TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

Subsequent patch notes at bottom of post; latest patch July 6th.

Here we go! A MAJOR TF2 UPDATE lands Friday, July 2nd! As always, here is the short version:

1. Here is the original TF2 blogpost announcing the update.
2. Here is the TF2 comic that will attempt to explain the background story up until now.
3. Here is the Page One splash page: The Gun Mettle Update!
4. Here is the Page Two splash page: Describing the 3 new maps and the extensive weapon changes.
   • You will want to scroll down to the heading “Gameplay Changes”; TF2 gameplay has been changed considerably!
   • Some spies can gain a speed boost (on trigger with Dead Ringer; on kill with Big Earner).
   • Spies take 20% less damage when cloaked.
   • Sentries take more damage when sapped than before.
   • Most Engineers build faster and move buildings faster.
   • Repairing a wrangled sentry is less effective than before.
   • Mini-sentries can be repaired, but don’t drop metal when destroyed.
   • Soldiers deploying Equalizer/Escape Plan can be healed by a medic, but at 10% normal heal rate.
   • Soldier’s Liberty Launcher is now a five-clip!
   • Ullapool Caber does less damage than before.
   • Charging Demomen now gain charge gauge on melee kills, not charging kills.
   • Scorch Shot deals more damage, more knockback, and has larger area-of-effect.
   • Vaccinator Ubers now always use just one ubercharge bar.
   • Sydney Sleeper now applies Jarate with non-fully charged shots, but with a duration from 2 to 8 seconds.
   • Bazaar Bargain charges much slower, but a missed shot doesn’t lose counted heads.
   • Heavy miniguns are more effective at damaging sentries.
   • Natasha and Brass Beast grant 20% damage resistance while spun-up or firing.
   • Tomislav now spins up faster, fires 20% smaller bullet spread.
   • Eviction Notice grants Heavy a 3-second speed boost on hit.
   • Dalokohs Bar now overheals to 400 hp (previously 350), cooldown reduced to 10 seconds, can be thrown like a sandvich.
   • Panic Attack shotgun now weapons switches faster, fires and reloads even faster than before.
5. And here is a FAQ about some of the changes.

The “Gun Mettle” Update

The first splash page says that you can buy-in to a special three-month event (lasting until approximately October 1, 2015) for US$5.99. This will earn you a badge-like Campaign Coin that levels up as you complete contracts.

Contracts are achievement-like “skill-based challenges” that you attempt to complete in a week’s time, such as tanking a lot of damage as a heavy or backstabbing five players of a specific class. Each player is assigned two different contracts to attempt completion each week (assuming that each week begins on Thursday at midnight GMT, like the item drop system).

Completing a contract will earn you Contract Points (CP). Collecting CP levels up your coin (to bronze, silver, and gold) and lets you purchase your choice of either a random “Contract-exclusive weapon” OR an unlockable Weapons Case (that requires a key that you have to buy in the Mann Co. Store, I assume). Weapons Cases also drop a single, random “Contract-exclusive weapon” but with potentially rarer qualities.

Contract Weapons

Weapons are randomly generated with the following:

• Its weapon type, such as Shotgun. (Unknown if only stock weapons, or all available weapon types, can be Contract Weapons.)
• A unique “paint job” that is centered differently on each weapon, so no two are exactly alike
  • Teufort and Craftsmann paint jobs come from completing Contracts only.
  • Concealed Killer (generally camoflage-themed) and Powerhouse (neon/electric-themed) paint jobs come from Weapons Cases only.
  • It is not known if any paint jobs are more/less rare than the others, but it can be assumed that Teufort/Craftsmann paints will eventually become more common than the other two.
• One of five levels of “wear”. Unknown if any level of wear is more/less rare than the others.
  • Factory New
  • Minimal Wear
  • Field-Tested
  • Well-Worn
  • Battle Scarred
  • Note: Weapons DO NOT wear when used. They are a given level of wear when dropped, and do not change later.
• One of six “grades” of rarity. Civilian is most common; Elite is most rare.
  1. Civilian–contracts only
  2. Freelance–contracts only
  3. Mercenary–contracts or weapons cases
  4. Commando–contracts or weapons cases
  5. Assassin–weapons cases only
  6. Elite–weapons cases only
  7. NOTE: The rarity grade should not change appearance whatsoever.
• A weapon’s paint job, wear, and grade is entirely cosmetic and does not change its gameplay whatsoever.
• That’s not all. The weapon will be marked as Limited, and will have a chance of being Strange, Unusual, or even both Strange and Unusual!
  • Will the Unusuals have unusual effects? Ummm…. maybe? These are the first weapons able to have the Unusual quality.
• These weapons will be tradable and marketable. If you wish to trade or sell a weapon, look up its worth on the Market or another site like backpack.tf first, so you don’t get scammed.

