Big Steam update!

[Parva]

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

Added "Custom" tab to the server browser


Servers can now specify metatags describing the custom rules they've adopted

Players can use tag filtering to find servers running the custom rules they want to play

Added options for servers who want to become custom games: Disable critical hits (tf_weapon_criticals), eliminate respawn times (mp_disable_respawn_times), and raise maxplayers above 24



Initial release of Tournament mode (mp_tournament)


UI for handling team naming, ready mode, and win results

Disables team player limits, autobalancing, and intermission



Class balancing


Reduced Soldier's maximum rocket reserve ammo from 36 to 16

Reduced Demoman's maximum sticky bomb reserve ammo from 30 to 16

Reduced Demoman's maximum grenade launcher reserve ammo from 40 to 24


Some VERY controversial stuff in there! Me thinks Valve have gone one too far with this one!

[gemini]

16 Rockets ? Are they kidding. Less than half the ones they had before. And almost halfing the demomans ammo? WTF

Thats absolutly ridiculous. What on earth are they thinking.

How many crying noobs caused this one.

This might well put me off playing TF2. Il see how this affects gameplay but if I end up as the soldier wandering around looking for ammo then I think thats the end of TF2 for me.

[Parva]

Hence why I said VERY controversial. One step too far this time I think. Demomen and soldiers are now going to be respawn or dispenser campers. Fair enough it'll cut down on some spam I guess (expect to see MANY more pyros now) but I think that halfing the supplies is very excessive as a first step at balancing the classes.

[Ryvita]

Less nerfbat, more nerfzweihander. Nerfclaymore? Nerfgreatsword? I don't know, whatever the epic version of a nerfbat is.

[swarfega]

wtf? 16 ammo, that will utterly ruin maps like battle creak. They seem determined not to allow the fun map community to start. First it was the medic engie combo, and now this reduction.

on the plus side:

Added options for servers who want to become custom games: Disable critical hits (tf_weapon_criticals), eliminate respawn times (mp_disable_respawn_times), and raise maxplayers above 24

i can see this would be useful in fun maps, for example on servers 20 and 21.

[Motoko]

Yeah well... I was playing as Demo on my own and did a little practice run. On some maps theres nowhere near enough ammo before you need to run back, especially on the larger maps. You are basically stuffed and end up running around with the whiskey bottle or go corpse hunting looking for loose ammo off guns. Like a lot of other players, Demo is my favourite class and now that it's been nuked I don't know. I don't think this will cut down spam at all, if anything may even increase it since as Parva said people will just sit by a dispenser and spam that whole area.

Grrrrr *stabs Valve*

[Buffy]

great news, I am always a sniper so now i dont have to even worry about you getting to me cause you will be out of ammo!

[βДĐĜĘŘ©]

This is ridiculous.

Why break something that is not broke?

*sigh* this is a sad day for TF2.......

*thinks about re-downloading TFC*

[gemini]

Hm. After playing with this for a good 3-4 hours, I cant honestly say I noticed that much of a differance. Not once did I find myself out of ammo, and I never consciously adjusted my playing style.

[Tim^]

Hm. After playing with this for a good 3-4 hours, I cant honestly say I noticed that much of a differance. Not once did I find myself out of ammo, and I never consciously adjusted my playing style.

Yeah played a fair few hours myself since the update, as soldier and demo, big maps it becomes a problem, small ones you don't notice.

[Spikx]

I think the nerf is fine. I never thought of a nerf like that, it was a real surprise for me.
However, we.. or I have yet to see over the time, if this really makes any difference at all... and if so, when and where.

[Motoko]

Well after playing awhile, for me it's long drawn out matches (lazytown) or large maps (battlecreek) that affects the ammo thing the most as me being Demo. Having said that, since the max players for lazy was increased more ammo is being dropped from corpses. So that kinda compensates and it is not too bad now. I'll get used to it I think, just not sure why we need to be forced to do so since I thought the previous ammo count was fine.

[Neo1607]

The only bad thing about that update is 16 stickys :( as if 32 wasn't small enough. 16 is terrible, thats just enough to cover the cap point twice

[Motoko]

OK this annoyed me, I think us PC gamers just got shafted.... from Joystiq:

An update for Team Fortress 2 has come to the Xbox Live. Unlike the PC patch from over the weekend, there are no balance changes to the classes themselves. Instead, a number of glitches have been fixed, as well as the inclusion of rumble for weapons and the addition of 10- and 14-player team sizes. No indication of a PlayStation 3 patch

[Chunkylover!]

from what i've heard, xbox patches take ages to get ratified via microsoft ... it's most likely they've just got a patch for bug fixes that we got months ago.

[Sniper_John_Uk]

I reckon the ammo nerf is in prep for the new medic stuff.
I theorized that one of his new weps would be a health and ammo provider... this just backs me up on that. :P