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the gun is friggin annoying, just stops you right where you are standing :(( BAN BAN BAN.

shouldnt be tbh. It actually has the same effect as Natascha, just you can still walk if you get shot at by Natascha.

NM

I think the bigger problem with the Sandman, is that some scouts will master it to the level that they can do the stunning equivalent of an airshot almost all the time on any class. Worst case scenario, scout battles (or any battle against a scout) could devolve into whoever gets stunned first.

I really think Valve should go back to the drawing board on this one, and, although I[‘m sorry to say it, be less inventive with the melee unlock. The Axtinguisher has been the only really deadly melee weapon so far (too dangerous to use Ubersaw, heavy is too slow for KGBs to be useful), you can do some pretty inventive things with it, not that they’re that useful in competitive play.

I’d think the whole baseball aspect of the system should be retained, however when the baseball hits someone, they still get the dazed effect above the head. The dazed effect should be like fire (with some kind of visual clue on the dazed’s screen), but not as long, and curable by medics. Whenever a scout bats a dazed person, it crits like the axtinguisher. Sure it’s not inventive, but it makes it much more situational, like melee weapons are and should be.

Another alternative, is to keep the whole current system (albeit with uber stuns removed), but let medics cure people out of the stunned effect and the magnitude at which someone is overhealed decrease the stun. Theoretically, this should make stunning much easier to combat from the other team’s perspective.

Just some thoughts; probably talking nonsense.

People are over-reacting :P It adds more depth to the scout class. Sure it’s not a change of role I’m a big fan of, but it certainly doesn’t make the game unplayable. As a demoman, I quite like scouts not being able to double jump and soldiers should feel the same. The argument about using the new scattergun is a bit dumb as the new scattergun sucks in combat!

Saying that, I am worried that the skill level of using the ball will increase with time and practice. I wouldn’t worry too much though as valve will surely change something with all of the negative feedback people are giving.

The problem is, what are they going to change? They won’t want to remove the ‘boink’ skill, and I don’t think they should either. What I was saying before the update was that the boink wouldn’t be overpowered if they take into account 2 key points:

1) How long the stun lasts for
2) How easy the ball is to aim

At the moment, it seems to be very easy to aim and the stun lasts too long. Something needs to be changed.

If they did want to make a change, I would suggest:

1) The ball deal a large amount of damage (maybe on the lines of 75+) though I don’t think scouts would want to trade their double jump for that (making the unlock useless).

2) A runspeed decrease. If the ball hits a player, it would reduce their runspeed by 50% for 5 seconds. This would give the scout an option to chase down and kill retreating players (such as a lone medic running back to his spawn). I feel this would enhance the scout’s existing class role

But meh, I was trying to stay out of these kind of topics as I do get a little ‘consumed’ by them :P I’ll stay out of this one now :)

<3 byte and arx. Looks like it’s us versus the world.
90% of the people in this thread just didnt think at all about what you loose when using sandman and are, as arx said, overreacting.

Oh and for the record, I’m not really defending the sandman, or trying to promote it. I couldn’t really care if leagues ban it or allow it.

I’ve just always figured if Valve make an update, that is the game we should be playing. Not our own custom mod allowing and disallowing too much. What happens when the soldier/sniper/spy/demoman/Engineer update comes out? Will 2 of them be allowed and 3 of them not? Different leagues might use different rulesets and it will divide the community (which is ALWAYS a bad thing). It’s the same argument I put forward with the TFTrue debate, play the game valve made.

I wouldn’t really want to see:

Looking for 6v6 – CL2, ML1, DL1, SniperL1, Sandman 0, Kritzkrieg 0, Natasha 0, Backburner 2, [insert other unlocks here], cp_granary pm me

As a community we can inflict change on valve. It has been prooven before. They probably look at the news on Cadred, Gossip, Gotfrag, ETF2L, UKeSA and Enemydown more than you think. If the community made a poll with the topic:

“Should valve change the way the sandman works?”
Yes: [ ]
No: [ ]

Then get the results published on all of the major TF2 news websites, you can bet that valve would take note of the results asuming it’s an unbiased poll.

We can get things changed, but don’t just…. disallow them. First get a public verdict on the situation then offer intelligent and realistic suggestions for change, not from some dumbass who has no idea about gameplay mechanics.