TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

Here’s what’s up:

1. More matchmaking improvements
2. {N} Olse’s fictionalization of his fellow Newbs’ exploits in the world of XCOM 2 continues to update almost daily.
3. Updated with minor Sept 28 patch

Casual Matchmaking: Rematches

When your Casual game ends, you can opt for a rematch. On the results page, you have 30 seconds to opt into a rematch. If at least 6 players from each side opt in, a rematch will begin, using the same teams, same map, and same server. The game will then draw in replacement players for any open slots.

If you don’t choose to opt-in to a rematch, you will automatically go back into the Casual Matchmaking queue. Leave the queue by manually removing yourself.

Casual Matchmaking: All ‘Bout Dat XP

Had too many teamstacked Casual games? Valve continues to work on it:

Your Rank (which is partly a measure of your skill, and partly your playing time in Casual) is now a stronger factor when building teams.

Now, you no longer lose XP for leaving a Casual match early. You’ll earn it after the match ends. And at the end of the game, the chart will show you how you earned the XP you did.

Comp Matchmaking:

When a player leaves a match, a bot will replace that slot, and will play in that player’s place until the player rejoins the match. The substantial penalty for leaving a match remains the same.

Matches no longer end when the first player leaves, but they grant proportionally less XP as more players leave the match. But if a second person on the same side leaves the match, the match is still terminated.

Full Patch Notes: Sept 28 2016

• Fixed some players not being able to click on the new rematch UI elements
• Fixed the end of round music not playing in Casual matches

Full Patch Notes: Sept 27 2016

Matchmaking

• Players can now form rematches at the end of a Casual match
  • At the end of a Casual match, players will have 30 seconds to opt-in to a rematch
  • If at least 6 players from BLU and 6 players from RED have chosen to rematch, then a rematch will begin
  • A rematch will use the same teams, map and server
• Players can now re-queue into Casual Matchmaking during the end of a match
  • Players who decline a rematch or simply don’t vote in the rematch voting period will automatically be re-queued
• Updated the way XP is earned in Casual matches
  • Players will now be awarded more XP based on their team’s performance at the end of a match
  • XP is no longer lost for leaving a Casual match early
  • A breakdown of XP sources is now shown when your XP bar fills up
• Casual matches now more strongly prefer to distribute players to teams based on experience, in order to better avoid creating one-sided matches
• Casual matches are now more likely to start with fewer than 24 players in lower population game-modes or regions, wherein the wait time for a full match would become excessive
  • The current minimum allowable match size in such situations is twelve players
  • The matchmaker will still attempt to place late-joiners into these matches as they become available
• Competitive matches no longer terminate when any player abandons the match
  • Bots will now fill in for players who have abandoned, or temporarily disconnected from, Competitive matches
  • Matches that finish at an advantage or disadvantage (e.g. 6v5 or 5v6, not counting any bots) will now result in smaller or larger skill rating adjustments for advantaged wins or disadvantaged losses, respectively
  • Competitive matches that lose more than one player per team will keep the current behavior of ending the match
  • Players who abandon Competitive matches still receive a large skill rating penalty and Competitive matchmaking cooldown, regardless of whether a bot was allowed to take their place
• Greatly improved the reliability of client ping estimates when placing users into matchmaking servers
  • The game client now periodically checks in with the matchmaking server network to estimate ping to each region, and feeds the information back to the matchmaking system
  • This should greatly reduce cases of players being placed in regions to which they have poor ping, even when said regions are geographically nearby
• The scoreboard now shows the connection status for missing and connecting players

General

• Added tournament medals for ozfortress Season 16 and Season 17
• Fixed an exploit related to the Eureka Effect and carrying buildings
• Fixed Live Streams menu not displaying the list of streams
• Fixed the flamethrower not drawing the Halloween Spell: Spectral Flame effect during Halloween and Full Moon events
• Updated the localization files

There’s a chance that you’ll experience long waits (>30 minutes!) searching for a game in Casual, Competitive, or MvM games of TF2.

All I’ve found so far is some discussion on the Valve community boards that a minor hotfix in maintenance has broken things, causing long delays AND sometimes a lack of rewards for finishing a game (no points, no items rewarded on mission completion, etc.)

More info on this when I get it. Go play on a community server!

A few assorted things here….

1. Terraria’s desert-themed patch is now live
2. 2K Games offering free copies of its remastered Bioshock games to owners of original versions
3. TF2 patched

Terraria Patch 1.3.3 Is Now LIVE

In this major patch, deserts get some love and attention. Now every newly-created map will feature a pyramid, and there are new biomes for (hardmode) underground desert, underground corrupted desert, and underground hallowed desert. And a bunch more stuff; here is the patch notes.

Bioshock Games Have Been Remastered

Ahead of the official launch of the Bioshock Collection, 2K Games has made owners of the older versions of the games a free copy of the remastered games that they already own, whether on Steam or not!! The gaming news site Rock Paper Shotgun did a write-up about how to acquire the remastered versions.

Full Patch Notes: Sept 12, 2016

• Fixed an exploit related to not respawning in the spawn room at the beginning of Casual and Competitive matches
• Fixed Pyros griefing teammates by attacking them with the flamethrower
• Fixed Medics getting a permanent speed boost after healing a charging Demoman
• Fixed Medics getting the Demoman’s charging speed when using Mediguns other than The Quick-Fix
• Fixed the Strange Razorback double-counting the number Spies shocked
• Fixed a bug related to the Sniper‘s zoom and taunting
• Fixed players being able to pick-up the PASS Time jack while they are stunned
• Increased the matchmaking system’s preference for matching large pre-made parties against each other in Casual Mode. This should result in more balanced matches, but may cause a slight increase in queue times for larger parties.

[N] Obey