On 09/12/2014 09:21, Paul wrote:
I too am disappointed with this update, so much that I'll most probably be
spending my money on some other games this month. I thought there would be
more to the winter season/event than just duck collecting and some new
items (mostly cosmetics). A map would've certainly been nice. Oh well,
people can't expect everything I guess - especially when there are bugs
that still haven't been fixed for weeks or months.
I'd say you absolutely should expect everything.
Or at least a lot more than you're getting.
Back in 2007- when updates were, at least in appearance "free" you could
make that argument
that you shouldn't expect anything, let along everything.
But ironically they are spending less effort on game design these days
and just throwing
out items whilst they're making more money from it than they did
It's not as if Valve are releasing other games. I mean, if TF2 doesn't
get decent updates because
they're working on a cheap plastic controller, a featureless music
player and adding
"levels" to Steam I'm a bit more than disappointed.
Call me old fashioned but steam used to be a bit of a flaky thing that
let you buy HL2 et al
and updated TF2 for "free" and the world was good.
Now we're supposed to sit clicking 'yes' and 'no' on long lists of indie
shovelware and then
buy these games that we don't want to play in exchange for getting a
higher level?
Is that Valve's best idea for game design? Steam levels? Yikes, how the
mighty have fallen.
Perhaps because of this kind of "feature" the quality of the player base
has nose-dived.
In that sense I can sort of understand why Valve might say something like
"this map is too confusing for new players" because sitting at the
computer and
facing the right way is probably too confusing for the kind of people
Valve have attracted
by turning steam into a game where you can get a badge ("whoo!") by
linking your steam account to facebook.
I'm losing IQ points just describing it.
Since this is mostly due to the way that the game is now monitised.
Valve could at least
use some of that money to improve the game again.
In the sense of it being a Team based FPS shooter with each map have
some kind of "winner"
and an objective to that end rather than in the sense of it being an
item collecting game
where you are given items randomly that you didn't really want and then
try to fend
off a bunch of greedy buffoons trying to scam or hack those items from
your account via steam.
Valve seem to have run out of ideas. e.g Stopping people
going to spectate on their servers? That is so, so dumb. I mean, there isn't
a lot of cheating on their servers, but now you can't spectate someone to
check if there is.
Adding an option to vote to disable auto balance? I mean, sure people
don't like being switched
but not having auto balance is always worse.
If you were going to give an option to disable anything it should be
disabling the moronic
scrambling every 2 rounds.
Valve, you cannot solve the current problems with the game by doing
either of
2 things (a) Trying to force your players to make choices that are,
well, choices. The clue
is in the word choices.
If you ever think that's a good solution quit your job and go back to
stealing golden wrenches and writing plugins
because this is the level of thinking of a plugin writer / server admin.
It's logic that says "I can't do anything
to improve the game, so instead I'll try and impose my will on the
players" It's understandable that the community takes this
approach - because they genuinely can't do anything to improve the game.
But Valve, you can. Throw
some money and expertise at the problems instead and come up with
something better than votes or features that
remove choices that players have had since 2007.
A better idea would be to seriously ask yourselves "What exactly did we
do wrong? Why do people not play the game now?
Why do so many people all play spy and sniper?" - don't try to paper
over the cracks of the problem
with voting or features. e.g If you force people not to play spy or
sniper you haven't removed the
problem, you've just hidden it.
At least now if you join a server that has all spies and snipers you
know they are buffoons.
In the same way that if you scramble a server full of crap players they
are still crap afterwards. Scrambling doesn't make
you better at playing the game.
Instead, ask yourselves why you didn't have that player base in 2007.
Sure, when you released an update for the scout with achievements you
got nigh on everyone playing scout for a bit - kind of inevitable. But,
in general, common sense prevailed.
and (b) you cannot solve problems by adding votes for everything. I know
you get fed 24/7 in the USA about how great democracy is supposed to be,
but it really
isn't. Not for games. e.g just see how many are just trying to scramble
every time the other team has scored a point. This
goes to your own dumb decision to scramble if a team wins rounds.
A team winning isn't a sign that the team is unfairly balanced. Besides
anyone who thinks shuffling players randomly will balance the game needs to
think about that some more (cf Apple who had to change their algorithm
for shuffling on the ipod because 'randomly' selecting songs doesn't result
in what people hope it would)
Right now the game doesn't need new items or new maps. It needs updates
to make it worth trying to win again - which,
in essence, is the only reason to play a game. It's what a game is.
I know you have this thing where so long as you're getting money from
them you don't care if people don't play but
why not find some way of splitting them out onto their own servers?
If people like to conga, you could write dance mat game for them or
something.
Right now TF2 is like going into a room full of people nominally playing
chess and
when you sit at the board the other guy picks up a piece and pretends
it's an aeroplane and he's making aeroplane noises
and you say "C'mon, play fucking chess" and he says "You're a tryhard"
and Valve, the people running the chess
competition say "We don't like to change the way people play our games,
and that guy bought a hat!"
So you sigh go to the next board and the guy picks up the piece and
starts chewing it and sticking it in his ear and
you realise he's 8 years old and only went to play in the competition
because it was free to get in and his dad wanted
something to keep him quiet. (Although from the constant singing and
repetitive shouting of the words "fuck her in the pussy"
that didn't pan out)
So you go to a 3rd board and the guy starts to play chess. Actually play
chess! Excited you make a few deft moves and you take his queen.
You're on a roll when a guy from Valve comes over and turns the board
through 180 degrees "to balance the
game because you're winning" - What? Fuck it, you roll your eyes and
carry on playing - at least this guy is playing chess.
You manage to take what was once your queen and get back in the game,
when, suddenly, 3 Valve
security guys grab you by the jacket, drag you towards the door and
throw you out the building. As you fall to the floor one of them says
"You've been voted off"
--
Dan
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