16 Rockets Ought To be Enough For Anybody
OMFGNinja (of Badlands Spy Ownage fame) emailed in with another piece of post-update action. This time he tried out the new improved/nerfed soldier rocket limit after it got bumped down from 32 to 16.
The results were… messy to say the least. 7 minutes, no deaths, and a heap of enemy kills. And the first cap point on the 3rd section of dustbowl ended up safe and sound by the end of it all still.
True Story: Feb 28 is the day VALVe put out the what will be sooner or later infamous Soldier/Demo Nerf. It just so happened I was at work the whole day, and I got the news that my beloved soldier was nerfed, while looking at the TF2 forums on my break. By the time I got home from work it was already past midnight, and all my friends were asleep. So I joined some random pub with a low ping, to assess the damage. Who would have thought that the first game that I had my firepower cut in half, would be the same game that I set a new personal record?? (by 3 points!). Irony perhaps? I felt a little bad for the other team, because it was obvious they weren’t the most organized bunch, but hey, look man, I just home from the office, I needed to blow some people away, is that too much to ask? Props to the medic for helping to keeping me alive.
Overall, I think the nerf helped cut back on the spamming, and made actually connecting with your rockets a whole lot more important. But man, 16 is a bit rough. I’d atleast like to see 4 more rockets in on my person, 20 in total. I with, without the ability to spam the rockets like crazy, it kinda sets appart the skill with the Soldiers, since they will have to make each one count. Or atleast soldiers and demos will have to learn to camp ammo boxes. I could see some Engieers being the ones complaining the most about this in the long run.
[engineer]DANM SOLDIERS N DEMOS TAKIN ALL MAH METAL![/engineer]
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Yes I know I (mis)quoted Bill Gates. Yes, I also know he didn’t actually say it.
madlep on March 4th 2008 in community, soldier, team fortress 2, videos
Stumble it!
NightStriker responded on 04 Mar 2008 at 9:40 pm #
I’ve tried the soldier since the update, and he hasn’t taken too much of a hit. Playing as a demoman though…. ugh. Even without spamming, I’m constantly running for ammo in Warpath.
Elvis! responded on 05 Mar 2008 at 12:46 am #
goldrush preview:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XjexTZgt-bM
Phillip Vector responded on 05 Mar 2008 at 5:17 am #
Taking Ammo doesn’t remove metal.
So your point is moot on that front.
madlep responded on 05 Mar 2008 at 5:55 am #
@Phillip - yeah true with dispensers. But it still means that Soldiers are gonna take the ammo kits more often - which the engies REALLY need if everything gets taken out, and they need to rebuild.
b4dboyz- responded on 05 Mar 2008 at 6:04 am #
I’ve found myself not being killed by rocket spam as much recently. There is always one engie who has a dispenser up so I can restock ammo. My gameplay/strat hasn’t really changed except for not clicking my mouse as much. Just have to make sure that I have enough ammo when a medic uses his uber on me. >.>
Neslock responded on 05 Mar 2008 at 8:04 am #
I’m very tempted to say this sucks, without having tried it out yet… But then again, I play soldier a lot and don’t remember having to run for ammo very often. I seem to be replenished easily enough without having to worry about it.
Cool picture of Bill with the old Tandy 100, by the way. I had one of those in 1986 and have been looking to pick one up on eBay lately.
C.J. responded on 05 Mar 2008 at 8:12 am #
The soldier technically does get 20 rockets, since there are four already loaded into it and 16 in reserve. I think only the pyro and heavy should get spam-type fire anyway; the soldier and demoman should be more about precision and good placement.
Cascade responded on 05 Mar 2008 at 10:51 pm #
This doesn’t really hurt attackers, who are going to either succeed or die before they spend those 20 rockets. It might limit defenders from spamming points, but that’s a good thing. Defenders should work with engineers to set up a dispenser if that’s what they have to do.
I approve of the change. It makes dispensers more useful and tactical, rather than a dispenser just acting as a sentry healthpack.
