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Not pleased with all of the elements within Team Fortress 2? You're not the only one; Valve reportedly isn't completely thrilled with certain portions of the game either, like its system of random weapon drops. Initially implemented within the Spy/Sniper update pack, the inclusion of random weapon drops really set off some fans of the game.
Speaking to Community Fortress, Team Fortress 2 lead designer Robin Walker stated that the company is considering a new overhaul to the feature. "It's good for delivering items to newer players over time, so they're not swamped with choices when they're starting out, and they're not required to grind achievements to get them once they reach the point where they want to start making strategic choices," Walker said. "For competitive players, it's obviously a bad way to deliver items. At the very least, future packs will allow you to use achievements to get the new items, but we might move to a mode where we just give them to you."
The initial reason for the weapon drop system was to prevent players that were new to Team Fortress 2 from being dominated by experienced players who'd dedicated hours upon hours to the game. With the addition of random drops, just about anyone had a chance to acquire a new weapon for their character; whether this proposed adjustment will solve the problem or simply complicate matters is still to be determined.
Walker further went on to elaborate the team's stance towards tournament play and potential changes as well. "As part of our goal of supporting tournaments more, I think we'll probably add better tools for them to control exactly what players can and can't use within matches."
Maps could also find a couple of tweaks headed their way, as Walker mentioned adjusting some of the gameplay elements based on team size. "We've got a map where we're trying out areas that modify themselves based on the number of players in the game, in the hopes that both public and competitive players can use it," Walker said. "We've got another new Attack/Defense map that's aimed at shorter, fixed time limit so that competitive teams can play a full round of it within the same timeframe that they play a 5 point CP match currently (unlike Dustbowl/Payload where matches could take over an hour). And we're got new 5 point CP and CTF maps in the works that we know will work for everyone."
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Speaking to Community Fortress, Team Fortress 2 lead designer Robin Walker stated that the company is considering a new overhaul to the feature. "It's good for delivering items to newer players over time, so they're not swamped with choices when they're starting out, and they're not required to grind achievements to get them once they reach the point where they want to start making strategic choices," Walker said. "For competitive players, it's obviously a bad way to deliver items. At the very least, future packs will allow you to use achievements to get the new items, but we might move to a mode where we just give them to you."
The initial reason for the weapon drop system was to prevent players that were new to Team Fortress 2 from being dominated by experienced players who'd dedicated hours upon hours to the game. With the addition of random drops, just about anyone had a chance to acquire a new weapon for their character; whether this proposed adjustment will solve the problem or simply complicate matters is still to be determined.
Walker further went on to elaborate the team's stance towards tournament play and potential changes as well. "As part of our goal of supporting tournaments more, I think we'll probably add better tools for them to control exactly what players can and can't use within matches."
Maps could also find a couple of tweaks headed their way, as Walker mentioned adjusting some of the gameplay elements based on team size. "We've got a map where we're trying out areas that modify themselves based on the number of players in the game, in the hopes that both public and competitive players can use it," Walker said. "We've got another new Attack/Defense map that's aimed at shorter, fixed time limit so that competitive teams can play a full round of it within the same timeframe that they play a 5 point CP match currently (unlike Dustbowl/Payload where matches could take over an hour). And we're got new 5 point CP and CTF maps in the works that we know will work for everyone."
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