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Team Fortress 2 Official PC Thread. SO. WORTH. IT.

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TheOneGuy said:
Idling doesn't add time to classes played. Only time played in the past two weeks, which is not displayed anywhere in the stats except as far back as two weeks. O:

Well fuck me. Going to use it then. Do I need to make room in my inventory bag before I run the idler if I'm maxed out (50 items) or will it give me the option to delete items after I get some?
 

Proven

Member
After going around about my day to regain perspective on life, I have remembered how much I hate Spies, and how much I'm glad that they're a low health class and easy to kill, but hate how even the dumbest Spy can still run in and just backstab you or screw up your sentries or etc. etc. And I'm getting tired of having to check behind me every five seconds, only to die the moment I lapse and plan to check in ten seconds instead. Spies + Snipers make life annoying and makes playing Heavy almost impossible, and makes keeping teleporters up a hassle unless you group all your buildings together, which then just makes them even more susceptible to being all blown up at once, which then just raises blood pressure. Hell, I don't even want to upgrade my shit half the time I'm Engie just because Spies are way too common and annoying. Even if I kill them I still have to rebuild so I might as well stick to the easy stuff.

Honestly, if you're having a problem getting behind enemy lines, Firex, you're either not careful enough, or not using the Dead Ringer. Pick and choose your strategy.

I'm sorry for the rage, but Spies ruin too much too easily. Even if you died 10 times to get there, the one time you made it through will often cost us the match, or come close to doing that.

This ranting, however, has reminded me of the night where I made a Spy ragequit after a full round of Dustbowl where I wouldn't ever let him get more than one kill at a time.

And I'm still against instakills without some kind of long charge. The only long charge I've found acceptable in the game is the Krtizkreig, and even that won't always instantly gib you.
 

firex

Member
MisterAnderson said:
Yeah, that's it. I run it all the time. Great because it's just a command prompt that you can set to discard extra items. The odds of getting a hat are ridiculously low so this is the only way (unless you quit your life and play TF2 full time) to enjoy it.

and I love this guy complaining because Spy is the toughest class to play and trying to call me out on it. Rage more. I am through being cordial with you.
 

Jangaroo

Always the tag bridesmaid, never the tag bride.
Proven said:
Blah, blah, blah, cry moar, spies suck, I'm too inept to spy check/they're broken despite having gotten so many fixes next to the demoman.
The spy is probably the hardest class to play as. Play more, learn to find the nooks and crannies that spies tend to camp near, and learn to spy check, especially with the addition of the cloak and dagger. And if you're playing as a heavy or an engi, well I'm sorry, but those two classes get harassed the most.

Edit: Okay, so you apparently don't like the fact that Engis can't just turtle and do nothing? Each class has a counter. You really shouldn't complain, especially with the recent update that made it a lot easier to save your tele's and what not from sappers.
 

Iadien

Guarantee I'm going to screw up this post? Yeah.
MisterAnderson said:
Do you have to die before a map change/round change for the stats to stick or something? Like what if you have your best round, but your team wins. Should I kill myself since those stats are based around how much "x" you do in 1 life? I assumed it counted winning around as the end of your life so never thought twice about this.

It's supposed to save it, but I have seen it fail to save stats many times, so I recently started killing myself to make sure. haha
 
The only thing bothering me about Spies, other than the ones that decide to play Sniper with the Ambassador when you think you have them cornered, is that the Dead Ringer activates too fast. Compared to something like Bonk, it's crazy how quickly they can attack, switch it on, take a direct hit at almost no cost, then reappear and keep attacking. And if they run over an ammo box or fallen gun, they can do it all over again, taking punishment even a Heavy can't. It's like what I first expected the Razorback to cause, but ten times worse.

Here's a crystal clear example of when it shouldn't work. And even if this was a glitch, they're simply able to activate it too soon after attacking, and recharge it too easily.
 

speedpop

Has problems recognising girls
Spies running with Dead Ringer should always be chased after by Pyros. The only problem is there aren't many Pyros out there who will designate time to really Spy check.
 

firex

Member
yeah, it's pretty amazing how the flamethrower completely nullifies dead ringer. It won't cause extra damage while they are cloaked or anything but it totally removes any of the surprise afforded by it.

