official Team Fortress 2

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It's always fun to see the reactions when it happens.

DUDE, I SAW THAT TODAY lol.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

I got myself the Nobel Amassment of Hats :jump:

[Lewism]

I was finally able to craft my first hat today! I got Troublemaker's tossle cap for the scout but I don't play that class at all and I already have Ye olde baker boy. I crafted it with a camera beard for Backbiter's billycock for a spy. I am very happy now :)

[Nagisan]

Awesome.....I sent Robin Walker an email early this morning about the Demoman Charge exploit (in which they can turn with little trouble while doing a full speed charge).

Long story short, he has confirmed that Valve sees it as an exploit, and has said they have a fix for it that will "ship soon". Bout time they fixed it, its the only reason that I have any hate towards targe demo's.....its not that they are hard to kill, its simply that 90% of them exploit turning while charging, making it difficult to dodge. Glad to hear a fix is on its way for it. I can finally quite complaining about exploiting demos when I see one turn 180 degrees mid-charge.

[giantpotato]

Thanks for standin still, ******.

April 20, 2010 - Erik Johnson

Today we're shipping some significant changes to the item drop system.

Previously, we rolled randomly at intervals to see if you got an item drop. Now we roll to determine when your next item drop will occur. So you're guaranteed to find items at fairly regular intervals. The bulk of drop complaints we've received in the past have been from players having unlucky streaks, where they didn't find any items for weeks. That won't be possible now.

We've significantly increased the rate at which item drops occur, compared to the previous average interval.

There's now a maximum amount of playtime per week in which you get item drops. Playing beyond that amount won't find any more items. The amount varies, but if you play an hour or so a day you're good. Some of your unused time will rollover to the following week, so if you're an intermittent player you'll also be fine.

What are the net effects of these changes? Here's the quick summary:

If you're an idler, you're going to find fewer items than you were prior to this change. Sorry. On the bright side, there's less reason to idle, because it won't earn more than players who are playing regularly.

Everyone else will find items more frequently, and with greater regularity.

We're still thinking about how to allow you to influence your drops. When we see discussions on the forums, people often ask why we don't tie it to some in-game performance (like your scoreboard position, or number of kills, etc). Many players understand that if we did this, idle servers would simply change into servers running plugins that generate those in-game events frequently (as we saw in the Soldier & Demoman WAR!).

There's another side of it that we care about just as much, which is the message it would send to all the players who don't want to idle. Any in-game performance metric we chose would result in there being specific maps, classes, tactics, and so on that resulted in more drops. We really don't want that to happen. When it's simply playtime, you're free to play the game however you like. If you love Payload, you can play Payload maps without worrying about whether you're earning less drops than the guys playing Arena maps. Community mapmakers don't have to worry about whether their maps earn item drops fast enough. Similarly, server operators can configure their servers however they like, without worrying about reducing the rate at which their players are earning drops. In short, while it's far from perfect, not tying to in-game performance is a lot less poisonous to your minute-to-minute game experience.

Source: TF2 Blog

This is great news, sometimes I would play for days without getting drops. Also, idlers can no longer farm for items, which is always good to hear :laugh: .

[Nagisan]

Source: TF2 Blog

This is great news, sometimes I would play for days without getting drops. Also, idlers can no longer farm for items, which is always good to hear :laugh: .

As an idler, I have to say, this is great news.

Now I can play TF2 for the 2-3 hours every other day (on average) that I want to and get just as many items as the person who plays 4+ hours a day.

The only reason I idled to begin with wasn't directly to get more drops then the average person, it was to simply get drops on a daily basis as opposed to getting maybe 2-3 a week.

In the time I idled (2-3 weeks) I gained more scrap metal than in the months between the crafting system implementation and the time I started idling. My biggest problem was I only play every other day on average, and when I do its only for a total of a few hours per day. It simply wasn't fair that I was getting less items then 90% of the other TF2 players because they spend twice the amount of time as I did ingame.

So, as I mentioned, I am completely happy with this update even if it means I get less items than when I idled, it still means I will get a regular amount of items compared to someone who plays twice as long as I do.

EDIT: Also, 2nd hat I crafted was scout specific (used a scout token) and it turned out to be a Batter's helmet....fits the class, sure, and its definitely not the worst scout hat (such as the bald scout "hat"), but in all honesty just about any of the other scout hats would have made me happier (even the bonk helmet).

[Lewism]

That is great. In the past few 1-2 weeks I struggled to get 2-3 items to craft my 1st hat. Timed drops + higher dropping rates = Awesomeness.

Is the update live yet?

[Nagisan]

Is the update live yet?

Nobody really knows yet. All the mentioned changes are being done to Steam Cloud, which means there is no client update to push out, so none of us will need to download anything to get the new features. At the same time, we will not really know when it goes live unless Valve tells us or people notice much more consistent drops and no more than a certain amount per week.

