ready. Infinitely more so if the resistance Medic has few people to give resistances to.

The Quick-Fix runs into similar problems as the stock Ubercharge, but those are exacerbated because a coordinated team can easily put out more damage than the megaheal can recover. It’s very likely that the Quick-Fix duo would find themselves unable to kill any of the buffed team and be dead in short order. On the plus side, they do charge faster, but it can be hard to pick off a Medic while you’re using the Quick-Fix.

In the best case, most Medic heal targets wouldn’t be able to kill a Quick-Fix duo if they were all alone. There are exceptions, though, such as a skilled Demo or Heavy. I predict a two-on-two would be a roughly even fight depending on who each Medic was charging.

As usual, the Vaccinator would have problems facing a “real” Ubercharge of any kind. But even if they had all four charges ready, the Vaccinator Medic would have serious problems facing a coordinated assault with multiple damage types.

On the other hand, a good Vaccinator duo can easily pick off a Medic with an uncoordinated team, and three or four charge bars would 1) completely shut out most opposing duos and 2) charge considerably faster than this gun.

What does this mean? Overall, I think this medigun would contribute to a slower game where defensive positions are trickier to dislodge. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but for classes who do best as shock troops, it can be a little discouraging to be unable to push forward.

It’s also worth noting that, because of the relatively slow charge time and vulnerability of the Medic, this gun does have reasonable counters. A blitzkrieg (or Kritzkrieg) offense is a great way to deal with it. We’d have to playtest to make sure, but for now, I’m very pleased with how we’ve created a unique Ubercharge that can bring a lot of options to the game.

#tf2workbench #tf2 #team fortress 2 #medic #secondary

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Copy that

The Conniver’s Kunai is a popular Spy weapon because of how bulky it can make its user, letting them get away with quite a lot of murder. I don’t find it a poorly-designed weapon - actually, the opposite - but I wanted to explore a similar mechanic.

Parallel Universe Conniver’s Kunai (*) On disguise: Copy the maximum health of the player you disguise as, with your current health adjusted proportionally. [If you change or lose disguises and would have less health by doing so, your health and max health drain proportionally.] (-) +50% time taken to disguise

First impressions By making it rewarding to disguise as bulkier classes, this knife brings a little more into the game of choosing your disguise. You could disguise as a Medic to preserve all your speed and get 25 more health, or a Pyro to keep most of it and gain 50; or you could go for the full 300 health of a Heavy at the cost of a major speed penalty.

It would also be possible to use this to gather information about the enemy team. Any changes in the disguise’s maximum health (such as a Soldier at 220, a Spy at 100, or a Heavy at 350) can tell you that that player is using a particular item.

But overall, I’m not sure how much diverse gameplay this ability brings. It does allow you to survive longer if you’re being shot at, potentially surviving Spychecks that would kill you otherwise, and there is the intelligence-gathering aspect of it. But it’s not really as deep and nuanced as I’d like.

There’s also a little bit of a problem: while invisible, you move at your regular speed regardless of your disguise. This means it’s always a good choice to disguise as a Heavy when you’re invisible, then change your disguise before you uncloak. That kind of one-choice-is-always-best gameplay isn’t what we want to see.

Other options I would’ve liked to let you copy the current health of your disguise as well as their max health, encouraging you to pick targets tactfully so you get someone with high health. However, this posed two problems: one, it let you restore health practically instantly by disguising as a newly-spawned player, and two, it would be difficult to tell ahead of time what health a disguise would give you, forcing you to swap disguises multiple times. While I’d love to make this attribute because of how interesting it could be, I’d also have to put strict guardrails in place, a little bit like how Your Eternal Reward works. Aw, what the heck, let’s do it:

Parallel Universe Conniver’s Kunai Iteration 2 (*) On disguise: copy the current and maximum health of the player you disguise as. [If you change or lose disguises and would have less health by doing so, your health and max health drain proportionally.] If you disguise as an overhealed target, you also gain that overheal. (-) +50% time taken to disguise (-) Cannot disguise unless health is full

One thing that would make this knife more user-friendly would be a change to the disguise interface, showing you which of the enemy team is what class and how much health they’d have. Of course, this change would also give you constant information on every enemy player, making it almost a requirement for coordinated play. So right away, that’s a problem we can’t really surmount.

With that interface unavailable, it might be frustrating to use this kunai: you’d disguise as someone without knowing how much health they’d have (unless you were currently looking at them). It might be possible to change the way it works, but so far I’m not finding an option that would work. Open to suggestions, though!

#tf2workbench #tf2 #team fortress 2 #spy

[tf2workbench]

TF2Workbench: March hiatus

I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but I’m going to be taking a hiatus from TF2Workbench starting this month.

I’ve been working at a new job recently, which is honestly taking almost all of my time and leaving very little to either play TF2 or come up with good new discussion points. I love my work, but it definitely takes a lot of time.

However, I don’t want to just say “hiatus” and have it turn into an indefinite absence. I’ll be checking back in on April 1 (not a prank) and giving an update on my situation, as well as when you can expect new material.

Again, I’m sorry to depart now, but I also need to strike a balance of work and fun. Hope the month goes by quickly!

