When TF2 suddenly introduced their casual and competitive modes and removed quickplay, a lot of problems became immediately apparent. Two weeks have passed since the launch, and I can say that both modes have much improved. Let’s dig into what has changed now that quickplay no longer exists–and see what else is going on:
- Heavy vs. Pyro ends Sunday, August 14th. Pyro is winning, 55% to 45%, at this time.
- {N} Olse has a signup on the forums for his next Newbs XCom 2 write-up.
- Terraria patched
- Short tutorial on TF2 Matchmaking
- Full patch notes from July 28
XCom 2: Newbs Edition!
It’s that time again: {N} Olse will write up an account of how us Newblets will save the world in 2038! Just sign up on the forums by creating a character according to his guidelines. Olse will play thru the game with characters designed by Newbs’ specifications, and then fictionalize that outcomes for a story for you to read!
Terraria Patch 1.3.2 is now Live
So what’s new in Terraria? Here you go:
- Having a Party Girl in your town will occasionally cause town members to throw a Party. Party Girl and Clothier sells different stuff during a Party, including a piñata that looks like a pig.
- You can now choose what kind of evil corruption is in your world during world creation, as long as you have a world savefile that has unlocked Hardmode.
- A lot of bugfixes.
This isn’t much of an update, but developer ReLogic says that a future patch will create a biome out of the Underground Desert, and its hallow/corrupt/crimson hardmode variants, so there’s that to look forward to.
Also, they have been hard at work on Terraria: Otherworld for some time. The game is going to be a more RPG-centric game with more concrete goals, skill trees, NPCs with deep personalities, etc. They’ve hired a new art director and have decided to rework much of the game, so I don’t think you’ll see it enter beta in the next two years.
I continue to mention Terraria news because a lot of Newbs players own and play Terraria.
A Short Tutorial on the New TF2 Matchmaking
Helpful links:
Note that the option “Quickplay” no longer exists. Now, you can choose from the following options when you hit “Find a Game”:
- Casual: After a short wait, you’ll join a game (occasionally in-progress) randomly selected from the map options you’ve checkmarked.
- No penalties for leaving in the middle of a match.
- A typical match tends to take 10-30 minutes.
- You can level up your Casual Rank by scoring points and winning matches.
- Competitive: After a short wait, you’ll join a 6-on-6 match on a randomly selected control point map.
- Big penalties (in Rank, cooldown before joining next match) for leaving in the middle of a match.
- A typical match tends to take 5-20 minutes.
- Your Competitive Rank can go up or down depending on the match results.
- Mann vs. Machine: After a short wait, you’ll join a team of players that fight a bunch of computer-controlled robots.
- Boot Camp is free-to-play, and some servers allow more than 6 players.
- Mann Up requires tickets, limits the party to 6 players, and provides rewards for completing missions.
- Community Servers: Opens the Server Selection window so you can select a Favorited server, one you’ve played in your History, or search for one on the Internet.
- This is how you can find our TF2Newbs servers!
- Training: Complete solo practice missions to learn how to play TF2.
- Create Server: Launch your own server, choosing any map that you have preloaded into your TF2 files. You can have players join and/or bots can play as well.
Casual Play
Casual Play replaced Quickplay for the following reasons:
- You will typically (but not always) join a game before the match has begun. A Valve server identifies 24 players (or up to 32, depending on the server) currently searching for a game, then starts the game by pulling them all in at the same time.
- I’m not sure if Casual Rank is a variable in which players will join you in a match, so players of all levels of Casual Rank may be lumped together in a server.
- The server will attempt to pull in players a little while after a player abandons the server or disconnects.
- Autobalancing is disabled, but votekicking was enabled once more after the July 28th patch. So you can complete an entire match (each team gets to attack and defend once, or best two-out-of-three rounds on symmetrical control point maps, for example) with the same team of players.
- If you want to play with your friends, you can Create a Party beforehand. Your entire party will then be on the same team.
- If you invite them to a game after the match has begun, there is no guarantee that they will join your side–they cannot join Spectator, and will be assigned a team when they arrive.
- There is NO penalty for leaving a Casual match. You can join another match at any time, and you get credit to your rank, based on your play up to the point of leaving/disconnection.
Oh, and you do get to choose the map and game modes you wish to play! Under each play format, you can click open a window to enable/disable specific maps. Use this function when you want to play on a specific map right now, or you only want to play on a list of your favorities. Note that only official Valve maps, unlike the beta map Asteroid, are available.
(In the above picture, slightly fewer players are searching to play Hoodoo than Borneo. If I begin the search, I may ended up at a Hoodoo or Borneo map, but not an Upward map, and never at a Payload Race map.)
Competitive Play
This has come around because serious TF2 players have wanted this option for years. Valve’s Comp Play is still quite different than the competitive leagues out there, but they are much more accessible, since you don’t have to join a team, organize practices, discuss strategies, or work around item restrictions. So consider it Comp Play Lite if you wish. But here are the features:
- TF2 Comp Play still revolves mostly around 5CP maps, so only the following maps are available (randomly selected for the match):
- Badlands 5CP (not KOTH)
- Foundry (just added!)
- Gorge CP (not 5CP)
- Granary (just added!)
- Gullywash
- Metalworks
- Process
- Snakewater
- Sunshine
- Swiftwater (just added!)
