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Of course, the usage of the FaN in comparison to the Scattergun will you put you at an advantage in a 1v1 IF you hit with the first shot – but what if not? The Scattergun-Scout will be at an advantage now, without a doubt.

Your argument is based on the same principles (FaN will always win IF he hits with the first shot), since it requires the human to have perfect aim to ALWAYS win.

No, you’re wrong in both of these, as I mean if two scouts hit each other at the EXACT same time, the FAN user will win. This is in an ideal situation. In anecdotal situations, which shouldn’t be given that much heed, is that a FAN scout with an okay aim will be able to two-shot someone if he hits the first shot quite often, whereas I do not experience nearly the same consistency of two-shotting from a scattergun scout who hits the first shot of a similar skill level.

It probably came out wrong. Should’ve been “If you cant kill a scout that is practically totally defenseless during the time he reloads which takes quite some time, then you probably deserve to die”.

To be fair, his movement will be quite similar to how it is even if he *can* attack, and therefore it’s still just that you’re expecting someone to two-shot a FAN user IF he misses his first shot otherwise he deserves the loss.

During the time he shoots his clip empty, I get out 1 shot. During the time he reloads, I get out another 3 shots. When the other scout finally can shoot again, I get out my 5th shot – more than enough imo.

Scattergun attack interval: 0.64
Force-a-Nature reload: 1.64

This means you will get off 2 shots while he reloads his full clip.

If he throws out both of the shots, you can add another 0.33 to the reload timer making it

1.97 sec to shoot 2 shots with the FAN and reload.
To shoot 3 consecutive shots with the scattergun takes 1.92 sec

This means you will have to hold down the mouse1 to make 3 shots during the time he can make 2 and be fully reloaded for another barrage.

This argument is based on the FAN scout missing, which is an incomplete argument as you can’t use human errors in presenting arguments of balance as a way of demonstrating it is balanced if this and this fails due to an individual’s personal capabilities.

Btw despite a lot of guys in here are saying you need no skill for the fan, I disagree with that.
You need good aiming to be effective with fan but if you put the fan into the right hands its just utterly ridiculous what you can do with it.
However ppl in the lower divisions (sorry I really dont wanna sound elitist but thats just the case here imho) never played against scouts who are able to unleash the power of this gun, thus they argue against a ban.

Saying that it allows scouts, that normally are not as efficient with the scattergun or two-shot scouts regularly, to two-shot at a consistent basis due to the knockback arc is different from saying that it does not require skill (although the skill ceiling for the same result is lower) nor that it does not have any purpose beyond this point if additional skill is attained.

The case with the demolimit is a bit fishy. Of course, theoretically it would be a good tactic to use 2 demoman on most maps. The problem however is – we had this before, and we all experienced that out of 100 matches between a team with 2 demos would win against a team with 1 demo, 99 times the team with 2 demos wins, with the 100th match being 4K^/Dig vs any team. People tried to find a practical counter and they didnt, hence the demolimit was somewhat justified.

Sorry, what was the practical counter to a FAN scout? As far as I recall from this thread, someone might have said something competant on this and I would have missed it, most people seem to suggest that the counter to a FAN scout is to run one yourself. Similar thing could be said for DL2.

At the end of the day, DL2 was changed to DL1 because it reduced the amount of strategies and people didn’t find it as fun playing with the sheer amount of spam caused by having 2 demos. Any change to this game will cause people to have to adapt, but it’s still a perfectly valid question to ask “is it balanced?” and “is it fun?” and imo the FAN is neither. It doesn’t need to be completely gamebreaking to be inbalanced and unfun.

Tbh, imo the question if something is fun or not doesnt really make sense. Getting killed isnt fun either. So we should just forbid killing, no?

So getting killed is fun but getting killed by weapon x isnt, just because it does y (and has drawback z but lets just forget that one)?

Tbh, imo the question if something is fun or not doesnt really make sense. Getting killed isnt fun either. So we should just forbid killing, no?

I assume you got what I meant and you’re just being a jackass. In the case that you aren’t, most people have a certain tolerence level with things that can only be expected when playing videogames such as dying. A lot of the time, frustration by death will be directed at either yourself or your teammates for not coping with the situation that led to your death.

The FAN however is a prime example of how the game can utterly piss people off, because it’s stun-like knockback renders people incapable of appropriately being able to fight back or get away. It’s best for the overall enjoyment of everyone if instances where the game completely reduces the fun of the people playing are kept to a minimum. This thread shows a lot of support from people that simply do not find playing against the FAN fun, and most of the FAN supporters will agree that it’s annoying/not fun to play against.

This is a hobby that people play in their spare time. Fun should be a main criteria when assessing any change to the game.