I usually use cloak and dagger out of habit and it tends to fit my playstyle (sneak in and avoid people) but dead ringer is superior for spy checking. I don't mind being patient enough to sneak behind the entire team, though, and it's easy even if it can be time-consuming.
 
Can anyone confirm if I need to set the idle program to delete duplicates if I have a full pack? I've been checking on the idler for the past 5 hours and I've only gotten a flare gun (the 51st item, and fairly close to when I started the program hours ago) but have since gotten nothing. I'm wondering if after you get an item past the 50 mark and it's not set to delete any duplicates, if it will halt on finding items until I load up the game to delete an item.

Edit: nvm, got another just now
 

Twig

Banned
Proven said:
After going around about my day to regain perspective on life, I have remembered how much I hate Spies, and how much I'm glad that they're a low health class and easy to kill, but hate how even the dumbest Spy can still run in and just backstab you or screw up your sentries or etc. etc. And I'm getting tired of having to check behind me every five seconds, only to die the moment I lapse and plan to check in ten seconds instead. Spies + Snipers make life annoying and makes playing Heavy almost impossible, and makes keeping teleporters up a hassle unless you group all your buildings together, which then just makes them even more susceptible to being all blown up at once, which then just raises blood pressure. Hell, I don't even want to upgrade my shit half the time I'm Engie just because Spies are way too common and annoying. Even if I kill them I still have to rebuild so I might as well stick to the easy stuff.

Honestly, if you're having a problem getting behind enemy lines, Firex, you're either not careful enough, or not using the Dead Ringer. Pick and choose your strategy.

I'm sorry for the rage, but Spies ruin too much too easily. Even if you died 10 times to get there, the one time you made it through will often cost us the match, or come close to doing that.

This ranting, however, has reminded me of the night where I made a Spy ragequit after a full round of Dustbowl where I wouldn't ever let him get more than one kill at a time.

And I'm still against instakills without some kind of long charge. The only long charge I've found acceptable in the game is the Krtizkreig, and even that won't always instantly gib you.
So you don't like spies?
 

Firestorm

Member
Proven said:
After going around about my day to regain perspective on life, I have remembered how much I hate Spies, and how much I'm glad that they're a low health class and easy to kill, but hate how even the dumbest Spy can still run in and just backstab you or screw up your sentries or etc. etc. And I'm getting tired of having to check behind me every five seconds, only to die the moment I lapse and plan to check in ten seconds instead. Spies + Snipers make life annoying and makes playing Heavy almost impossible, and makes keeping teleporters up a hassle unless you group all your buildings together, which then just makes them even more susceptible to being all blown up at once, which then just raises blood pressure. Hell, I don't even want to upgrade my shit half the time I'm Engie just because Spies are way too common and annoying. Even if I kill them I still have to rebuild so I might as well stick to the easy stuff.

Honestly, if you're having a problem getting behind enemy lines, Firex, you're either not careful enough, or not using the Dead Ringer. Pick and choose your strategy.

I'm sorry for the rage, but Spies ruin too much too easily. Even if you died 10 times to get there, the one time you made it through will often cost us the match, or come close to doing that.

This ranting, however, has reminded me of the night where I made a Spy ragequit after a full round of Dustbowl where I wouldn't ever let him get more than one kill at a time.

And I'm still against instakills without some kind of long charge. The only long charge I've found acceptable in the game is the Krtizkreig, and even that won't always instantly gib you.
Do you realize how frustrating it is to be a spy? I have to be the guy who dies 10 times just to do that perfect run behind enemy lines to fuck up your setup :( Spy is one of the most complicated classes to play right. I'm not that good a spy though =[
 

Proven

Member
Ha ha, I was just having a rage moment guys. I guess I'm not well known but I tend to have excellent "Spy-dar" and don't normally have a problem.

I think half of it was the switch to PC TF2. Maybe the Spies are just dumber on the 360. The only problem I have with Spies, despite how hard it is to get behind enemy lines with paranoid enemies, is that the threat and sometimes completion of their instakill attack affects the way of the game. I always spy check, and check my back, and I'm constantly rewarded for it. I sometimes just hate having to be paranoid sometimes, and not being able to just have two teams fully concentrating on each other. Also, it makes it really hard to practice as Heavy as for whatever reason my reflexes slow down at first.