#tf2workbench #tf2 #team fortress 2 #blog stuff

[tf2workbench]

Camp Grenade-a

Early in development, each TF2 class had their own unique grenade. Medic had healing grenades, Pyro had incendiary grenades, and so on. Valve eventually cut these. In the developer commentary, designer Adrian Finol explains:

"Team Fortress 2's focus on unique class roles led us to notice that the standard hand grenade was a more powerful combat decider than some of the primary weapons. This made the classes more similar in combat - not a desired effect."

He continues:

"In addition, when we looked at some of Team Fortress Classic's map stalemates, they often resulted from large amounts of grenade spam. Two cases were particularly problematic: that of players throwing grenades repeatedly through doorways, hoping to kill any enemies who might be there, and players on the verge of death throwing all their grenades in rapid succession, hoping to get a kill after they die."

Well, it seems like they later found a way around that: giving you only one grenade at a time, and not making any directly damaging grenades. For what is Jarate but a disgusting grenade?

By that definition, the Pyro, Scout, and Sniper have single-use grenades that they can equip as secondary weapons. I'd like to imagine more grenades, designing with Finol's commentary in mind.

Heavy Grenade Heavy secondary weapon (+) Throw to splash teammates with a substance that causes them to take 20% less damage for 8 seconds (-) 22-second recharge (-) Starts uncharged and cannot be refilled at resupply lockers

This item promotes team support and coordinated play, which is always something we want to see.

Although the effect is powerful, it has clear limitations because of how much time it takes a Heavy to switch weapons and spin up their minigun.

On the flipside, the effect could contribute to slower games because of how it makes teams harder to kill.

There's also no way for enemies to really play around it - even reflecting it with the Pyro's airblast is unlikely because of how it targets friendlies, not the people who could reflect it.

Let's pause that and move on to another class.

Engineer Grenade Engineer secondary weapon (+) Throw to splash buildings with machine oil. Friendly buildings become more effective [Sentries +25% fire rate, Dispensers +50% healing, Teleporters -50% recharge time] for 8 seconds. Enemy buildings take equivalent penalties and take 10 damage per second during the duration. [The debuffs can be removed with one Wrench hit.] (-) 22-second recharge (-) Starts uncharged and cannot be refilled at resupply lockers

A versatile item is always a nice thing, giving you more options in many situations.

Since enemy Engineers have a way to counter it, it also gives enemies some agency. Spies and Cow Mangler Soldiers can also counter it if it's used to buff friendly buildings.

However, we need to note that, like the Heavy grenade (and Jarate/Mad Milk/the Gas Passer) it can slow the opposing team's progress.

Its debuff function puts more pressure on Engineers to keep their buildings safe, making an already-difficult job more stressful.

Using the buff function is easiest if you stack your buildings close to each other, which is usually a risky play that can harm your team. On the other hand, this might not be a bad thing, since it gives you the risk/reward dynamic to make choices on.

As we wrap up this post, I think it's fair to comment on one thing: grenades, even non-damaging ones, can slow down the game. Jarate, Mad Milk, and the Gas Passer can keep players out of the fight while they wait for the effects to wear off, and buffs like the ones we've discussed here can make a hold harder to break.

However, we can't veto an idea just because it slows the game down; it's entirely fair to make an attacking team face some resistance as they push. The key is in making it so they have ways to deal with that resistance.

#tf2workbench #tf2 #team fortress 2 #heavy #engineer #secondary

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Surprise health that will help us later

There used to be an old Advanced Weaponiser weapon that gave you health on drawing it, but hurt you when holstering it. The idea was that you would draw it to get into a fight, then holster once you were safe. I want to explore something a little like that.

Healing Kukri Iteration 1 (Shahanshah Iteration 2?) Sniper melee (+) Each kill with your primary weapon stores 30 health (up to 120). Switching to this weapon will give you all the stored health, which can overheal you (-) 100% slower deploy rate (-) -3 HP/sec while active

One thing that I want to implement is some kind of visual indicator that the Sniper has health stored up. This way, enemies can plan for it, rather than being shocked when the easy prey they’ve cornered suddenly gets overhealed. I’d recommend bright health particles orbiting the kukri sheath on the Sniper’s hip, but lots of things can work.

On to the mechanics. The most obvious use for this kukri is to sustain yourself while taking fire. That’s fine and all, and it’s a good way to reward you for some successful sniping.

The other way you could use it, thanks to the overheal, is as a preventive measure. If you use it to push yourself above 150 health, you’re now able to tank uncharged headshots - a huge boon if you need to take out a tricky enemy Sniper. This is a remarkably powerful application, and I’d be interested to see if this design causes a sort of “arms race” where all Snipers carry it to compete with their opposition. That would be less than ideal, as it restricts weapon choice and makes gameplay less varied - but if worst comes to worst, we can remove the overheal. Unfortunately, doing so would make this weapon less interesting... but if you look at how bland some of the other kukris are, it’s still a step up, no? Anything that brings new choices into the game is a good sign.

#tf2workbench #tf2 #team fortress 2 #sniper #melee #shahanshah

[tf2workbench]

The summer update is here!

And at last, Cashworks has received its due justice.

https://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=206148

#tf2workbench #tf2 #team fortress 2 #summer update #you're as beautiful as the day i lost you