For example, a possible outcome for a single contract would be a Strange Freelance Shotgun for the Heavy with a Craftsmann yellow-and-blue paint job and a Minimal Wear grade. You can earn potentially two weapons per week, or perhaps two dozen weapons in all over the three-month event window.

Four New Maps

NOTE: These are all Valve-Official; none of them are Beta maps. See the second splash page for pictures.

Powerhouse (I’m guessing cp_powerhouse) is a smaller, three-point control point map, where you have to cap all three points (yours, the central neutral cap, and theirs) to win a round. This looks like it was created by Valve, not the community.

Borneo (I’m guessing pl_borneo) is an “Alpine-themed, single-stage Payload map” Community map.

Suijin (I’m guessing koth_suijin) is a King of the Hill Community map with Oriental buildings and pink-white cherry blossom trees. Sun Tzu would approve.

Snowplow (cp_snowplow_rc3) is a two-stage attack-defense Control Points map. First stage strewn with wooden buildings, second stage is very snowy, with a cart path throughout (but no payload to push). Yes, this is the Community map from the End of the Line Update that wasn’t approved the first time around.

Gameplay Changes

Weapons Now Drop on Death

Previously: A killed character would drop a weapon gib, which can be touched by your character as a medium ammo pickup (and 100 Engineer metal).

Now: A killed character drops a medium ammo box (identical to the medium ammo powerups on a map) and their weapon. If the weapon is normally equippable by that character (such as a Shotgun dropped by an Engineer and picked up by a Heavy), and you pick up the dropped weapon by pressing the (default) F key, you temporarily drop your normal weapon in that slot and equip that weapon until you die.

It will temporarily replace your usual item in its loadout slot until you die (i.e. a Shotgun would replace a Heavy’s Sandvich). It will have the same looks and effects as the weapon had from the person you just looted (i.e. picking up an Australium Sniper Rifle and carrying it around with its cosmetic features). When you die, the weapon goes away, and you drop one of your weapons (essentially a lookalike copy of a weapon in your current loadout). Weapons that have charge meters, such as the various Medic uberguns, provide the amount of charge they had when dropped; a Medic can pick up a Kritzkrieg to find it fully charged!

Worry not about losing a prized possession; your loadout items are retained in your inventory as usual. Someone may get to kill you and take your purple rocket launcher, then go around shooting people with a purple rocket launcher until they die. And you can kill them, take their weapons, and go do the same. No actual items are lost; however, you can drop a weapon that isn’t working and grab a class-allowed weapon in the heat of battle, CS:GO style.

Weapon Updates and Tweaks

Global Changes

• Weapons and ammo boxes now drop on death. See heading just before this one.
• Inspect Target now inspects your own deployed weapon when you aren’t targeting anything. Necessary for Contract work, and to stare at your own fancy weapon.
• Random Damage Spread now DEFAULTS OFF on Valve servers.
  • This means weapons will consistently deal the same damage with each hit.
  • Previously, weapon damage would vary plus-minus 10% of its base damage. Now, each hit deals identical damage.
• Auto Reload now DEFAULTS ON.
  • This affects new players only, so that they will auto-reload as soon as they stop firing, if able.
  • All existing players have their usual setting, and will have to go into their Options menu and toggle this on/off.

Class and Weapon Changes (from the second splash page’s patch notes)

[N] Obey

P.S. Oh, by the way, there are also three new taunts. See splash page two. At the moment, they are only available by buying them from the Mann Co. Store.