And my complaint as an Engineer is that Spies encourage me to turtle in order to keep my stuff in sight and watch out for Spies. It means I'm forced for be less offensive much of the time, and it means I have to keep my teleporter close by to all my stuff. I don't like to turtle, and often if the only thing I can do as Engie is turtle one spot, I'd rather switch class and be more mobile. Spies mean that I can't leave anything alone.

I tend to not care how hard a class is to play, or what skill ceiling there is, but rather what their effect on the game, played to their best, causes. What behavior changes come out of it in terms of strategy. Spies force me to turtle and be extremely paranoid.

And anyway, I don't know what it is about the PC netcode, but I never had problems with melee weapons on the 360, but I miss most of my attacks on the PC now. Maybe it's in part the 20% speed reduction of the ubersaw, but I have trouble wrenching too. I only just got the "not miss 5 saw hits" achievement with the Medic yesterday, lol. When I stick to needles, shotgun, rockets, flames, I'm usually dominating spies (I mean seriously, even if my team is getting steam rolled, if I get at least one domination, it's always a spy, no matter what class I'm playing).

And to lay it all on the table, yes, I dislike Snipers for the same reasonings, and the only thing I've found that works well for me to counter them and Spies is playing Soldier more, which has brought me success. Still, you don't like having to change class like that, do you?

I figured after the last few pages that everyone was allowed at least one rage post. :lol

Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPmcMMdqbaw is why I just say use Dead Ringer more.

Looking back at this, my grammar at 3AM is horrible.
 

Twig

Banned
Proven said:
And my complaint as an Engineer is that Spies encourage me to turtle in order to keep my stuff in sight and watch out for Spies. It means I'm forced for be less offensive much of the time, and it means I have to keep my teleporter close by to all my stuff. I don't like to turtle, and often if the only thing I can do as Engie is turtle one spot, I'd rather switch class and be more mobile. Spies mean that I can't leave anything alone.
Really?

I find that it's actually harder to be efficient as an engineer if I play defensively like that.

The more offensive I am (read: only level 1 sentries, dropped where they're needed At The Moment), the less spies bother me.

Granted, I haven't played since just after the Scout update (I CAN'T WAIT TO GET HOME TO MY BELOVED DESKTOP) so maybe things have changed considerably?!

P.S. There's nothing wrong with hating snipers. They're all fucking cheaters. Every last one of them.
 

Won

Member
Proven said:
I think half of it was the switch to PC TF2. Maybe the Spies are just dumber on the 360. The only problem I have with Spies, despite how hard it is to get behind enemy lines with paranoid enemies, is that the threat and sometimes completion of their instakill attack affects the way of the game. I always spy check, and check my back, and I'm constantly rewarded for it. I sometimes just hate having to be paranoid sometimes, and not being able to just have two teams fully concentrating on each other. Also, it makes it really hard to practice as Heavy as for whatever reason my reflexes slow down at first.

And my complaint as an Engineer is that Spies encourage me to turtle in order to keep my stuff in sight and watch out for Spies. It means I'm forced for be less offensive much of the time, and it means I have to keep my teleporter close by to all my stuff. I don't like to turtle, and often if the only thing I can do as Engie is turtle one spot, I'd rather switch class and be more mobile. Spies mean that I can't leave anything alone.

I tend to not care how hard a class is to play, or what skill ceiling there is, but rather what their effect on the game, played to their best, causes. What behavior changes come out of it in terms of strategy. Spies force me to turtle and be extremely paranoid.

Sounds more like someone sucks at playing Engineer.

Also the first part of this post and your endless back and forth with firex let me believe that Counterstrike is the game you reeeeally want to play and not TF2.
 

firex

Member
TheOneGuy said:
Really?

I find that it's actually harder to be efficient as an engineer if I play defensively like that.

The more offensive I am (read: only level 1 sentries, dropped where they're needed At The Moment), the less spies bother me.

Granted, I haven't played since just after the Scout update (I CAN'T WAIT TO GET HOME TO MY BELOVED DESKTOP) so maybe things have changed considerably?!

