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:
- Here is the original TF2 blogpost announcing the update.
- Here is the TF2 comic that will attempt to explain the background story up until now.
- Here is the Page One splash page: The Gun Mettle Update!
- 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.
- 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.
- Civilian–contracts only
- Freelance–contracts only
- Mercenary–contracts or weapons cases
- Commando–contracts or weapons cases
- Assassin–weapons cases only
- Elite–weapons cases only
- 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
The following are permanent changes to how TF2 is played. Read carefully, and adjust your future play to these new mechanics.
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
A LOT of weapons have been tweaked! Prepare to be surprised at just how much the game has changed by this one update, as Valve has stated that they want underused, unpopular weapons to once again find a role within the game. Here is a summary of the changes:
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)
SPY
- Spy no longer smacks himself in the face while reloading a revolver (New Spy revolver reload animation that does not block cross hair)
- Changing to a new disguise while already under a disguise takes 0.5 seconds instead of the normal disguise time of 2 seconds
- In the disguise menu, pressing ‘reload’ will also toggle the disguise team.
- While invisible, Spy receives 20% less damage from all damage sources
- While invisible, Spy has reduced timer on debuffs (fire, jarate, milk, bleed)
- Decreased the damage penalty on Sentries sapped by the Spy from -66% to -33% (i.e. shooting a Sentry the Spy sapped with a Revolver is now more effective)
Spy-cicle
- Changed fire immunity for 3 seconds to fire immunity for 1 second and 10 seconds of afterburn immunity
- Erroneously said 7 seconds afterburn immunity on launch
- Removed silent killer attribute
- Spy-cicle recharge timer can now be reduced by picking up ammo boxes
Enforcer
- Changed +20% damage bonus while undisguised to +20% damage bonus while disguised
Big Earner
- Added 3 second speed gain on kill
Conniver’s Kunai
- Health penalty reduced from -65 to -55 (70 Health total)
- Minimum Health gain of 75 on kill
- Maximum overheal from Kunai increased from 195 to 210
Cloak and Dagger
- Can now pick up ammo kits for cloak meter while visible. Previously could not pick up ammo packs for cloak. Cloak gain is at a reduced rate when compared to stock invis watch on ammo pick up
Dead Ringer
- Triggering Feign Death instantly removes 50% cloak meter
- Changed increased drain rate to a decreased drain rate. Overall duration of invisibility is still 7 seconds when accounting for initial spend of 50 cloak meter for triggering Feign Death
- Decreased cloak regen rate from +80% to +50%
- When Feign Death is triggered, the Spy receives a 3 second speed boost
- Initial attack that triggers feign death has its damage reduced by 50%
- Damage resistance on triggering feign death scales over time. 65% to 20% over 3 seconds
- Feign Death stealth has no bump shimmer for 3 seconds
- 3 seconds after triggering Feign Death, the Spy is under normal invisible conditions (20% armor and shimmers if bumped or shot)
- Can no longer pick up ammo for cloak meter while cloaked
ENGINEER
- Construction boosts (wrench hits, redeploys) from multiple sources is now additive instead of multiplicative. Calculations are based around a 1x base building speed.
- Increased base wrench construction speed on hit boost by 50%. Buildings now build 2.5x faster instead of just 2x (additive of 1.5x + base speed)
- Teleporters and Dispensers redeploy +50% faster (2.5x without wrench boost, 5.5x with wrench boost)
- Building pick up speed penalty reduced from 25% to 10%
- On Wrench equip change, buildings no longer self-destruct unless the building type is changed (i.e. Only Sentry explodes when switching from Wrench to Gunslinger)
- Building repair costs increased from 20 metal to 33 metal to repair 100hp per wrench hit (from 5HP per metal to 3HP per metal)
- Level 2 and Level 3 Sentries have less passive damage resistance against Heavy miniguns. Level 2 Sentry Minigun resistance changed from 20% to 15% and Level 3 Changed from 33% to 20%
Gunslinger / Minisentry
- Mini Sentries can now be repaired
- Mini Sentries can now be wrench construction boosted
- Mini Sentry base build speed decreased. Mini Sentries that are wrench boosted build slightly faster than previously.
- Mini Sentries start at 50% health on construction and gain health during construction instead of starting at 100%
- Metal gibs from destroyed Mini Sentries no longer grant any metal
Pomson 6000
- Uber and Cloak drain decreases over distance from target. Decreases start at 512 Hammer Units (Hu) from target and reach 0 drain at 1536Hu
Wrangler
- Ammo and Repair given to a shielded Sentry is reduced by the strength of the shield (66% reduced) when shield is active
- Engineer death keeps the Wrangled sentry shielded and disabled for 3 seconds, same as when Wrangler is switched away. Previously Engineer death caused disable state for only 1 second
Jag
- With the change to Base Construction boost, Jag bonus has improved. 30% increase of 1.5x makes a total of 1.95x (total of 2.95x when base speed is added)
- Added +15% swing speed.
