please for the love of god dont nerf iron bomber and instead buff stock

My biggest issue with this stuff is that I've never ever heard of anyone previously complaining that they thought that loch/stock were underpowered relative to the rest of the game, but now the argument seems like it's whether the iron bomber is fine vs the rest of the game since we now have undeniable proof it is better than other options, which to me is astounding because I've always seen it as the iron bomber is op, but according to demos it's a side grade so not bannable. I think it's crazy because I've lost track of how many kills I get purely because it's iron bomber, and people have been compaining about magnet pipes for ages now aswell.

I don't really have much of an opinion on which projectile size is better for the games health, but if it does turn out that they make all pipes 8x8 instead of 4x4, surely we ban loch n load

I like this. just make stock's hitbox the same as iron bomber's and then, fuck it, double the size of the projectile models too.

I mean. I don't know. I have nothing against buffing demo like this, I think. But it's just such a random change. Is that really how balance should be allowed to work? When was the last time there was a discussion about buffing demo that didnt totally fixate around "revert nerf" and "Give Demo A Glock!!" by post #2?

Now that people have both A) understood the point of this post and the way I'm viewing the situation and B) make some real arguments as to why they think it shouldn't be banned anyway, I think it's fair to say that it comes down to a value judgment and personal game philosophy. I personally don't think Demo is as weak as some others do, and this is where objectively neither side can disprove the other. Even when making the thread I personally viewed the situation as marginal - it would be somewhat evenly split but leaning 1 way ot another, which I think the strawpoll proves. I don't really think there's anything left to discuss and all meaningful possibilities have been explored, but most people do agree that 1 of 2 things needs to happen - Ib brought down to other launchers (people like me who think Demo is pretty strong without truck sized projectile) or people who think other launchers should be elevated to IB levels (those who think Demo needs something like the IB to keep Demo relevant). On top of this, visual adjustments need to be made to stop the weapon from feeling so lame to play against, if I'm the one who's ashamed by some of these pipes hitting I can't imagine what it must be like to be on the opposite end.

/thread

Sorry for doublepost.

I don't believe this is true. I imagine Valve picked most of those numbers with some very specific goals in mind, especially in relation to other values they had set already. So, sure, things like buffs doing a nice even 50% more health are probably arbitrary, but even so I think we can all agree the game would suffer if buffs only did 5%, or went up to 150%. There's clearly a balance to be had, which can be boiled down to "buffed players should be hard to kill solo, but easy to 2v1."
I'll try to come up with others.
"Light classes should always be vulnerable to getting double piped"
"Sniper dies at close range"
"Anything getting hit by 4 stickies at once dies"
"The rocket launcher needs to allow for soldier to deal damage and be mobile at the same time, without making him too hard to kill."
I mean. Especially on that last one, the rocket launcher is really a marvel of game design. Just enough rockets to allow you to do some crazy rocket jump and drop in out of nowhere to deal a single burst of damage, which if you don't aim perfectly, will at best damage some light classes (before you die), since hitting 1 direct and missing another won't kill anything. But if you DO aim it perfectly, you'll kill anything with less than 200 health (before you die). The damage numbers, and the interactions of damage between classes, are most likely intentional, and I would be surprised if there wasn't a long period of development where they were being changed multiple times daily.

I'm sure there are hundreds more, and I'm also sure there are tons of ingame contradictions to good design thanks to over 10 years of adding stuff. Sorta unrelated, but I think if we ever want to get serious about a promod, it's important to lay out a more concrete set of elements that we as a community find compelling.

i dont really know yet where i fall on this issue tbh but i dont think adding even more aspects to comp that are blatantly unlikely vanila tf2 isnt the best idea, even if you dont think in a "we need to conform for valve major" perspective, having so many things be just a bit different from the gameplay experience you will get anywhere but on a match server is really awkward imo (for new players fresh out of pubs, dm, mge, when people get the wrong config in mixes) so changing stock pipes size shouldnt be done i believe

This is only tangentally related but I think it's important to not overstate Valve's original intent of balance as it relates to modern 6v6 metagame, and rocket jumping is like a microcosm of that. If you look at early TF2 videos of how rocket jumping is presented, it seems pretty obvious to me that Valve never intended for rocket jumping to be as mobile and advanced as it is now.

If I remember correctly from either in game commentary or Valve talking about it early on, the Uber was basically designed to kill sentry nests. Heavy is obviously the intended med/uber target in their original design of the game, I don't think we need to take what they "meant" the game to be into consideration.