P.S. There's nothing wrong with hating snipers. They're all fucking cheaters. Every last one of them.
this is all truth, especially the sniper part. I seriously think they added arena/koth mode just so there was a mode where people could play camper sniper and actually contribute to their team instead of just getting kills and points but not helping objectives.

also it's hilarious how I will play engineer, and a spy wrecks my shit easily, but I play spy, and I wind up unable to pull off sap and stab or repeated sapping. Probably need to get a mic and just yell "hey somebody kill this spy for me, he's sappin' stuff" in my best engineer impression.
 

1-D_FTW

Member
firex said:
this is all truth, especially the sniper part. I seriously think they added arena/koth mode just so there was a mode where people could play camper sniper and actually contribute to their team instead of just getting kills and points but not helping objectives.

also it's hilarious how I will play engineer, and a spy wrecks my shit easily, but I play spy, and I wind up unable to pull off sap and stab or repeated sapping. Probably need to get a mic and just yell "hey somebody kill this spy for me, he's sappin' stuff" in my best engineer impression.

There's probably some truth to the first part, but I don't think KotH is nearly as bad as Pipeline. That shitbag of a map seemed like it was designed to coincide directly with the Sniper update. Aside from the fact the first two stages are long, boring, and ultimately pointless; it seems like the number one priority (and possibly only) was designing a good layout for snipers.
 

firex

Member
I don't know. Pipeline has a lot of different paths you can take that also make it great for spies. But it needs a stalemate timer or something because I did have a match go on for the full round timer on a single stage.
 

1-D_FTW

Member
firex said:
I don't know. Pipeline has a lot of different paths you can take that also make it great for spies. But it needs a stalemate timer or something because I did have a match go on for the full round timer on a single stage.

Yeah. You're right. It's a good map for spies, too. But then again, spies and snipers were in the same update. So that makes sense. I can only shudder to think of the sniper nest Pipeline would be without the spies having free reign.
 
So I ran the idler overnight and it found 4 items (no hat), but curiously after going in game and playing for like a half hour, those items never "appeared"? In fact I unlocked an item on my own that wasn't part of the "batch" of items the idler unlocked overnight... is this normal? Does it take time for those items to "appear"?
 

firex

Member
uh, your inventory's not full, is it? You can only hold 50 items. It's best to modify the idler's settings.txt and tell it to delete duplicates you get unless they are higher level (I don't think that does anything yet, but it's still nice to have a higher level item in case they DO make them have extra features later) although if you are already at 50 items, you should start up the game and click the character setup thing at the top of the main menu, and just delete extras in your loadout. I know people may want to keep extras for trading but the truth is you can still unlock stuff via achievements for every class and all the regular items are worthless. It's the hats that are worth trading.
 
firex said:
uh, your inventory's not full, is it? You can only hold 50 items. It's best to modify the idler's settings.txt and tell it to delete duplicates you get unless they are higher level (I don't think that does anything yet, but it's still nice to have a higher level item in case they DO make them have extra features later) although if you are already at 50 items, you should start up the game and click the character setup thing at the top of the main menu, and just delete extras in your loadout. I know people may want to keep extras for trading but the truth is you can still unlock stuff via achievements for every class and all the regular items are worthless. It's the hats that are worth trading.

I actually deleted a bunch of items to make room for new ones, although the first time I ran the idler the night before I was full, and it didn't effect the unlocks I got. I went in the game, played for a little while and then they appeared, and it asked me to delete stuff to make room so I did.

It's strange that now the items didn't appear despite me making room when the opposite happened when I didn't have room. And yeah I'll set it to delete unless it's a hat or a higher level item, I'm just worried about the idler saying "you found <insert hat name here>!!" and then when I go in the game it doesn't appear.
 

firex

Member
it might take a little time for stuff to appear, especially if it takes any time to sync idling with ingame playing. Steam servers are a little bad about not syncing on stuff sometimes.
 
firex said:
it might take a little time for stuff to appear, especially if it takes any time to sync idling with ingame playing. Steam servers are a little bad about not syncing on stuff sometimes.

Alright yeah I figured as such...should I not run the idler again until the recent "set" appears though? Or will that not matter?
 

firex

Member
I wouldn't worry about it personally. just don't try to run the idler and tf2 at the same time, of course. I'm not sure if you even can.
 