- Vanguard (just added!)
- Viaduct KOTH
- You can Create a Party–and it is recommended that you do so–but you can also jump in with solo or with a partial party.
- There are no class limits, no item restrictions, and no votekicking or autobalancing. But if you choose Sniper, you better be good, or you’re going to hear about it from your party.
- Currently only 6v6 is supported, but other modes such as 9v9 may be supported in the future.
- You don’t get to choose your map.
- Random critical hits are disabled. You only get critical hits when a buff or uber grants them to you; this is typical of most comp leagues out there.
- This is Ranked Play: your party will face a party of similar average Rank.
- Your Rank can go up or down after a match depending on match won/loss, points scored, and other elements of your play.
- There is a hidden ELO in the game, which is represented by your Rank. If you were to always play at the same relative skill level, your Rank will rise to that level and then stay roughly the same.
- There are penalties for abandoning a match.
- You will receive a greater loss of Rank than if you had merely lost the game (since the July 28th patch).
- A “cooldown timer”, which won’t let you join another match after an Abandon, is enforced.
- If you have played only a few games, the cooldown timer is much greater (hours’ and days’ cooldown).
- Each Abandon increases this cooldown timer before you can play the next match.
- All of this is designed to prevent the player who tries to leave a match in order to avoid incurring a loss. A player with lots of losses has an accurate Rank; a player with lots of Abandons is not a team player that ruins the game for everyone.
Community Servers
Don’t want to play on a Valve server? Join a community server for any of the following reasons:
- You want to play on our TF2Newbs servers! Of course you do.
- To join server #04, a 2Fort server: open your console, and type the following:
- Then, Favorite us so you can find us again quickly!
- You want to play on a server with alltalk, class limits, randomizer, or other options
- You want to be able to join spectate, change sides, vote for an autobalance, or just wander around exploring
- You want to play on a server with admins that can help when there is a problem, or you want a family-friendly server
- You want to find a trade server, a Sniper-friendly server, a jump server, or an MGE server
- You like to play on a server that has regulars that frequent the same playing space, and can chat with while gaming
Playing games is a social act, and so it makes sense to build and support a community where people can gather to play their favorite games.
Create a Server
Can’t find any active server to play on the Asteroid map? Feel like practicing your Soldier skills against a bunch of Engineer bots on Dustbowl? Do you want to invite your friends to a map you’ve made yourself? Use “Create a Server” to do all of these and more.
It is necessary to be familiar with console commands to load bots, use cheats, and otherwise make changes to the server. Hit the tilde (~) key to open the console, where you can type in commands.
Bots need a navigation mesh to be able to play a map; without one, they stay in spawn. If you’re using a map other than one of these, then you will need to generate a mesh for the bots with a command, which may require several minutes and will restart the server.
Full Patch Notes: July 28, 2016
- Matchmaking
- Competitive Mode
- Abandon penalty times are now longer for first-time abandoners with a low number of games played
- Abandoning a game now results in significant rank loss. This loss is always greater than losing a given match.
- Fixed an issue where players could drop and reconnect too many times before triggering an abandon
- Casual Mode
- Matches can now start with fewer than 24 players when there are not enough compatible players in queue
- The match will still add additional players (up to 24) as they become available
- This should improve queue times for low-population regions and game modes
- Added maps
cp_gullywash, cp_snakewater, and koth_probed
- Fixed not being able to cycle between spectator modes
- Weapon viewmodels
- The field-of-view slider has been re-added to Adv. Options menu (range: 54 to 70 degrees)
- This feature is now allowed in Competitive Mode
- Improved and fixed many animations when using a higher viewmodel field-of-view
- Removed custom animations from the
sv_pure whitelist because it was being exploited
- Adjusted The Cow Mangler(sic) and Black Box reload animations to be slightly faster (they now match the default rocket launcher)
- Your class portrait will now always be the innermost in the match status HUD (top center) and will have a slightly brighter background
- Added the Prinny promo items to the Mann Co. Store
- Added the Florida LAN 2016 community medal
- PASS Time update
- Fixed achievement items (e.g. Civilian Grade JACK Hat) not cloaking with the Spy
- Tweaks and fixes for all maps
- Fix pack speed not being updated sometimes
- Aiming players will no longer receive pack speed bonus
- Some adjustments to reduce average round length
- Overtime will end immediately if the winning team touches the ball
- Overtime won’t happen if it’s impossible for the losing team to win
- Fixed players being able to avoid a vote-kick by reconnecting to the server at the right time
- Fixed the
pd_watergate HUD not drawing
- Fixed Engineer teleporter exits sometimes detonating when used due to invisible geometry
- Fixed getting a black screen if the chat window was open when the match stats were being shown
- Fixed weapons not being hidden during some taunts for the Engineer, Medic, and Soldier
- Fixed Spy cloak causing the HUD 3D Character to cloak for the player the Spy is disguised as
- Fixed a client crash related to the animation system
- Fixed a bug where players in looping taunts could sometimes cause other clients to drop from the server
- Fixed not seeing particle effects for Unusual versions of Baseball Bill’s Sports Shine, Ritzy Rick’s Hair Fixative, and Texas Slim’s Dome Shine
- Fixed hearing the “team wipe” Announcer audio at the incorrect times
Undocumented changes
[N] Obey
