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[Chaos]

there must be a way to stop the trading requests and stuff?

I know you can ban unlocks too quite easily with no mods needed (there's a weapon whitelist file somewhere)

[CruelCow]

Options -> Multiplayer -> Advanced -> Show trading requests from

But do you really get spammed by them?

[Chaos]

I was thinking more of a server side thing that stops people advertising trades ect

[discordance]

... not really chaos its not like anyone is spamming requests, just talking about it in chat and all you can do about that is moderate chat but thats pointless and unnecessary work/grief.

power I think you are taking it far too seriously, duels for me really add to the game, it puts pressure on and actually makes me less of a suicidal player. Some rounds I am playing like shit so I play something I suck at maybe a scout with a fish, maybe some fail sniping whatever at that point i'm not going to be able to contribute much and want to play the game and enjoy it as best I can, public servers are not competition servers. People need to be a bit more responsible about trade talk timing but the plus of having more people standing about is more taunt kill chances. And I still feel like I know what to expect from each class, sure it has a flavour to it but I don't think many behaviours are drastically different. Take pyro if hes at long range i'm expecting flaregun, if hes close range im expecting to be flamed and quickly axed, it doesnt really matter what his loadout is the behaviour just doesn't change that much.

Also leave my hat out of this you hurt its feelings.

[Teatime]

You can't implement a "free market" system then retrospectively punish and ban participants because of "unfair" practices. If two parties trade and one hasn't been paying attention then that's tough crap. For Valve to lock an entire account on the basis of trading a hat is crap.

This is one of the real issues and risks for me now, I could spend a fortune on games via steam and risk them ALL being unavailable / gone on the whim of some Valve support person or worse, an automated rules engine that got the wrong idea. Sadly this does mean buying the odd DVD again for me now... I really don't want 90% of my most played games to be tied into steam if I can help it. The risks are just getting worse, and this doesn't even begin to cover the possibilities of having your account hacked!

Trading should have been simply labelled "use at your own risk" or "trader beware".

You're jumping the gun here because we have no knowledge how many legit cases there are, especially of people having their accounts banned with valid reason or suspicion.

@Power
I partly agree that Valve has departed from some principles they officially created in TF2. Though tbh so far I have no trouble still to identify classes from afar even with those stupid hats.
So I'm actually more concerned about the increased complexity (what Mama pointed out) and the creation of unnecessarily specialized weapons. On the other hand I reluctantly have to state that things like this keep the game fresh and challenging. While it gets increasingly new-user-unfriendly it continues to force the old-users to adapt and encounter new tactics.
I'm quite sure without any updates (apart from maps) there would be much fewer people playing TF2 on the pubs.

The store and all that: Yes, it is so not Valve. At the same it is totally Valve. I doubt they really created the store expecting to make tons of money. This is another test project, some venue they are interested in testing before pursuing it any further and once more TF2 is the guinea pig, like so many times before.
But while it irritates me I'm actually not bothered by the store. I still don't like the fact that people can get a game advantage faster by buying it than other people crafting it, but that's an issue which will be resolved within a few weeks, and in fact crafting is a helpful alternative route.

As for your Not-Deal-With-It topics:

- Duels: making people going after another instead of after everyone, neglecting the point of the game and often also the actual MAP OBJECTIVE (remember when it was about the map objective? Yeah...)

True! However, may I utter the word "achievements" ... ?

- The god damn fish... yeah, I get it, it's funny. But when I see 2-3 scouts per team running around with the fish ou

May I remind you how people went bat-crazy after the scout-update? It will ease up.
Also, I think there is some fascination with a certain melee weapon here among our community which is actually not much different.

[CruelCow]

- The god damn fish... yeah, I get it, it's funny. But when I see 2-3 scouts per team running around with the fish ou

May I remind you how people went bat-crazy after the scout-update? It will ease up.
Also, I think there is some fascination with a certain melee weapon here among our community which is actually not much different.

While the spade action can go - and has gone - overboard, I haven't seen a solly go JUST spade yet. However I've seen several scouts do that. (And then they are proud about the one kill they got a five straight deaths. I'll never understand people.)

I was thinking more of a server side thing that stops people advertising trades ect

How is the server supposed to understand the context of your chat? Did we make a leap in AI technology that I missed?
Give it time, in a week or two pretty much everybody will have all the weapons they need. (I know I do)


@disco/dueling: But is playing more carefully necessary better? Also, I really have to admit I've shifted my focus when dueling - from heavy classes to spy, going after a soldier instead of a medic etc. and oddly enough (like mentioned in the shoutbox) had less fun and more rage.
I'll have to think about if I'll keep dueling in the future. After I open a can of whoop-ass on LT for his hurtful comments!


@Complexity: I have to agree with tea. While it's much work understanding all of the game, most of the unlocks don't change much of it. At the end of the day you don't have to know the difference between the rocket launchers you're being shot with.

[mode_seven]

But while it irritates me I'm actually not bothered by the store. I still don't like the fact that people can get a game advantage faster by buying it than other people crafting it, but that's an issue which will be resolved within a few weeks, and in fact crafting is a helpful alternative route.