Proven

Member
Yeah, when I stick to just level one sentries and then maybe a dispenser during lull it's fine, but if I try to add teleporters or just go for two buildings off the bat, I risk getting overwhelmed. It's just, knowing how important teleporters are, I can't help but want to build one as soon as possible. Then when I go run off it gets sapped, and since it's level 1 it runs out of health long before I can go back and unsap it, especially after dealing with a Spy.

The double sapper update helps block entrance saps when you turtle, as the teleporter is near by. But if I leave the teleporter off in the corner and it gets sapped, then I lose it and the entrance, and can't just place a new one without going back to spawn, and then having to make my way back to my offensive position and then rebuild my sentry. By that point I just say screw it, and it's where my rage was coming from, despite my MVP performance the other day.

Won said:
Sounds more like someone sucks at playing Engineer.

Also the first part of this post and your endless back and forth with firex let me believe that Counterstrike is the game you reeeeally want to play and not TF2.

I utterly despise Counterstrike. You die way too fast, and it seems speed is the only thing that's cared about for skill these days. It's also why I don't play Call of Duty. TF2 and Left 4 Dead have been the only FPS games I've throughly enjoyed in multiplayer since Halo 3 campaign and Time Splitters 2. And in the end I default back to TF2. And yes I'm looking forward to ODST in order to play Firefight with friends, and that's mostly it (renting anyway).
 

Blizzard

Banned
1-D_FTW said:
There's probably some truth to the first part, but I don't think KotH is nearly as bad as Pipeline. That shitbag of a map seemed like it was designed to coincide directly with the Sniper update. Aside from the fact the first two stages are long, boring, and ultimately pointless; it seems like the number one priority (and possibly only) was designing a good layout for snipers.
I could be mistaken, but I was almost sure that Valve themselves basically said "to go with the sniper update, here are a couple of maps with long sight-lines".

The only problem I really have with that map is the stalemate that happens in the tunnels sometimes. I don't know why they couldn't just put a 10-15 minute timer on it or something, and then do sudden death.
 

MNC

Member
[-]August 31, 2009 - Team Fortress 2 Update Released

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Team Fortress 2


Added "tf_allow_player_use" server ConVar to control players executing +use while playing (defaults to 0)

Fixed a bug where full backpacks resulted in an item being repeatedly found each time the game is started

Fixed being able to burn players/buildings that are in the water while standing outside the water

Fixed teleporting Spies getting stuck in enemy players standing on the exit

Fixed server log not listing telefrag kills as weapon "telefrag"

Fixed the Pyro's airblast pushing Spectators in free-look mode

Fixed Pyro's Hadouken killing Scouts that have used Bonk! and are phasing

Fixed freezecam screenshots sometimes being saved outside the Screenshots folder

Fixed deathnotice and server log entries not using the unique item names/icons when buildings are destroyed

Fixed a case where the weapon selection menu wasn't drawing the images of non-standard items if the player was using hud_fastswitch 1 and using slot7-10 to view the panel

Fixed CTF HUD not centering the flag panel if there is only one active flag


Community requests

Added the ability to set a parent for the item_teamflag entity

Added OnPickUpTeam1 and OnPickUpTeam2 outputs to the item_teamflag entity

Added intro movie .mp3 files to the sound/misc folder
 

Volcynika

Member
Update!

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Team Fortress 2


Added "tf_allow_player_use" server ConVar to control players executing +use while playing (defaults to 0)

Fixed a bug where full backpacks resulted in an item being repeatedly found each time the game is started

Fixed being able to burn players/buildings that are in the water while standing outside the water

Fixed teleporting Spies getting stuck in enemy players standing on the exit

Fixed server log not listing telefrag kills as weapon "telefrag"

Fixed the Pyro's airblast pushing Spectators in free-look mode

Fixed Pyro's Hadouken killing Scouts that have used Bonk! and are phasing

Fixed freezecam screenshots sometimes being saved outside the Screenshots folder

Fixed deathnotice and server log entries not using the unique item names/icons when buildings are destroyed

Fixed a case where the weapon selection menu wasn't drawing the images of non-standard items if the player was using hud_fastswitch 1 and using slot7-10 to view the panel

Fixed CTF HUD not centering the flag panel if there is only one active flag


Community requests

Added the ability to set a parent for the item_teamflag entity

Added OnPickUpTeam1 and OnPickUpTeam2 outputs to the item_teamflag entity

Added intro movie .mp3 files to the sound/misc folder
 

Twig

Banned
Fixed
Fixed
FixedFixedFixedFixed

Fixed a case where the weapon selection menu wasn't drawing the images of non-standard items if the player was using hud_fastswitch 1 and using slot7-10 to view the panel
That is quite specific. I love it.
 