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Scroll below for more information. Here’s the summary:

1. Steam Summer Sale is on!
2. IMPORTANT: Some existing weapons have been rebalanced
3. Five new TF2 weapons… and they’re not reskins!
   • Craftable immediately.
   • MvM Killstreak Kits for the new weapons can also be earned or Marketed.
4. New crates, keys, and craftables:
   1. Craftable for a limited time: Bread Boxes!
   2. Mann Co. Stockpile Crates added to the droplist. They can be “shuffled” to drop one of four possible items.
   3. Mann Co. Audition Reels added to the droplist. They contain taunts, with a rare chance at an Unusual Taunt with unusual effects, very much like an unusual hat.
5. 15 New Taunts!
   1. “Taunts” are no longer in the “Action Slot”, and are now in their own “Taunt Menu”. You can now equip multiple Taunts at once.
   2. Partner Taunts can now be performed with enemy team members, not just your own.
   3. Pressing the Taunt key once opens a Taunt Menu for you to choose from multiple equipped taunts.
   4. Pressing the Taunt key twice performs your weapon taunt, or joins in with a partner taunt.
6. 43 New Cosmetic Items:
   • “Head” and “Misc” slots have been changed to “Cosmetic” slots.
7. Full patch notes, including:
   1. Granary and Harvest Event have been updated for collision, bugs, and to prevent building inside spawn doors.
   2. Halloween Event maps now have Halloween Mode auto-enabled, so Halloween items can be equipped.  About time!
   3. Crates now show which Unusual series are potentially  (1% chance) dropped if opened.
8. A very minor patch on June 19, 2014

1. Steam Summer Sale 2014 IS ON!

What else is there to say? Uh… Half-Life 2 is $2.49…?  Follow this link to earn Summer Cards, Badges, unique prizes, and even free games from your wishlist!

2. Existing Weapon Rebalances

1.  The Hitman’s Heatmaker can now activate your Focus on demand, by pushing the reload button. Previously, the Sniper automatically began burning Focus as soon as the gauge filled.
2. Axtinguisher (and the Postal Pummeler, I assume?) no longer automatically crits a burning enemy. It only mini-crits a burning enemy, unless you hit the burning enemy directly from behind, where it still causes full crits.
3. The Bushwacka no longer grants random crits. It still grants full crits whenever it would normally mini-crit, such as hitting a Jarate-soaked enemy.
4. Demoman stickybombs now have damage ramp-up, reaching full standard damage after two seconds.
   • This means that stickybombs detonated as soon as they are armed, such as when they are still in mid-air, will do substantially less damage. This will profoundly effect the way many TF2 players play the Demoman.
5. Sentries have multiple changes:
   • Sentries now have damage and accuracy ramp-up, with full standard accuracy and damage reached after one second of firing. So the first few bullets will do less damage, making them less lethal when peeking around corners or darting from one wall to another.
   • Sentry bullets are now affected by damage fall-off outside of their normal scan range, based on the placement of the sentry and not the Engineer.  For instance, wrangled sentries shooting beyond where they would otherwise detect enemies will deal less damage based on how far away their target is.

2. Five NEW Team Fortress 2 Weapons!

The Back Scatter

This new primary weapon for the Scout functions like a scattergun, but deals mini-crits when you hit someone directly in the back. But it is a little less accurate than the stock scattergun, and only has a 4-clip as opposed to the scattergun’s six.  But then, attacking from behind is one of the Scout’s strongest methods of ambushing the unwary.

Crafting formula: 1 reclaimed metal + 1 crit-a-cola + 1 shortstop = 1 Back Scatter

The B.A.S.E. Jumper

This is a parachute for the Soldier, hinted at a few days ago on the Official TF2 Blog. If equipped into the secondary slot, you can press the jump button while in midair to deploy and you can fall slowly, extending your jump. And while you’re hanging around up there, feel free to lob some rockets at the bad guys!

However, you’re a sitting duck for Snipers, Pyros with flare guns, or skilled Demomen. Fortunately you can hit the jump button again and undeploy/redeploy during the same jump! The parachute is also great for not taking falling damage.

Crafting formula: one reclaimed metal + one Buff Banner + one Sticky Jumper = one B.A.S.E. Jumper

The Tide Turner

This secondary weapon for the Demoman is the steering wheel of a ship, and functions as a shield.  It lets you lots of ability to turn as you charge, and some fire and explosive damage resistance. And if you kill something while charging or impacting, you can charge again!

Crafting formula: one reclaimed metal + one Chargin’ Targe + one Ali Baba’s Wee Booties = one Tide Turner

The Classic

This primary weapon for the Sniper, a take on the H&K G36, gives you some freedom that other sniper rifles don’t have: this weapon charges its focus even when you’re not scoped! However, you cannot score headshots–scoped or unscoped–until it is charged. It does slightly less damage with all bodyshots, too. But no doubt, some players will try to headshot while unscoped.

