The Somewhat Almighty God of Pie Fixes Everything EVER!!!
So, how ’bout them new clothing items, eh? I’m willing to bet that every TF2 player and follower in the world is mousing over their “TF2 Official Blog” RSS feed every three and a half seconds to see if the buggers at VALVe have actually gotten off their arses and EXPLAINED THE BLOODY THING. And every three and a half seconds, they learn more and more about VALVe’s typical customer dedication — which seems to be powered by that most powerful of forces, the force of “Bugger All.” Bitching about this is not my role, however — that is the role of the Steam forum users. My role here is to impart unto you an idea that I had at about 4 a.m. when I got woken by a car alarm. If I wasn’t a deity, I’d call it divine inspiration.
Achievements are a contentious area of TF2, and the Überchargers (who like to think of themselves as serious players) are generally against it, for the simple reason that it fills our beloved TF2 with moronic class-rushers. The updates to our lovely loadout screen have left many of the Übercharged forum users puzzled, to say the least. Will VALVe add new achievements to unlock them? Will they have bonuses? Will they be powered by kills? And that’s when it hit me.
This is how we can fix Team Fortress Two:
Have clothing items unlocked by achievements
Have weapons unlocked by lifetime point
There are many reasons why this will fix our game. Here are some of them:
The Clothing Items
Our clothing screen currently contains only one slot, the “Headgear” slot. However, this slot is the same size as the three weapons slots. This suggests that VALVe is going to add extra items of clothing, to a total of three. Maybe it’ll be hat-shirt-pants, or hat-suit-shoes, or hat-suit-accessory, but whatever it is, there’ll be three of them. By the way, all of these arguments are based on the assumption that the clothing items will NOT have bonuses. In my opinion, the addition of bonuses will seriously confuse gameplay and ruin it for newbies — there’s almost always some aspect of imbalance in any bonus or de-bonus, as the successive weapon nerfs after previous updates have proved.
SCOTTISH! MOTHERF**KER! DO YE SPEAK IT?
So, let’s say that VALVe creates achievements for each item of clothing, which work in much the same way as the achievements which have been added onto previous weapon updates do. In my ideal scheme, the achievements from previous weapons updates will be transferred to unlocking clothing items, and achievements which you have already earned carry over. Now, let’s see where this leads us. There are two possible scenarios;
VALVe releases all the clothes at once
This is simple enough to work out. Release all or part of every classes clothes at once, and make them unlockable through achievements — no class-rush. You’d still get morons trying to backstab you underwater or use sentries to cause environmental deaths or whatever, but the point is that you’d have a roughly equal number of morons of each class. VALVe can make as many and as moronic achievements as they want, but they don’t need to worry about serious Scrumpy parties.
VALVe releases the clothes for one class at a time
This is a less ideal scenario, but at least with (bonus-less) clothing you only need to create models and achievements, not balance them, and so hopefully VALVe might be able to release them at a reasonable pace. If one class gets its achievements and clothing at a time, then you’d still have rushes — but let’s face it, a shiny new hat is a lot less desirable than (thinks of random weapon idea) a rocket launcher with +25% damage but no knockback. You’d still get morons, but there’d be less of them, because the rewards for their grinding are less tangible.
The Alternate Weapons
The points system in Team Fortress 2 is, to my knowledge, unique. In most shooters, which are deathmatch-based, “points” means “kills”. Kill someone and you get a point. But in TF2, which is (as the name suggests) team-based, points are awarded for all kinds of things; captures, defenses, cart-pushing, assists, all kinds of jazz. So, in Team Fortress 2, points reward good play. As such, points can be considered a much better method of unlocking stuff than bizarre achievements.
The advantages to using points to unlock weapons are fairly obvious. For one thing, it rewards those who play as the class in question. I’m willing to bet that there are players who managed to get a really obscure achievement right before class update x but haven’t done so since. Because achievements only come into play after the update is made, they’re not too fair on serious players. If weapons are unlocked by points, then this isn’t a problem; serious players will wake up one afternoon and find three shiny new Sniper/Spy/Soldier/Engie/Demo weapons waiting for them. Of course, if you reset stats, then you might lose weapons, and you might have to take away some previously unlocked items, but those are VALVe’s problems, not mine. I’m the idea deity.
This also helps with class-rush problems. Since points reward good play, then after an update, there’ll still be a class-rush, but rather than morons you’ll have a bunch of newbies who are trying to play well. Admittedly, they’ll fail spectacularly, but they’ll learn and be less newbish as time goes on. Sure, there’ll be people picking up the intelligence and dropping it repeatedly, but that’s not actually as big a point-earner as serious, helpful play.
Under this system, you can of course still grind solo, and indeed get all the weapons solo. It’s simple; set up a one-player match on Badwater, go BLU, push the cart all the way to the end, and voila; you’ve just earned a decent swag of points. However, grinding solo is boring. If VALVe sets the point-targets reasonably high, then point-scoring is going to become a popular occupation, and the average skill level of TF2 players will (hopefully) increase substantially. And that’s gotta be a good thing… right?
Stumble it!
Tesla Tank responded on 14 May 2009 at 11:41 pm #
Wasn’t it already revealed that achievements and unlocks are being decoupled somehow?
I’d like to make a little nod towards that ‘bonus’ points section on the scoreboard, that cropped up at the time of the scout update.
At the minute, all it does is award scouts 1 extra point for killing an active medic. My thoughts are that it could well be tied up with the new unlocks somewhere.
Also, if there are going to be rewards for lifetime scores (which I think is an excellent idea), I sure hope all the points I got so far count towards it.
Mechlord responded on 14 May 2009 at 11:56 pm #
Holy crap god of pie is loose.
What mayhem hath been unleashed.