Since I’m bored, here’s my input on this.

Quick list of my thoughts on FaN:

-Imbalanced
-Doesn’t fit game philosophy
-Frustrating
-Ruins game dynamics
-Dumbs down competitive play
-Removes variety from gameplay instead of adding it

Why is it imbalanced?

Despite being reasonably well balanced in terms of damage output across all ranges, only marignally better than scatter gun in this respect, the FaN is inherently imbalanced for two main reasons:

1. Much easier to use than scattergun, requiring less skill and consistency to use effectively. The stun is clearly the main reason for this, second to that is the faster firing rate aiding an easy second shot and thirdly, a slightly higher base damage output in general.
2. Temporarily removes opponents ability to react in a way that could change outcome or shift the advantage, essentially making opponent a sitting duck.

Not only does stun mean that the second shot becomes incredibly easy, but it also makes it much more difficult and at times impossible for opponent to respond the way he could to scatter both in terms of movement and aim.

Classic example is a low damage hit on opponent in mid air, stopping them dead in horizontal trajectory, unable to do anything movement wise besides fall back to the ground in a straight line after being suspended temporarily at a certain height, setting up an easy second shot.

Another would be simply shooting a grounded opponent such as a medic, launching him up temporarily, unable to dodge or react in any useful way, leaving him at the mercy of the FaN scout’s second shot.

In terms of aim impact on opponent, its particularly bad versus other scouts. FaN shot knocks aim off unexpectedly so oppponent has to constantly re-adjust aim when shot. Since scout is a fast moving class a lot of players are used to using movement to aid their aim. FaN stops the movement dead and puts it out of the control of player, making it more difficult for opposing scout whilst simultaneously making it easier to aim for the FaN scout.

This ties into my second key point:

Why doesn’t FaN fit game philosophy?

Valve have said explicitly themselves that they intend to follow a game design philosophy that tries to avoid situations where a player gets frustrated because he feels there is nothing he could have done to change the outcome. This is how people feel towards the FaN, much in the same way they did towards Sandman.

Robin Walker on Sniper class:

Dying to someone you weren’t engaged with, especially when you were already engaged with someone else, was aggravating. Even worse was dying to someone who you couldn’t have engaged with, even if you chose to. In that case, you’re very unlikely to believe you could have done anything differently to survive.

The stun effect is just an incredibly bad game mechanic for fps in general and definitely in TF2. Most people agreed that stun shouldn’t be in fps games when discussing the Sandman yet the FaN basically has the same impact on movement, all be it for a shorter length of time.

How does the FaN ruin gameplay?

Well for a start, there are situations when a FaN scout is practically infallible in terms of counters. Obvious example is sitting on badlands spire where every main class excluding demoman has almost no chance of jumping onto spire or killing the scout. Obviously TF2 has been designed to accommodate a lot of situational advantage/disadvantage between classes in different scenarios which is a good thing and promotes teamwork and tactical gameplay on an individual basis, but with FaN it’s SO strong in some scenarios that it should be considered game-breaking in my opinion.

When used on defence the mere presence of a FaN scout pretty much outlaws a lot of potential attacking and harassing opportunities. To put it simply the FaN removes a lot of variety in tactical gameplay by limiting other players to a more restricted and passive playstyle.

Consider it from the perspective of an aggressive, harassing style scout. Often these players will take calculated risks to harass an enemy team or player, moving into areas that are usually well defended in order to distract opponents and even perhaps find an opening to make a pick on the medic or demo. This can work well on the basis that the aggressive scout maintains a position where he can escape without being killed but requires playing near the limits of risk/reward. Problem is that the simple presence of a FaN scout means the risk is not worth taking anymore. All it takes is a single shot from him to knock you and your chances of escape are hugely reduced, most likely resulting in death.

There are many other examples of how FaN has this sort of impact on game dynamics, particularly those related to aggressive and risk taking play which before the FaN could often be successful but becomes entirely stupid versus a team using FaN scout(s).

It dumbs down competitive play because it negates the aim skill emphasis for those scouts who have exceptional aim and like to use Scattergun but now are not so superior, or not at all when playing against a FaN scout with totally average aim.

But by far the main reason I don’t like this weapon, is how it has forced the metagame to change into a form that is just blatantly LESS FUN and MORE FRUSTRATING with LESS VARIETY.

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t298/Shintaz/limit1k.jpg

the only reason for using the gun with skill and without being a total douchebag has been removed with the last update.

It’s not gamebreaking tbh and i don’t think it should be banned but the scouts that are still using it should know that they are in fact big gigantic faggots, because that’s the only way to use it correctly.