- Added 20% repair penalty. Repairs will give up to 80hp per swing instead 100hp per swing.
The Short Circuit
- Projectile destruction has been moved to alt-fire at the cost of -15 per shot. There is a 0.5s cool down between attempts and refire
- Cannot pick up buildings when the Short Circuit is deployed
Eureka Effect
- Previous penalties have been removed and replaced with the following
- Construction hit speed boost decreased by 50%
- 50% less metal from pickups and dispensers
Rescue Ranger
- Decreased cost of long range building pick up from 130 metal to 100 metal
SCOUT
Baby Face’s Blaster
- Added Boost reduction on taking damage.
- Increased amount of Boost lost on air jump
Short Stop
- No longer uses secondary ammo and now uses primary ammo instead
- Healing and knockback passives are only active when weapon is deployed
Pretty Boy’s Pocket Pistol
- Passive effects on the Pretty Boy’s Pocket Pistol are only in effect when the weapon is deployed
- Removed +15 max health passive
- Added up to +3 health per hit
- Changed damage vulnerability from +50% fire to +20% all sources while active
Fan O’ War
- Now crits whenever it would normally mini-crit
- Reduced damage penalty from -90% to -75%
SOLDIER
Airstrike
- Removed clipsize penalty
- Reduced radius penalty from -15% to -10%
- Reduced damage penalty from -25% to -15%
- Rocket jump blast damage reduction reduced from -25% to -15%
Equalizer and Escape Plan
- Changed no healing penalty to 90% less healing from Medics while active
Blackbox
- Changed +15 health on hit to +20 health on hit per attack
- Changed how health on hit works for radius damage. Is now capped per attack and scales with total damage done relative to base damage.
- i.e. doing 45 damage nets +10 health on hit as base damage is 90. Hitting 3 enemies for 45 each for a total of 135 damage only returns +20 health.
Liberty Launcher
Battalions Backup
- Fixed an issue that caused rocket jumps to be decreased when it was active.
DEMOMAN
Tide Turner
- Self damage will no longer decrease charge when charging
- Fall damage will no longer decrease charge when charging
- Amount of charge taken away on damage when charging reduced from 3 to 1 per point of damage
Bootlegger / Ali Baba’s Wee Booties
- Added +10% movement speed bonus
- Changed 25 charge on charge kill to 25 charge on melee kill
The Claidheamh Mòr
- Changed 25 charge on charge kill to 25 charge on melee kill
Loch-n-Load
- Changed +20% damage bonus to +20% damage against buildings
Iron Bomber
- Removed damage penalty on self-detonate
- Reduced radius penalty from -20% to -15%
Quickiebomb Launcher
- Damage is now increased based on charge amount when the bomb is fired
Ullapool Caber
- Reduced explosion base damage from 100 to 75
- Reduced damage ramp up bonus for close range attacks. Now is the same as other explosive weapons.
PYRO
Flaregun
- Added text to describe 100% critical hits on burning targets
Scorch Shot
- Reduced damage penalty from -50% to -35%
- Now has increased knock back on burning targets
- Increased the blast radius from flares from 92Hu to 110Hu
- Hits and explosions always minicrit burning targets
- (July 6th patch) Added a -35% self damage force penalty (Reduced blast jumping)
Detonator
- Added text to describe 100% minicrits on burning targets
- Slightly increased blast jump height when doing a Detonator jump
- Increased blast radius from 92Hu to 110Hu
- Detonated explosions now also minicrit burning targets
- Increased damage penalty to -25%
- Increased self-damage penalty from +25% to +50%
Power Jack
- Reduced health gained on kill from +75hp to +25hp
MEDIC
Vaccinator
- Fixed a bug that gave Vaccinator patients full crit immunity.
- Vaccinator base resist does not grant any crit resistance.
- Vaccinator Uber deploys now always take exactly 1 bar of Uber charge.
- Vaccinator Uber deploys give the patient a 2.5 second bubble of 75% damage resistance of the current resist type and full crit resistance to that type. These bubbles do not disappear if the medic stops targeting the current patient. Multiple bubbles of different types can be applied to the same patient or multiple patients given the same resist uber each consuming 1 charge.
- Vaccinator uber build now suffers the same penalties as other mediguns when it comes to multiple medics on the same target and max overhealed patients.
- Decreased the bonus healing a Medic received for properly selecting the right damage resistance type from 25% of incoming damage to 10% of incoming damage
- Added Penalty of 66% decreased uber build rate while healing a overhealed patient
- (July 6th patch) Übercharge penalty no longer applies during setup time
Solemn Vow
- Added 10% attack speed penalty
SNIPER
Sydney Sleeper
- Jarate now applies on all scoped shots, duration scales with charge duration (2 to 8 seconds)
Bazaar Bargain
- No longer lose heads on miss
- Collecting a head requires a headshot kill and not just a headshot
- Each head boosts charge rate by 25% up to 200%
- Charge rate penalty changed from -20% to -50%.