I guess you can tie that into the discussion of whether you should nerf the IB or buff GL, in that what Valve intended for the power level of the demoman to be in the game as a whole doesn't really have THAT much bearing on how we want the balance to look in our game.

Also there's some weird Death Of The Author argument in here

downvoted

i mean just think of how good air pipes look with the stock grenade launcher, now how would you want to not ban the iron bomber ?, that's it play stock.

.

make stock do this
https://youtu.be/han3AfjH210?t=31

pls learn how to use paragraphs

Man you would have had an omega shit time playing this game pre-sticky nerf, be grateful you can push a chokehold nowadays without 2 stickies wiping out your whole combo.

However I think you made this thread as a bait because I can tell you in NA no one cares to have this weapon banned. If you wanted it banned in EU shouldn't you just make a thread on ETF2L?

noone relevant reads etf2l forums, and admins don't do much unless top players group up and tell them to do it.

The hitbox for pipes and bomber bombs should be averaged, IMO the pipe hitbox is way too small for the model but it's obvious the iron bomber's box is way too big for its model. That being said, I don't think it affects gameplay nearly as much as a few people in here are claiming it does.

also selling prof ks isotope iron bomber for 40 keys hmu

i like how the default pipes have rollers that bounce off walls. we have all been brainwashed by the iron bomber. some people simply underestimate the true potential of the default GL because they are weaklings

stock is really good for spamming long distance. for example, if you were to spam gully choke from your boxes at mid iron bomber nades would stop at their boxes but stock grenades would actually go into their choke. makes forcing medics the easiest thing in the world.

I think this is poor reasoning. The crossbow is for all intents and purposes objectively better than the various needle guns and yet no reasonable person makes the case that it should be banned simply because it is better.

Boston basher > Bat
Ubersaw/Solemn Vow > Bonesaw
Pick axe's and Crit stick > Shovel

Who gives a shit if it has an unintended upside? There are plenty of weapons and mechanics that possess effects that weren't designed as such. Demo has it rough enough and if a weapon makes his life a little bit easier versus today's scouts and soldiers then I support it.

they nerfed the dragon's fury the same way they're totally able to nerf the IB then

#JusticeToDragonsFury

Because the only thing carrying the iron bomber to total domination of the GL meta is this one unintended stat (not any sort of interesting new mechanic), and if it was fixed, then we could see more variety based on the mechanics of different rollers. These weapons you mentioned are completely different classes of utility versus the stock (especially the melee weapons), so I find it misleading to mention these examples.

noob tube

bad weapon/bad class

As can be seen, iron bomber hitbox DOES have downsides...

https://clips.twitch.tv/DarkSplendidCattle4Head

it's also worth noting the projectile hitbox/bounding box in general is super generous already though, rockets fit through 1hmu gaps and I personally never feel like rockets are going through people, so I don't necessarily even agree that having an exact match to the model is the healthiest way for the game to be

also, this hitbox thing still makes way less difference than the bounding box orientation. given that the bounding box is 49x83x49, the actual in game 'width' of the box varies from 49 to just under 70 depending on your angle (correct me if im wrong pls, iirc this is still true)

not saying that the discussion is pointless but I reckon it's pretty hard to say if we should have a 2 unit difference in nade hitbox when the enemy gamers hitbox is varying by that much more

I wanna know if other scouts feel as though they have power as to whether or not they can dodge this shit tho? Like you know how you have a certain control as to whether a rocket or scatter hits you and how it hits you, there's a certain rhythm of movement that u get into to dodge it and all of that

i was always curious as to whether better scouts than me actually had that for this kind of shit, or i just have bad movement?

this isn't a point as to if it is or isnt balanced as it doesn't really matter in terms of the grander scheme of things, but im just curious to kno if better scouts do actually feel like they can move in a way to dodge this shit.

for me, it feels like i hav no control over it whatsoever and is just based on if that demo can hit or not

anyone can hit anything its just about putting a crosshair in the right place at the right time but yes good scout movement helps you avoid spam and directs

wtf i hate demoman now

stock bad iron bombe good

people werent using iron bomber for the hitbox size originally. its the faster det and simply being able to do damage while closely missing evading people is the reason why its used. if the hitbox got changed people will still prefer IB just sayin

i think most people (myself included) used iron bomber because it "felt better", and the hitbox explains that