Tubobutts

Member
MNC said:
[-]August 31, 2009 - Team Fortress 2 Update Released

Fixed being able to burn players/buildings that are in the water while standing outside the water

Is this referring to the thing where you could burn people in the water while you're in the water as long as you keep the flamethrower above the water?
 

benjipwns

Banned
It appears the Cloak and Dagger's cloak doesn't actually run out. You're still cloaked even when the meter is empty and the watch turns yellow.
 

Proven

Member

Twig

Banned
Proven said:
Hidden stuff in latest update: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=953306

Also: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11095983&postcount=513

People are speculating that the reason they're threatening account disabling (not being able to log into Steam at all) instead of VAC banning is because you're using a third party program to cheat the steam servers themselves, and not just a single game's engine. Apparently it's against the Steam EULA or something.
BU BU BU CAPNDRAKE TOLD ME VALVE SAID THEY DIDN'T CARE

but if i can get a cheater's hat i am idling the shit out of this shit, if you know what i shit/mean
 
Proven said:
Hidden stuff in latest update: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=953306

Also: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11095983&postcount=513

People are speculating that the reason they're threatening account disabling (not being able to log into Steam at all) instead of VAC banning is because you're using a third party program to cheat the steam servers themselves, and not just a single game's engine. Apparently it's against the Steam EULA or something.

Damn, just the day after I started using it. I didn't like the idea, but I guess my greed for at least one hat after all the time I've played won out, and they've moved incredibly slow on this one, so I figured it wasn't a real issue to them at the moment.

It's a pretty assholish tactic: they're going to figure out which servers are the idle servers, and instead of block those servers, they're going to seed the "cheater" items out on them specifically, and nuke anyone's equipment that receives them. They're within their right, but it's kind of petty, especially when their gifting system sucks and there's still no item trading months after the new system was implemented (April 20th or so, it looks like). Oh no, people want the fun hats, that's as bad as aimbotting right there.

They'd better not get pissy with the people that actually log into servers where people have agreed to sit there and idle. There is absolutely nothing circumventing Steam rules doing that, I don't care what you think about it. I'm not even saying I'm going to do it, but those players are absolutely in their right to do it.

I guess this pretty much answers the question if the inventory system is ever going to start offering advantageous items or "rare" trading.

Edit: The whole thing could be a scare, too. Either way it's still pretty petty on their part, in that case instead of approaching the idler developer directly and announcing that they won't allow similar programs. Now people will just log onto real servers and idle there like before. From there the only answer is to modify how items drop, banning servers or erasing people's inventories because they aren't running around or shooting enough would be going much too far.
 

MNC

Member
I'm not using the idler, but are you sure that would be considered cheating? What does it exactly do, keep you idle in the server and remove duplicates of items? You're not going outside of game engine boundaries, I suppose.
 
I think it fakes a server, I wouldnt mess with it, personally, my steam account is too valuable to risk a VAC ban, (which valve could do if they wanted to be assholes).

valve could just have something that detects no key inputs over a certain period of time, and not count that towards item drop chance.
 

Sibylus

Banned
Uh, I think it's safe to say that this is targeted at the idler/fake server program, not the idle map servers (If it was targeted at both, then why has Valve done nothing about achievement servers and the related maps?). The idle map servers are no more malicious than the achievement servers, but this program does tread into some uncomfortable gray areas, especially concerning terms of use and your steam account. This is why I've never touched the program, because even if I wanted to idle, I wasn't going to touch this because it's unknown if it's kosher or not. If this is happening, it isn't assholish, it isn't petty, it's common sense. With the idle map servers, the people involved are still running the game on their machine. Allowing people to receive in-game rewards without even launching the program, how the hell does that help the game? How does that help the players?
 
