Team Fortress 2

I tried one of the Intermediate missions. I loved it. I's a very nice balance of difficulty. I ran as a Spy, and got to see (and stab) some of the new enemies. Heater Heavies aren't quite as bad as I thought. We had a Scout that put Milk on them, so I could jump over him, stab once, and run.

Then there was a mission where there were a ton of Quick-Fix medics attached to whatever they could find.

Also, one wave where there wre a whle ton of Bowmen clustered up witha constantly firing Pyro to light the arrows. And I still managed to sap and stab the clusters.

The Engineer's threat level changes over time. Unless they're what I call a Roamin' Engineer going around dropping mini-sentries left and right, they'll be the kind of unit that gets increasing credit to team over time.

Actually, that's an idea...a Roamin' Botgineer. Drops mini-sentries and uses Widowmaker; once it gets 100 metal it drops another mini-sentry.

Or, and engineer that uses a special machine that spawns extra bots over time. At the start it would be scouts, but it could later spawn things like Soldiers or Heavys.

My idea for robo-engineer would be them in support role: run towards the action after spawning, and begin to build a sentry a bit behind the lines. After 5-10 seconds (with sentry offline the whole time), they will finish constructing a lvl3 sentry and immediately wrangle it and target any player in range. And similar to spies, they would be extremely limited number of them with only few of them being active at the same time.

I still think having Pomson Engineers in a role similar to the Bowmen would work. They'd be easy to kill and not that powerful, but can disrupt players with the unconventional shots and hamper Medics/Spies with the drain effect.

Regular Engineers who deploy Mini-Sentries as a Support Unit would work too. Like the Spies and Snipers they wouldn't actively try to get the bomb, just screw with inattentive players.

Say, is anyone interested in a Pocket Pistol? I just got dropped one.

Anyone else notice that they've changed a lot of the icons? Heavyweight Champs are now represented by blue gloves, for instance.

OHMAHGAWD, REALLY?! THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING.

-_-

So regarding Strange weapons, these are the only ones I can't think of what they would track. Bonk! Atomic Punch, Sandvich, Dalokohs Bar, Invisibility Watch, Cloak & Dagger. And possibly the Darwin's Danger Shield, though I think I have something for that.

The watches would definitely track the number of kills within a certain amount of time after uncloaking.

Bonk! would obviously track a number of damage dodged. Darwin's Shield could, as someone suggested here, track the number of times that would leave you dead if not for the Shield in question.

I considered Bonk! tracking the amount of times you absorb over 125 damage. Whether it would be over your whole career or just 125 damage within each use of Bonk!, I don't know.

And yeah, I'm the one who suggested the Danger Shield tracking when you survive what would have been lethal. The only problem is, there aren't many weapons that can deal 125 damage in a single hit. Perhaps the amount of time you sustain 125-149 damage total within a short frame of time and don't die?

That just leaves the Heavy's food items then.

edited 10th Oct '12 2:13:29 PM by Anomalocaris20

I think it would be easier to just count every number of damage. It would require slightly different limits between each rank, but seems pretty viable.

As for Darwin's, I think your idea, while not bad, seems overly complicated. How about just tracking a number of times that would left you dead had it not been for Darwin's? For example, when you have 50 hp left(25+25) and, say, Engie shoots you for 34 damage, that would count. I think it wouldn't be possible to track another one as long as you don't have at least 26 hp though, to avoid Snipers purposely letting themselves be shot from long ranges.

Cloaks and food confuse me though. Not sure how would they work. I think Dalkhoks could work just like Darwin's, where it counts the number of times bonus hp from consuming it saves your lard from perishing. The others though... I've no idea.

Sandviches eaten is too easy to abuse (Just standing there eating sandviches endlessly), and Sandviches given to allies, while workable, is sort of defeating the point of the Sandvich (While sharing it is certainly a good strategy, the item itself was designed with the Heavy consuming it in mind and the count should reflect that).

Buffalo Steak and Crit-a-Cola are as simple as kills gained while under its effects. Similarly, the Gunboats, Rocket Jumper, and Sticky Jumper would all be kills gained while explosive jumping, the Cozy Camper would be kills gained while scoped, and the Wee Booties/Bootlegger would be kills gained while charging I presume.

Also, a Strange Short Circuit should track projectiles destroyed even though it can theoretically kill.

Sure, some of those would mean you could stack multiple Stranges to boost both together (Like a Strange Rocket Jumper with a Strange Market Gardener, or a Strange Cozy Camper with any Strange Sniper Rifle), but I don't really think that's a problem, per se.

edited 10th Oct '12 2:39:04 PM by Anomalocaris20

I don't think Sticky Jumper is going to work that way, unless Demo's got an exceptional aim with Grenade Launcher or would get some weapon similar to Market Gardener.

Sandvich could just count the number of hitpoints healed. Encourages eating, but not exactly mindlessly chewing on it every now and then.

Short Circuit should definitely count projectiles destroyed.

edited 10th Oct '12 2:41:16 PM by FergardStratoavis

I was actually recently killed by a short Circuit, but that's another story.

As for the sticky jumper, there's an achievement involving killing while sticky jumping with Melee. So it wouldn't be a stretch for it to work that way.

Killing while sticky jumping is possible, but not easy, for sure. Still, goading a Spy into stabbing your Razorback isn't easy but it's a Strange. And there are those crazy Bootlegger/Sticky Jumper/Ullapool Caber Demomen who rain down on you to explode like an air strike, which I should try some time, it sounds fun.

Short Circuit would be like Strange Wrenches. It would track and level up on projectiles destroyed like how the Wrenches use Sentry kills, but also keeps a separate tab on kills gained with the weapon itself, like a "Strange Part: Enemies Killed" but there automatically.

Speaking of which, in my opinion, Wrenches should track plain old melee kills while a theoretical Strange PDA would track Sentry kills instead. But then again, Engineers are rarely going to use their Wrench for melee purposes, especially the Jag.

edited 10th Oct '12 2:57:03 PM by Anomalocaris20

It was discussed that Razorback should have been made invisible to make it slightly more usable, if I'm not mistaken.

Eh. I think all wrenches should track both melee kills and Sentry kills. They would be also somewhat more desirable to spice things up.

The Wrenches all track both melee and sentry kills, but level up on the latter (Except the Southern Hospitality, that levels up on melee kills).

They do? :o Huh. The more you know...

Eh. Why Pink as Hell and Bitter Taste of Defeat And Lime are so expensive? I want to be as hipster as possible with my Pink/Lime Hazmat Headcase... But RNG just won't let me. Am I not killing enough Spies and Snipers, o Random One?!

I don't get why they make specific colors more expensive than others at all. Or why some like the mint one are nearly impossible to get at all since they can't even be store-bought.

I'd just make them all the same price and all buyable from the store, as well as randomly dropped. Different crates can contain different color paints though, that's fine as long as it isn't salvaged crates or something.

edited 10th Oct '12 3:07:30 PM by Anomalocaris20

Why not make Stranges Randomly dropped too? Just make them EXTREMELY rare, even more than hat drops. That would make people want to play even more often for a chance to pick up a Strange weapon.

Anything that gets dropped is not likely to be valuable. The fact that it drops lessens its value since a lot people do play every single week for hours.

Because Strange Weapons encourage people to buy keys. It's a business plan.

And Greenstar? Burn more scouts.

edited 10th Oct '12 3:14:20 PM by Xiphoniii