I mostly agree with this. For the new weapons, the recipes aren't cheap, but they're not extreme. The hats on the other hand. Since the crafting update I have made three random hat crafts, totalling 9 Refined Metal. The new hat recipes take 4. Obviously one has to take into account periods of increased drop rates etc., but to get the 20 Refined Metal needed to craft all of the new Polycount Hats with associated gameplay bonuses I would need to play the amount of time I've played since the craft update twice over again.

So, Valve argue the fact that there is an option at all to craft makes the store not a "Pay-to-Win" system. But, the crafting came in during the WAR! update, pretty much dead on a year ago. I'm sure I've played a good 150 hours in that past year, so, another 300 hours play before I can get the Polycount Hats? Valve can't honestly expect that new players will play that long.

Of course they don't. They don't want you to craft them, they want you to fork out the money for the gameplay advantage. Which is the one thing amongst all the other nonsense surrounding this update that I can't excuse them for.

[Power]

Well okay let me clarify

Disco your point with the pyro is actually not what I meant. You are expecting different weapons, because you are assuming that the pyro has that specific loadout. But you don't know that. All you know is what weapon he is currently holding.

What I meant specifically was, if you'd see (let's stay with your example, though it's not that good to prove my point) a pyro prior to the first class update, you would think "okay, it's a pyro. The only weapon he can hurt me with at some distance is his shotgun. I have a better ranged weapon, so I will just stay away from him and get him from distance".

After the first class update you'd be like "okay, the pyro now has airblast and also a ranged weapon which will put me on fire. I shouldn't use any projectile weapon against him or maybe turn my back to him, incase he has backburner. Also not be close to him if I'm on fire already as he can hit me with his axtinguisher", which is already about 3 factors more that you have to consider (I'm simplifying here, btw). Also, if I'm ubered I need to know if the pyro is wielding a normal firethrower or the backburner, because if he has airblast, he'd be my no.1 priority, otherwise he is pretty much the bottom of my list.

With the latest update, the pyro didn't change much, which is why he is not the best example to prove my point. The rule with the pyro in general is "don't get close to him". But the point remains: just because you know WHAT class you are seeing, doesn't mean you know what to expect of him. Because you don't see all of his weapons at once and as such it can be any of those X weapons available to that class.

As I said, most of it started with the first class updates and it's just something that you have to deal with, the newest update just made it a bit worse. Say Heavy (Will he slow me down? Will he shoot me in the face with his shotgun? Will he eat a sandvich and as such is he completely harmless while he is running?  Will he put out his GRU and catch up with me?  You just don't know until you see the weapon, if you can recognize it that fast).

Also disagree about the rocket launchers. The speed of the rockets alone makes the soldier a completely different threat at middle distance and then the direct hit is usually not that dangerous if you can evade the.. uhm direct hit, so there is different behaviour for each of those.

In any case, that's just one of my points (and I said it's a lesser one that one has to deal with to overcome).

May I add one thing, however? Another principle of TF2 was the rock, paper, shotgun scissors principle, where every class would have a natural nemesis. That also got dilluted with the class update, but some items of the new pack are just bewildering to me.

Valve Scout unlock discussion:

Valve Employee 1: Alright, we got scout here. Scout, the class that is the fastest in the game and that can catch up with anyone. What will we give him as an unlock?
Valve Employee 2: Let's give him a weapon, that slows other classes down, so he can catch up with them!!!!
1: That's genious! We need a replacement for the bat, too.
2: I got nothing, can't we just replace the model of the weapon?
1: Sure, but that's not enough...
2: Well we'll make a new kill icon for it and make it seem like a big deal!
1: Genious!!! Well what else do we have?
2: I don't know, he already has a lot of stuff to shoot with. How about we give him Jarate?
1: Don't be silly, we can't do that.
2: Wait, I know. We'll call it milk! If you kill someone under its effect it heals you!
1: Like a medic? But that's just... oh wait, lunch time!

Valve Heavy unlock discussion:
1: We don't have much. How about that GRU concept?
2: Yeah, got it right here. The main advantage of the heavy is his high health and the main disadvantage is his slow speed. I propose the GRU make him super fast and as a trade off takes away his health!
1: But that's exactly the opposite of how you usually play heavy... LUNCH TIME!!!

Valve sniper unlock discussion:
2: You know how the sniper is all about shooting people in the head???
1: ...
2: I got an idea!

[Teatime]

@Mode:
You're exaggerating.
I'm probably playing more than you, but I've found a lot of items in that year (with very little idling). A little over two weeks now after the MannCo Update I have 5 6 of the new weapons (crafted or found) and one hat (found; I was lucky for once). I'm sure I could have traded most of the other weapons by now. So the tough part is actually getting the hats. Worst case scenario 275 items is indeed much, but on the other hand most people won't play all 5 classes to an extent that they really require the full set. So if a player focus' on 2 classes you are down on 110, which is still much, but doable within a month or two (if necessary helped by some strategic trading).