Idle program basically runs by itself, connects to certain designated servers through Steam like TF2 does, registering you as connected to the server but not on a team or anything. This is enough to qualify for the item gifting.

I'm sure it's set to connect to special servers for this, it's not flooding normal servers with spectators.

Botolf said:
The idle map servers are no more malicious than the achievement servers, but this program does tread into some uncomfortable gray areas, especially concerning terms of use and your steam account. This is why I've never touched the program, because even if I wanted to idle, I wasn't going to touch this because it's unknown if it's kosher or not.

Truthfully, agreed. I did use it for a day, but it was out of blind hat envy. Curse you hilarious headgear! Since there's no known way of improving your chances other than being logged in, and the unlocks offer no benefit to me at this point and the hats are just for fun, I caved. I certainly won't be using it any more now.


Botolf said:
If this is happening, it isn't assholish, it isn't petty, it's common sense. With the idle map servers, the people involved are still running the game on their machine. Allowing people to receive in-game rewards without even launching the program, how the hell does that help the game? How does that help the players?

I think it's the major/minor thing that bothers me (what really qualifies as which?), but this is a really roundabout, secretive way of doing it. Apparently there's going to be a blog post tomorrow about it, I truthfully expected them to stealth it for a while at first. So it remains to be seen what they say.

I'm not going to defend the idler program, and they're going to be more forthcoming about their punishment system it looks like, so that's better. I'm just wondering if they'll see in-game idling maps as cheating the system. If they do, then their gifting system is the issue, not the players' behavior. If people get their inventory items cleaned out for standing around in-game, that's unfair.
 

Sibylus

Banned
Well, secretive in the sense some people stumbled on it in the game GCFs and there isn't an accompanying press release or something yet. If they are trying to discourage use of the idling program, I'm sure they'll make a public statement on it at some point and describe in brief what's going on. That'd make the most sense.
 

Twig

Banned
Botolf said:
Allowing people to receive in-game rewards without even launching the program, how the hell does that help the game? How does that help the players?
Oh, come off it. It's no different than idling in a real server, except it wastes less energy because I don't have to have my video card going nutso the whole time.

There are things worth bitching about (snipers), but this isn't one of them.
 

firex

Member
I don't think you guys who think the idler is cheating the system realize how bad the odds of getting a hat are.

It's 0.4% chance when you unlock an item that it will be a hat. Any hat. Now divide that by 27 for all the hats in the game. The chances of unlocking any hat are like impossibly low by normal playing. Even people who use the idler have to leave it running 24/7 for 3 weeks on average to get a hat. I know they're just cosmetic, but Valve made them too rare for any sane player to see, especially considering they keep adding more of them to the game.

I'm not saying you should be able to unlock every hat in a half hour, but the odds of unlocking a single hat playing normally are incredibly low.
 

Won

Member
I say all the idle maps and achievement servers are the reason why we have such a low hat drop rate to begin with!

Screw you, guys! Screw you all!


But seriously now, I really hope Valve fixes the drop rate. It is pointless having such a hat collection in the game, if no one is wearing them. We shouldn't even have this discussion. -.-
 

Sibylus

Banned
TheOneGuy said:
Oh, come off it. It's no different than idling in a real server, except it wastes less energy because I don't have to have my video card going nutso the whole time.

There are things worth bitching about (snipers), but this isn't one of them.
How does this idle program help players like myself, with people in my friendlist sitting in the fake program, apparently too preoccupied to even play the game anymore. With the idle server, there's at least the chance they're nearby the computer and might come play. How does this idling program help the game by luring away players from the actual game just so that they can maximize their odds at some loot?

You'd rather complain about snipers than a program that encourages people to play less and just clog up friend lists? What the fuck, am I posting in bizarroGaf right now? :lol
 

cramcakes

Member
And I was *that* close to start using an idler.

This is just going to piss people off.

They should just do a week/weekend of all hats unlocked for everyone, then let everyone pick one or two to keep.
 

snack

Member
There seems to be an increased drop rate now.

15 hats dropping in 15 minutes.

tyrolean.jpg
 

Jacobi

Banned
Something completely different:

How do you guys prefer your respawn times? I really would like them to count (20 secs), but most servers that feature such a rate feature it only for reds. Which I think is kind of dumb...
 
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