Forum

so here we go after a night full of games for those involved.
Now let’s get to the whole point of this: Your feedback:

Please try to structure your post as following to keep it clear:
– Weapons your team used: Pros, Cons & General impression.
– Weapons the other team(s) had equipped: Pros, Cons & General impression.
– Spare for some of your thoughts, tactics used: whatever pops into your mind like: “At first the enemy natasha heavy was powerful, but we countered it with our own sasha heavy”, hope you get the idea.

Go ahead! However as this is meant to be feedback refrain from flaming, posting nonsense, etcetc usual business. You have been warned :)
Share your thoughts!

Charge and targe was used, part from the odd hilarious beheading, most part was geniune pointless play, demo suddenly became like a roaming solly and more expendable – I’d allow it simply cos what advantage is it? All it is, is a surprised circus trick.

Crit-cola, whe in saw a scout with it, he seemed to miss me all the time. I see it as balanced if the scout is dumb enough to use it on a head on fight and be the first to get meatshotted, it is 50/50. Otherwise the scout can sneak behind and prepare an attack on the medic….1 shot kills though…hmm?

DH/Gunboats/Buff Banner – Offer something different at expense for something normally handy. Extra 500-550 damage from a shotgun vs ability for soldier to move quicker or ability to cause increased damage per push with a team for the same price.
Direct Hit more damage per hit + projectile speed vs loss of splash damage.

We’re considering having the same rules this Saturday/Sunday in #pixeltf2.pickup to see how it goes in a less serious setting. :)

In all fairness we were put up against a much higher skilled team than we were. Thus, the game wasn’t too representative for us. However, I certainly enjoyed it. We used the gunboats, paintrain (on soldier) and bonk.

The gunboats were amazing and certainly make the soldier’s play alot more exciting and versatile. Quite liked the paintrain aswell, allows one of the scouts to switch between utility classes alot more without losing capping power on the points.

Thirdly, we used bonk. We use this normally anyway. Great to confuse the enemy a bit, force them to blow stickies, check on them, or just to get in position and get a pick.

As for the other team – the only one unlock i noticed them to use is aimbot. Oh wait :D
Actually, direct hit seemed to be quite amazing at times but then at times it was a complete miss. It’s a bit too random imo, unless you can master it, the RL is a much better choice.

cons and pros are for being used in ETF2L

Gunboats
Pros: The extra aggression provided by these was massively useful, and encourages teams to adapt to a more aggressive soldier, which I really like
Cons: The shotgun trade off is very interesting, not suitable for all soldiers
Should it be used in ETF2L?:Yes, as it provides an interesting trade off and strategic set

Buff Banner
Pros: really encourages survivability and hanging back of soldiers, while providing extra venom to pushes over time
Cons: No “Ready!” sounds or hints at how it is charging, making it impossible to predict
Should it be Used in ETF2L?: as it stands, probably not, as it is simply too unpredictable. If a ready sound or animation is added, then yes

Direct Hit
Pros: Encourages skilled prediction
Cons: Insanely powerful, and very unpredictable in combat. Slows down the pace of the game, as everyone is afraid to jump
Should it be allowed in ETF2L?:No, as it slows down the fast paced nature of the game too much, punishing aggression

Pain Train
Pros:Encourages dynamic and strategic play
Cons:Not really any i can think of
Should it be used in ETF2L?: Yes, as it gives a great boost to a strategically strong team

Bonk!
Pros: If used strategically, it can be a real boon to blocking and probing play
Cons: Allows scouts access to an easy ‘get out clause’
Should it be used in ETF2L?:Yeah, as it sacrifices individual worth for team worth and survivability

Crit-a-Cola
Pros: Provides a real bane to poorly communicated teams, and rewards flanking manoeuvres
Cons:Is very random and can be incredibly fatal
Should it be used in ETF2L?: Jury is out on this one, as while it can provide a fair tradeoff, if used in certain situations it is very unbalanced

Chargin’ Targe
Pros: Can’t think of any :P
Cons: removes real functionality of the demoman
Should it be used in ETF2L?:Sure, as no demoman is his right mind would use it :P

We were mostly using the gunboats and a bonk scout. My own experience as a medic was that the gunboats worked ok (if I’d only have had a pocket soldier iunstead of an engi….). It’s an ok tradeoff to lose the shotgun for this, and it surely adds more versatility as a roaming soldier, which is good. I honestly dont think the bonk needed testing, it’s a situational weapon which is already used to confuse the enemy, and it actually worked suprisingly well to have a bonk scout rush in and take a look at the enemy posiotions etc. I can definitely see us using that more.

We also tried out the charging targe which proved to be really random and quite useless. We were faced with mostly the same weapons, however I dont think any of the unlocks that our opponents were using changed the way we played, especially not the TDH which was terrible.

Quoted from herpderp

[…]

Thats when it’s used, I think what he’s getting at is that there’s no way for anyone (except the soldier who has Buff Banner) to know at what level the charge is.

You can see the buff banner all the time I think.

And you can roughly estimate it by how long said soldier is alive. People didn’t time ubers the day tf2 came out, so it’s hard to say that timing is totally impossible in this case.

Quoted from RaCio

[…]You can see the buff banner all the time I think.

And you can roughly estimate it by how long said soldier is alive. People didn’t time ubers the day tf2 came out, so it’s hard to say that timing is totally impossible in this case.

well, uber is simply time while buff banner is damage, so it’s fairly difficult. since it requires 600 damage to activate, i would say it takes at least mid and cp 4 to charge (or a huge spam fest between 3 and 4). it’s unlikely any soldier will do 600 points of damage on 1 mid battle.