Von Epp responded on 14 May 2009 at 11:57 pm #
Yes, I thought they were already planning to decouple them. Something along the lines of weapons can be earned through achievements or picked up off of the recently departed (like in some server variations where medics drop med-packs when killed). This would somewhat balance the class rush by having people who don’t achievement farm playing the counter-class to pick up the new toys for their backpacks.
The backpacks got me thinking though, that it might be an interesting team dynamic if players could collect and give teammates ammo and med-packs, a la pain pills in L4D.
Teatime responded on 15 May 2009 at 1:00 am #
Yes, Valve stated they would decouple achievements and unlockables. Everything beyond this is speculation.
I hope it’s *not* picking up weapons from dead players. That would introduce a unhealthy dynamic to the game since people would try to chase down a player holding a interesting weapon instead of contributing to the map goal.
Actually I like the idea presented by god of pie of basing unlockables on points (in fact suggested something similar – but more generic – in an own editorial) and additional material on achievements (so if I don’t care about clothing I can simply ignore the stupid achievements)
Nessmk2 responded on 15 May 2009 at 2:01 am #
The points idea sounds really interesting, but I could see one small problem… You’d get more of the idiot people that care only for their points and not for the goal of the map. The kind of people that, when time runs short on the map, runs to hide to preserve their K/D rather than running to the cart to restart the timer. The problem is that, right now, points don’t neciesarilly show who’s winning a match. Is it usually a pretty good indictaor? Yes. But I could still see it being a problem, at least to start.
Coming Second responded on 15 May 2009 at 2:51 am #
All I’m hearing is BAWWW ACHIEVEMENTS. Impressive red link sentence in the middle of the article though, so kudos for that I suppose.
Valve won’t introduce a purely point-based system because that will punish nubs that they are ultimately trying to encourage with new stuff- under the current system you can go onto an achievement server/find a few mates and an empty 2Fort and quickly grind out the new weapons in half an hour if you wish. Making unlockables more difficult to get at for casuals will merely encourage hackery. Do you honestly think Valve haven’t already considered your idea? It’s a more obvious solution to introducing unlockable items than coming up with a bunch of exotic achievements, after all.
What is more likely is a combination of the elements we have already seen. Perhaps they will introduce a point based system or keep the achievements; what I think is going to happen is that if you kill someone with an unlockable you will be able to pick it up. The downside is that you will lose it next time you die with it out, because whoever killed you can now pick it up for themselves; the only way to have a permanent choice is to do the achievements.
Wazzle responded on 15 May 2009 at 5:59 am #
I say those are some pretty solid and valid points. Nice.
Wazzle responded on 15 May 2009 at 6:07 am #
On the other hand, though, I don’t agree with your very first sentences. VALVe is probably the most user-base-dedicated game developing/distributing company in the entire industry. They ALWAYS respond as well as they can to any complaints, technical problems, or technical questions.
And as for not answering every question about TF2 that anybody has ever proposed… well, can you really blame them? The whole point of the gaming industry is to surprise your customers. If they just, right off of the bat, told everybody in the world exactly how the new system worked, that would just be dumb and boring. You would know, but you would not have access to it as they would not have released it yet, so you would sit with this knowledge able to do nothing but most likely complain about why you think it sucks. Just wait a bit, you impatient fools; they will explain sooner or later, or maybe you’ll just figure it out yourself, but you have no need or reason to want, to know what exactly it is right now. I’d say their mindset is absolutely not “Bugger all,” it’s really “Chill out, you’ll see soon enough.”
Ungrateful bums…
kanodin responded on 15 May 2009 at 6:43 am #
Making weapons point based is interesting, would it be based on your best in one live or total points as that class? It’s interesting, but I doubt that’s what their doing, picking up dropped weapons seems more likely.
This made me realize a potential reason why they are releasing hats now without any buffs, besides testing the system, so that people will want to go after them as classes besides the sniper, lessening the massive sniper rush Valve has said they want to avoid.
Ananomuose responded on 15 May 2009 at 7:16 am #
Interesting how Valve capitalizes their own name normally, yet everyone else feels the need to do it “VALVe,” as if they know something we(and the folks who actually work at Valve) don’t.
Maybe they just pay more attention and are better with the English language, therefore they are higher up in the gamer hierarchy that exists in their heads.
Teatime responded on 15 May 2009 at 9:21 am #
@Nessmk2
Depends a lot on the points system. If you would strengthen other points than kill points (capping, defending etc) you could actually motivate people to concentrate a bit more on the map objectives and discourage deathmatching.
Wazzle responded on 15 May 2009 at 12:56 pm #
Sorry, Ananomuose. I didn’t mean to offend you with the spelling, and you being from Valve I’m sure you’re correct. I was just never sure, because your logo has the “E” tiny and up in the corner as if it were an exponent. It is just a logo, though. Plus, I was defending you, so don’t be too angry…
God of Pie responded on 15 May 2009 at 8:17 pm #
@Mechlord; Oh, ha ha ha.
@Everyone else in general; I wrote this before that Robin Walker interview and el updato del sniper, so it’s a little out of date. I think that the idea is sound, and it’s good that peoples agree with me.
And who added that demoman pic?
Paper Shadow responded on 16 May 2009 at 12:52 am #
@GoP: That… was the Editor…
Honatas responded on 16 May 2009 at 4:30 am #
Be it points or achievements, to me it is all the same: go to the achievement server and get it all. And that’s exactly what valve is trying to avoid with the next update.
Getting shiny new weapons from the dead? Well, this is the sniper update, and who is the less likely class to go after their victims’ ragdolls?
I don’t know what exactly is valve up to, but i bet it won’t be neither points nor drops.
ubercharged.net – And now for someone who is not filled with RAEG responded on 07 Sep 2009 at 7:02 am #
[...] I still think that my unlock system was a better [...]