Around the time of the Blog post though, the JSON feeds (Steam Community addition that allows easy access for developers to pull backpack information from) was down for around half an hour, but it appears to be back up again, no idea if it has any relation to the blog post or the steam cloud updates.

EDIT: Just got my first consecutive item drops since the blog post.....got a KGB at 8:05 PM EST, and a Jarate at 8:42 PM EST.....nothing special but the times seem to be drastically changed (on average, item drops seemed to roll on 25 to 30 minute intervals, meaning I would have had a second drop at either 8:50 or 8:35, this second drop seems to be 37 minutes after the previous, which does not fit into my personal observed item drop rates for the past 2-3 weeks).

EDIT2: In short, the new system randomizes the time between drops by a certain amount (that is the first thing stated in the blog). I am proposing that this amount is between 20 to 40 minutes (these values will get more accurate as time goes on and multiple people compile data of their drops). So while this time is randomized, it guarantees you will get a drop at a maximum of whatever value Valve set it at (could be 40 minutes, could be an hour or so).

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Excellent, the only reason I was idling was because I wasn't getting any drops when I played normally. This update looks to have completely solved my issues so I don't need to do that any more.

[Denis W. Veteran]

Good, idlers can now stop wasting electricity for hats.

[Nagisan]

Excellent, the only reason I was idling was because I wasn't getting any drops when I played normally. This update looks to have completely solved my issues so I don't need to do that any more.

Exactly.....I will still probably idle early in the week for a day or two when I am not playing, but then I can play an hour or two every other day without getting annoyed that I got 0 drops.

My main problem is I only play for an 30 minutes to an hour at a time, and with the old drop system I would get maybe 2-3 items a week as I didn't play ever day, which is why I started idling.

I have now played a total of 1 hour with 2.5 hours of idling and gotten 4 items....a huge improvement over what I use to get. So if I play like 5-10 hours in a week (given my drops so far on the new system) I will get between 5 to 11 items on average per week. Hell of an improvement. But I will still likely idle for the first few days each week just to maximize drops.

Good, idlers can now stop wasting electricity for hats.

In my particular case I was not wasting any extra electricity. I only idle when I am awake (I shut my computer down at night), and I am on my computer at least 80% of the time I am awake (I am rarely off my computer long enough for my monitors to shut off, let alone my computer actually going to sleep or anything). So, I can honestly say I idled without wasting electricity. While idling my CPU is virtually free and I am only using around 200MB of ram which costs no extra electricity at all.

But in short yes, many idlers can now stop wasting electricity and shut their computers down at night.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

...

with the old drop system I would get maybe 2-3 items a week as I didn't play ever day, which is why I started idling.

...

Lucky, I got nothing for 2 months, which is why I started.

[Denis W. Veteran]

In my particular case I was not wasting any extra electricity. I only idle when I am awake (I shut my computer down at night), and I am on my computer at least 80% of the time I am awake (I am rarely off my computer long enough for my monitors to shut off, let alone my computer actually going to sleep or anything). So, I can honestly say I idled without wasting electricity. While idling my CPU is virtually free and I am only using around 200MB of ram which costs no extra electricity at all.

But in short yes, many idlers can now stop wasting electricity and shut their computers down at night.

Yeah, I meant those who keep their systems powered on all night and all day while they're at work just for item farming purposes :p

[Nagisan]

Okay well, it seems that me and others have hit a lack of item drops after around 8-9 items.

As Valve has stated the item drops reset on a weekly basis, and some have gone as long as 12 hours without an item AFTER hitting 8-9 items, it is looking like the weekly limit is around 8-9 from data collected so far (the limit does vary some, but not much).

That being said, lets say an average of 9 items per week. With 112 items to craft a class-specific hat, that means 12.5 weeks to craft a SINGLE class specific hat, or 9 weeks to craft a SINGLE random hat.

So bare minimum, your looking at over 2 months per crafted hat now.....but on the bright side, it took me over 3 months to get enough metal for a single random hat........so it seems I will not have to wait as long as I originally had to between crafting hats. But its still pretty lame only getting 8-9 items per week. I wonder if that limit includes hats which are, relatively to standard items now, more rare then they have ever been?

[x9248]

Hey guys, I've been playing this a lot more lately (took some time to grow on me I guess), but all I really play is 2fort CTF. Can anyone recommend some other fun maps that I might like and are popular?

(Right now doing Arena with a cycling map choice. Not bad so far but once you're dead you're dead XD)

[Nagisan]

Hey guys, I've been playing this a lot more lately (took some time to grow on me I guess), but all I really play is 2fort CTF. Can anyone recommend some other fun maps that I might like and are popular?

(Right now doing Arena with a cycling map choice. Not bad so far but once you're dead you're dead XD)

I say just try to find a good server with either a stock Valve map rotation, or the stock maps and a few good custom maps.