Again, I'm not a big fan of *that* aspect of the store, but it's not as if it was an almost impossible task to get the items without shelling out money.

[CruelCow]

I'm just happy I don't have the urge to have vintage-everything! That'd easily add a few more weapons to the stack.

[mode_seven]

@Mode:
You're exaggerating.
I'm probably playing more than you, but I've found a lot of items in that year (with very little idling). A little over two weeks now after the MannCo Update I have 5 6 of the new weapons (crafted or found) and one hat (found; I was lucky for once). I'm sure I could have traded most of the other weapons by now. So the tough part is actually getting the hats. Worst case scenario 275 items is indeed much, but on the other hand most people won't play all 5 classes to an extent that they really require the full set. So if a player focus' on 2 classes you are down on 110, which is still much, but doable within a month or two (if necessary helped by some strategic trading).

Again, I'm not a big fan of *that* aspect of the store, but it's not as if it was an almost impossible task to get the items without shelling out money.

Ok, so exageration for emphasis in this case, I'm considering the worst case scenario. That's something that has to be done though, Valve should not exclude any part of their community. However, I think you're arguing it too far the other way. Personally I play all classes at some point or another, I don't like to restrict myself because someone else playing the same class has an advantage.

I did state that I didn't think the weapons were too unreasonable, I agree with you in that respect. I only have three new weapons remaining, I've acquired them through a mix of crafts, gifts, trades, crates and drops. As it goes my Degreaser was a gift from you, so thank you!

I have chosen never to idle. I'm not criticising those that do, I just don't like it. I think a month or two is a gross understimate on the amount of time it would take to acquire even one polycount hat at present without considerable luck. You do play more than me, according to Steam statistics you have over twice the amount of hours logged that I do.

It's not like I'm only a weekend player though, I'm playing quite a lot at the moment by my standards, and certainly more than the amount one would use to define a "casual" player. Even so, at the amount of time I currently spend in TF2 I would be extremely surprised if it takes less than about four months for me to acquire one Polycount hat and experiment with the gameplay benefits.

Trading is not an option at present. With the rarity of the hats people are after half of a player's backpack in return.

At the end of the day, if I'm lucky, maybe I'll be able to try out all the Polycount hats within the year. But a casual player, one that's new to the game? They'll be long bored of being killed by players with different weaponry when they quit for good. The TF started well with it's easy to pick up/difficult to master RPS mechanic that Power referenced. Ok, slightly steeper learning curve than, say, CS:S, but that's a necessity following the design philosophy that two players shooting each other with automatic weapons at range is the most boring interaction they have. But, given a few hours, I think most players could understand the ins and outs of all classes in the release candidate of TF2. Nowadays I know people who have played since beta and don't currently know the attributes of all the weapons they see and proper strategies to deal with them.

[Rct33]

td;lr

[Power]

Stay classy.

[hawt!]

I'll just say what I said earlier....

There has been a huge demand for trading for well over a year now. This basically left valve in one position - they had a drop system with items similar to an MMO, only this worked on random items dropping after random periods of time and often resulted in months (sometimes years) of waiting for a specific item to drop. They pretty much *had* to introduce the trading system, as TF2 -  a game which is incredibly pub orientated and thereby caters to a large number of casuals - was using a system which rewarded either hardcore play or exploiting the system through Idling or 3rd party programmes, both of which Valve was adversely opposed to.

Trading therefore had to happen, as it gave the more casual players the opportunity to reap the same sidegrades as the most hardcore of players (even with small amounts of playtime you're bound to find some items of value to certain people). However, Valve would therefore have the problem of creating a system which allowed the sale of items for real currency - similar to what is going on with games like WoW where gold is sold for real world currency. They therefore only really had one option were they to introduce such a system - which was to harness the inevitable economy which would have been created for themselves. Call Valve money hungry whatever, but the only possible way this system could have been introduced would have been to sell the items in question at prices inevitably lower than what private companies would have charged for the same items - let's look at WoW for instance, it probably takes a similar period of time to farm a tier of armour as it does to get all the items required for a Polycount set, if not drastically more. Such armour sets can retail for $200 or more.

Now this isn't defending the prices Valve are charging or the way in which they are doing the system - i'll agree it could be done better. But in my eyes, such a system *had* to be introduced for it to work.This doesn't steer away from mode's point, but ultimately I find a great deal of enjoyment received from the game is the acquisition of new weapons / hats at a time when you quite frankly have f*ck all. Take MW2 for example, new player start the game with 0 weapon attachments and perk unlocks - half the fun is playing and levelling up and getting access to new playstyles / weapons. What this system does is allow newer players to have the same kind of experiance - yet the option to skip out the long play time period should they desire (heck TF2 is under £15, for the amount of enjoyment you get from this game I honestly wouldnt mind paying a couple of pounds more to save me a few hours).


But yeah, on topic.... Now that more money has come into the equation, I feel that valve should at least devote a small portion of their new cash to thoroughly investigating bans such as these.

[Bl4ck]

Well said.