The Classic fires differently than other sniper rifles, however. You hold the fire button down to begin charging your shot, and release the button to fire.

Crafting formula: one reclaimed metal + one Hunstman + one Bazaar Bargain = one The Classic

The Air Strike

This primary weapon for the Soldier is a rocket launcher that makes your rockets fire if you are in midair from a rocket jump. It holds only three rockets, but as you earn kills, the clip size increases! It deals less damage than standard rockets, and its rockets have a slightly smaller splash radius. If you’re skilled with the Direct Hit and enjoy rocket jumping, you may want to give this puppy a try.

Crafting formula: one reclaimed metal + one Beggar’s Bazooka + one Gunboats = one The Air Strike

3.New Craftables and Crates!

Mann Co. Stockpile Crates and Keys

These are unnumbered crates that will drop a community-made cosmetic item from this update (or the usual 1% of the time, an Unusual instead). This is new: the drop list of the crate can be shuffled!

When the item drops, it has a drop list of four possible cosmetic items with pictures of the item. Not impressed with the drop list? Shuffle it by typing it a word into the blank–which is used for the random seed–and it will give you a different drop list of four items. Use any word at all; the same word will grant the same list of items. So remember keywords you use if you’re trying to pull a specific item; you still have a one-in-four shot of getting a desired item.

The keys themselves are the usual $2.49, and neither the Stockpile Crates nor the Keys have an expiration date.

Mann Co. Audition Reels

These are a type of crate that only have taunts inside. I don’t think they need keys; you open one, and it grants one of the 15 taunts released in this update.  Since they open for free, I assume that they will drop more rarely than common crates.

Bread Boxes: Now Craftable

You can only craft bread boxes until July 9th. Crafting one will unlock one of four reskinned items (see below).  Here’s how:

• Go into your Crafting Menu, and choose the Special Recipes tab (with the star)
• Choose three headgear items that are craftable, which are spent to create the Bread Box.
• You will get one of the following four items:
  • Self-Aware Beauty Mark (reskinned Jarate)
  • Snack Attack (reskinned Sapper)
  • Bread Bites (reskinned Gloves of Running Urgently)
  • Mutated Milk (reskinned Mad Milk)
• These items have a chance to be Strange quality, else they are Unique quality.

4. 15 New Taunts!

[[[ This area under construction.  Please come back later!  -- [N] Obey ]]]

5. 43 New Cosmetic Items!

And here they are, with links to each item’s Official Wiki page:

 Argyle Ace · Frickin’ Sweet Ninja Hood · Paisley Pro · Pomade Prince · Red Socks · Southie Shinobi

Classified Coif · Man in Slacks · Spook Specs

Combustible Kabuto · Employee of the Mmmph · Frymaster · Gas Guzzler · Lunatic’s Leathers · Senguko Scorcher · Smoking Skid Lid

Allbrero · Frontier Djustice · Razor Cut · Seeing Double · Six Pack Abs

Yuri’s Revenge

Danger · Egghead’s Overalls · Endothermic Exowear · Joe-on-the-Go · Level Three Chin · Lonesome Loafers · Peacenik’s Ponytail · Tools of the Trade

Chronoscarf · Medicine Manpurse · Ze Übermensch

Scoper’s Smoke · Triggerman’s Tacticals

Au Courant Assassin · Aviator Assassin · Rogue’s Robe · Sky Captain

Merc’s Mohawk

(all classes) Bruiser’s Bandanna · Eye-Catcher · Tipped Lid · Vive La Fance

6. TF2 Patch notes: June 18, 2014

As usual, lifted from The Official TF2 Wiki.