IMO 2fort is one of the most boring maps ever, 90% of the time it ends up lasting the entire 30 minutes (or whatever the servers map time limit is) that ends up moving to a stalemate/sudden death.

Find a good server with a stock map rotation and you will play lots of the default Valve maps. Probably the best payload map is pl_badwater. Other good maps are cp_badlands, cp_granary, cp_gravelpit and a few others. But really its up to you to try out the stock maps and find out which are good, there are some really good custom maps out there as well, but there are also some really bad ones (cp_orange being an example of a really bad one).

Just try out some different servers and you will likely discover a few stock and custom maps that you enjoy.

[Denis W. Veteran]

Okay well, it seems that me and others have hit a lack of item drops after around 8-9 items.

As Valve has stated the item drops reset on a weekly basis, and some have gone as long as 12 hours without an item AFTER hitting 8-9 items, it is looking like the weekly limit is around 8-9 from data collected so far (the limit does vary some, but not much).

That being said, lets say an average of 9 items per week. With 112 items to craft a class-specific hat, that means 12.5 weeks to craft a SINGLE class specific hat, or 9 weeks to craft a SINGLE random hat.

So bare minimum, your looking at over 2 months per crafted hat now.....but on the bright side, it took me over 3 months to get enough metal for a single random hat........so it seems I will not have to wait as long as I originally had to between crafting hats. But its still pretty lame only getting 8-9 items per week. I wonder if that limit includes hats which are, relatively to standard items now, more rare then they have ever been?

That's fine by me. I was hitting probably 3 or less items per week to begin with, and I play almost every night.

[Nagisan]

That's fine by me. I was hitting probably 3 or less items per week to begin with, and I play almost every night.

I can understand that and quite honestly I am somewhat indifferent about the change.

I get more items during the hours I do play than what I had with the old system, which means I have less reason to idle. But at the same time, idling is now virtually useless if you do any amount of playing. I personally think they should increase the weekly hour limit that you can get items. Instead of 10 hours or whatever it currently is, it should be 15-20 hours. That way people who play that amount normally per week will get 15-20 items a week, people who only play 5-10 hours will only get 5-10 items a week (which honestly is more than I ever got on the old system with 5-10 hours of normal play a week), while idlers who idle 20+ hours are only going to get around 20 items max or so.

In short, I think the new system is on the right track, but I feel they need to increase the amount of hours a person is eligible to get items per week (which will in turn increase the total items you can get per week). This will give people who play a lot and idlers the same amount of items, while still giving those who only play an hour or two every few nights more items then they ever got on the old system.

[Nagisan]

For anyone interested in the new drop system, it appears that there is a sort of daily drop rate in extension of the weekly rate. There has not been enough time to analyze either of those max values yet, but people who hit a max item drop yesterday and the day before after the blog post (myself included) are not getting items again today at a fairly fast rate (slower overall than the past 2 days for me, but the longest I have been without a drop has been around 1 hour 15 minutes today).

So in short, there appears to be a daily limit on items, it is entirely unclear how that affects the weekly limit (maybe there is a weekly limit of 20 items and a daily limit of 8-10 per day or something?), nobody knows quite yet, but it appears 8-9 is definitely NOT the overall weekly limit.

That or there is a bug thats causing the weekly limit to reset each day.

For anyone who wishes to know more: http://tf2stats.net/forums/index.php/topic,14.msg24.html

Keep your eye on that thread as information is added to it and updated as time goes on and we learn more about the new drop system.

[Chasethebase Veteran]

Lookie at what I found.

[Nagisan]

The hat I assume? Nice....that hat was my first hat ever, too bad I very rarely play engy (most I do is go engy at the beginning to help during setup or to save teleports outside spawn/upgrade them).

[null.]

Played this before for the first time since the last major update (which I only played for a day or two). Forgot how much fun it was. :D

[joker999]

...

For anyone who wishes to know more: http://tf2stats.net/forums/index.php/topic,14.msg24.html

...

fix link here

:)

[Nagisan]

fix link here

:)

Bleh, Neowin auto-parse linkage fail. Thanks.

I got 9 items over Tuesday and Wednesday (only counting items on Tuesday AFTER the blog went live), then, after going 12+ hours on Weds. without an item, I got another 8 items yesterday, then no items today at all. So it seems the weekly limit may be around 20 or so items (which varies), while they have daily limits that limit how many you can get each day. Again, more information is required to pin the system down, and correct info will come in due-time, but so far it seems to be around 15-20 items per week from my own experience. Which cuts the crafting time I initially calculated (over 2 months for a random hat, just over 3 for a class-specific hat) in half. But there may be some other variables that will change that as well.

[Chasethebase Veteran]

The hat I assume? Nice....that hat was my first hat ever, too bad I very rarely play engy (most I do is go engy at the beginning to help during setup or to save teleports outside spawn/upgrade them).

Heh my MPC is Engineer, love it! Got the Mining Light as my first ever hat as well so I'm happy :D