UncleSpoon responded on 07 Mar 2008 at 9:52 am #
I am really surprised at the LACK of bitching about this change. I mean I play WOW, and when any change is made, there’s bloody uproar etc… (Whiny little maggots.)
I am still amazed at the relative maturity of the TF2 community. Even if some cock did try and get me banned from a server the other day for “blocking him” from building a sentry gun. I was using his dispenser at the time and laying down a base of fire with the HWG.
He was laughed off the server:)
Captain Hairy responded on 07 Mar 2008 at 10:10 am #
@UncleSpoon
You should have had a look at the official TF2 forums just after the patch. That was pretty bad. There’s a lot of WoW players that also play TF2.
madlep responded on 07 Mar 2008 at 10:14 am #
I think that there hasn’t been as much noise as would be expected because it really isn’t *that* big of a change.
Sure, it makes some parts of the game less spammy (getting out of spawn of dustbowl springs to mind), but it really doesn’t change things drastically overall.
Its really just a little inconvenient having to find ammo more often. But I really haven’t noticed that much of a difference playing since the change.
messatsu responded on 07 Mar 2008 at 1:55 pm #
Soldier had 36 extra rockets and 4 already in the clip. Not 32 extra.
UncleSpoon responded on 07 Mar 2008 at 4:18 pm #
Hairy: Oh I know some people no doubt whine, and official forums are always the absolute worst place to be as they attract the biggest tools and jackasses in the community, but I’ve seen almost no bitching outside of “Whine Central” AKA the official forums.
madlep responded on 07 Mar 2008 at 4:24 pm #
I think one of the other differences between nerfs in TF2 and WoW, is that you spend 2 years grinding a WoW character to have phat raiding lewt and all that. Nerfing a class in WoW really hurts a lot more, cause you’ve got a lot of investment in your character that gets hurt by the nerf.
With TF2, you don’t have as much personal investment in any of the characters. Sure, you may have specialised in something that isn’t as effective anymore, but there is a relatively low cost in switching to another specialty and playing that instead.
For all rounders its even less of an issue. It just changes the tactical decision of which class to play in a given situation.
supremesonic responded on 07 Mar 2008 at 8:55 pm #
I’m curious to see if this’ll happen on the 360/PS3, considering that when it comes to updates we’re miles behind… Haven’t heard news of Badlands yet, even though I’ll give credit that lag doesn’t occur as much now.
The most popular classes there are Soldiers and Demoman, I think, so it’d be interesting to see how that changed. Oh, and there’s also a high quota of really awful spies, but the less said about them the better… (TELEPORTERS!)
FILM: Team Fortress 2: Soldier 16 Rocket Nerf - Killing Spree | Onlinegamer - Team Fortress 2 på svenska responded on 08 Mar 2008 at 5:29 am #
[...] Det räcker med 16 rockets… [...]
madlep responded on 08 Mar 2008 at 1:11 pm #
@supremesonic - There have been a few news reports in the last few days where Valve have been talking about releasing new content for the console versions of TF2. I think they’re wanting to do it for free, but Microsoft/Sony have got their crappy paid downloadable content schemes that are holding things up a bit with all the business issues.
Minzerta2010 responded on 10 Mar 2008 at 1:30 pm #
God I hope that they do an update. They could probly do it without using the downloadable content scheme. At least for PS3 i think they could. When i bought Motorstorm there was an automatic update that i needed to install before i could play (it added vibration capabilites and some other stuff, not really sure). I think valve could probably do something like an update for everyone who owns the game. At least for the PS3. But then again, Gabe Newell finds the PS3 “useless”.
But then again, I don’t think i’d be too happy with the nerfed rockets/grenades. In the first 1/3 of dustbowl i’d just shoot off a bunch of spam grenades into the air to scare off the other team. Ocassionally you get a kill doing this too. But still, with the updates we’d finally get Badlands, and people would stop using annoying map exploits in dustbowl (somehow engineers make it way above the map and can build whatever in the air. I ended up being traped behind a fence in the third part of the map.).