• Love & War Update
  • Added 5 new weapons^[1], 15 new taunts^[2], and 43 cosmetic items^[3] for the Love & War update
  • Partner Taunts can now be performed with the opposing team
  • Added a new Taunt Loadout with 8 slots so multiple taunts can be equipped at the same time
    • Taunts are no longer equipped in the Action Slot
    • Pressing the Taunt key in game now brings up the new Taunt Selection menu
    • Pressing the taunt key while the Taunt Selection menu is open performs a weapon taunt, or joins a partner taunt

• Mann Co. Store
  • Added 15 new taunts and a taunt bundle
  • Added 5 new weapons and a weapon bundle
  • Added 44 new cosmetics and a cosmetic bundle
  • Added “Taunt” category into the store
  • Added Mann Co. Stockpile Crate Key
  • The “Hats” and “Misc” categories have been merged into “Cosmetics”

• Items
  • Added the Mann Co. Stockpile Crate to the droplist
    • Each Mann Co. Stockpile Crate can be repeatedly shuffled to contain a set of 4 possible items
  • Added the Mann Co. Audition Reel. Contains taunts and a rare chance at an unusual taunt
  • Updated Mann Co. Crates to display which Unusual Series they can potentially output
  • Added Bread Box Special Crafting Recipe. This recipe will no longer be available after July 9th, 2014. Items from the Bread box have a chance to be strange.
  • Added crafting recipes for newly added weapons
  • Added Killstreak Kits to MvM for newly added weapons
  • Added OzFortress Season 11 tournament medals

• Weapon changes and updates
  • With The Hitman’s Heatmaker, pressing ‘reload’ now activates focus when it is full
  • The Axtinguisher now does mini-crit damage from the front and full crit damage from behind to burning targets
  • The Bushwacka can no longer randomly crit
  • All mini-guns now have damage and accuracy ramp up after they start firing. Full accuracy and damage is reached 1 second after firing.
  • All Demoman stickybombs now have damage ramp up. Full damage is reached 2 seconds after firing.
  • Updated Loch-n-Load reload animation
  • Sentry bullets are now affected by damage falloff outside of sentry scan range
  • Sentry bullet damage has been changed so it calculates damage based on the sentry’s position, not the Engineer‘s

• Misc Changes
  • Updated the Halloween holiday to automatically be enabled when the server runs an _event map
  • Added a check to prevent achievement announcement spam
  • Converted several weapon models^[4] to use the c_models system
  • Updated the localization files

• Bug Fixes
  • Fixed an exploit where charging Demoman could turn more than allowed
  • Fixed a bug where Halloween spellbooks were overriding PDAs and Disguise Kits
  • Fixed The Director’s Vision taunt not playing both variations for the Pyro
  • Fixed the Pyro’s spell audio not sounding like the rest of the Pyro’s audio
  • Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause items to unequip themselves
  • Fixed a dedicated server crash related to using ‘mp_forcecamera 0‘ with one player on the server
  • Fixed a regression with the trigger_gravity entity not correctly applying its settings
  • Fixed another exploit where Engineer buildings could build up a large amount of health
  • Fixed a server performance issue related to the item_teamflag entity
  • Fixed the itemtest command
    • Fixed cosmetics shared between multiple classes not rendering correctly
    • Updated the cosmetic item list to sort by name

• Map Fixes
  • Updated cp_granary
    • Removed collision from lights and small props protruding from walls
    • Fixed collision on fences
    • Fixed the tire props near Blu’s forward spawn so players may no longer jump up to the spawn door platform
    • Fixed players shooting through gaps around forward spawn doors
    • Fixed door protruding through roof on Red’s forward spawn
    • Fixed a collision bug that gave players access to the roof above Red’s spawn door
    • Prevented players from building inside spawn room doors
    • Adjusted area portals to improve rendering and performance
  • Updated koth_harvest_final
    • Added metal panel prop to Blu building, which now mirrors the jump up on the Red side
    • Small performance increase through prop fade adjustments
    • Players can no longer build inside spawn doors
  • Updated pl_upward
    • Fixed physics debris triggering the payload cart’s finale explosion

Undocumented changes

• The Loose Cannon’s cannon ball explosions now use a deeper sound.
• Fixed Doomsday lagging every time the Australium respawned.
• The scoreboard now displays support points and damage dealt on non-MvM maps.

7. Patch: June 19, 2014

• Added a new startup music track from Expiration Date.
• Added a crafting recipe for The Back Scatter.
• Fixed a client crash caused by Strange Fists.
• Fixed players using the partner taunts to enter enemy spawn rooms.
• Fixed a regression with the Disco Beat Down unusual effect.
• Fixed The Classic automatically zooming in after going through a teleporter while charging.
• Updated The Tide Turner to also refill the charge meter from impact kills.

[N] Obey