- Now requires 2 headshot kills to be back at base speed and 6 kills for 200% charge rate
Bushwacka
- Changed penalty from +20% fire vulnerability to +20% damage vulnerability while active
Cozy Camper
- Removed increased damage taken penalty
HEAVY
- All minigun damage penalty on Level 2 and Level 3 Sentries slightly decreased. Level 2 Sentry resistance changed from 20% to 15% and Level 3 changed from 33% to 20%.
Natascha
- Added 20% damage resistance while spun up
- Stun amount now has distance falloff. Decreases starting at 512hu down to zero stun at 1536Hu
Brass Beast
- Added 20% damage resistance while spun up
Tomislav
- Now 20% more accurate (less spread)
- Increased spin up bonus from 10% to 20%
Family Business
- Now has +15% increased attack speed
Warrior’s Spirit
- Now has +10 health on hit
Eviction Notice
- Now has 3 second speed boost on hit
Dalokoh’s Bar
- Now has 10 second cool down on use
- Can now overheal up to 400hp
- Can be thrown (alt-fire) as a small medkit for other players to use
Lunchbox items
- Updated description to note that these items can be thrown (alt-fire) to supply players with a medkit.
MULTI-CLASS
Panic Attack
- Base Fire rate increased (from 15% to 30%)
- Base reload speed increased (from 33% to 50%)
- Added increased switch to speed by +50%
Patch 2: 7/2/15
- Fixed a bug that prevented some clients from updating their contract progress
- Fixed a bug where The Family Business was firing slower than it was supposed to
Notes missed from the previous update:
- Power Jack
- Reduced health gained on kill from +75hp to +25hp
- Cozy Camper
- Removed increased damage taken penalty
- Rescue Ranger
- Decreased cost of long range building pick up from 130 metal to 100 metal
- Spy-cicle (previous note was incorrect)
- Changed fire immunity for 3 seconds to fire immunity for 1 second and 10 seconds of afterburn immunity
Full Patch Notes: 7/3/14
- Temporarily limited OS X clients to medium texture quality to resolve random crashes while work is done on a permanent fix
- Fixed a random crash that affected OSX only
- Updated the collision geometry for the turbines in Powerhouse
- Dropped weapons now retain their ammo and ÜberCharge levels unless the player commits suicide
- Valve official quickplay and matchmaking servers are no longer listed in the server browser
- Players no longer drop their weapons in MvM
- Pressing the action key will now try to pick up a dropped weapon before trying to use an item in the action slot
- Spies can no longer pick up weapons when disguised or cloaked
- Using the mouse to select enemy players on the scoreboard no longer improperly reveals their class
- Fixed players dropping multiple instances of the same weapon at once
- Fixed unintended changes to rocket and other explosive jumping behavior
- Fixed dropped weapons occasionally using an incorrect skin
- Fixed an issue that was causing the particle effects on Unusual hats to sometimes draw in first-person for the owner, or not draw at all to others
- Fixed an issue that prevented Huntsman arrows from damaging enemy Engineer buildings
- Fixed weapons with attached models (e.g. Festive weapons, Kritzkrieg, and Botkillers) not rendering their attachments
- Fixed spies that have picked up a dropped Your Eternal Reward or Wanga Prick being able to manually disguise
- Fixed Spy sometimes not being able to use the Disguise Kit after picking up a new Knife
- Fixed newly created items not becoming Strange quality, despite receiving the ability to track kills. Existing items in this state will not be retroactively fixed.
- Fixed skinned weapons appearing differently after being traded or listed on the Steam Community Market. Affected items have been reverted to their original (permanent) appearance.
- Fixed being able to craft some previously un-craftable items
- Fixed a client crash related to Killstreak Fabricators and Chemistry Kits
- Fixed a client crash related to particles
- Fixed the Vitasaw no longer giving its ÜberCharge bonus after death
- Fixed issues related to picking up dropped weapons while zoomed in with a Sniper Rifle
- Fixed a bug that caused the Shortstop to reload faster than normal
- Fixed dropped energy weapons not being able to fire after being picked up
- Fixed some weapons not displaying their charge meters after being picked up
- Fixed the box used in the Box Trot taunt sometimes being the wrong color
- Steam Community Market
- Fixed skinned items appearing as “Decorated Item”
- Items that are temporarily un-tradable can now properly be listed on the market
Undocumented changes
- Reverted Item level changes
- Reverted the ability to giftwrap stock weapons.
Full Patch Notes: 7/4/15
- Fixed a client crash related to campaign contracts
- Fixed an exploit related to taunting and then dying on the final control point of payload maps
- Fixed a bug that was creating Specialized Killstreak Kits that could be applied to any item
- Fixed items that are removed from the Steam Community Market having the trade restriction removed
- Temporarily reverted Valve official quickplay and matchmaking servers not being listed in the server browser while we look into this further
Full Patch Notes: 7/6/15
[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.
