You are playing the game wrong if you're dying that often. I found my games not changed at all because, you know, I played smart.

Not completely a straight upgrade, you can't be healed with it out.
Valve may be willing to actually help out the game more, but they neglect the obvious and will tend to make bad choices that can be easily avoided.
Also, they BS many weapons by saying "No Random Crits", maybe they should do the same for The Escape Plan since that's one of their main ideas of "nerfing".

Tested that during a pug yesterday and it's not true, you can still heal people using the escape plan with the crossbow.

Maybe they only changed it for the Equalizer and not the Escape Plan.

GG Valve, still unable to fix it.

Like you would ever have it out near a medic who would be trying to heal you.

So I have a friend who's played a lot of games in his life. One of them was TF2, and he's only ever played it in pubs. He has no competitive experience whatsoever. All he knows is that in 6s there are rollouts to mid that soldiers and demomen use.

6:40 PM - greatstalin: were you around for when the equalizer got split into the equalizer and escape plan?
6:40 PM - Inspector Who☆: yep
6:40 PM - greatstalin: ok so, in 6s , one soldier is designated as the roamer
6:40 PM - greatstalin: one of the most commonly used weapons for attempts at escape when the situation calls for it is, well, the escape plan
6:41 PM - greatstalin: now the roamer does a lot of things, but one of his roles/abilities is to jump onto the enemy and just shit rockets on them to try to create an opportunity
6:41 PM - greatstalin: do you think that equipping the escape plan has any correlation to being able to rocket jump effectively/correctly?
6:42 PM - Inspector Who☆: not really, if you can't do it beforehand I don't think you would do well with it
6:42 PM - Inspector Who☆: idk if people use it for rocketjumping though

The escape plan gets nerfed so escaping makes you take 35% more damage

While the pyro gets a weapon that gives a 15% speed increase while the weapon is out, regardless of health, gets 75 health back on kill and only takes 20% more damage while the weapon is active

It's baffling

yeah i suppose but im already used the pain train like 50% of the time so it just is going to make me use one unlock instead of 2 so tbh it is kinda the opposite

the damage nerf was more than sufficient to the escape plan. once a soldier runs out of all 4 rockets, or drops below the threshold where an RJ will kill him, he's 3% faster than a heavy aka dead as shit.

if they really felt they needed to nerf it (even after dmg nerf, and the fact that beam cant be on you when it's out) they should've given it the joke of a nerf of +10% hitscan dmg taken that pain train has.

Pretty big nerf, that was unnecessary. Probably has as big an impact or more on aggressive pockets rather than roamers. Roamers can still rj out with low hp, but as pocket you pretty much either win the fight or die now. Soldier was already the worst class without heals. You're never going to escape a fight when your low and the other team has no range fall off. Seems like paintrain is the way to go now on most maps, except maybe for rollouts.

What valve wants is just for us to try new things, mixup^ the strategies(huehue), try new weapons, rollout in new ways. After this I really do realize how Robin Walker said how the competitive scene seems stale and stagnant. It's pretty them saying, "we made these weapons for a reason, use them". Only a few weapons should really be banned, like the bonk and the sandman, which are just silly and almost unfair gimmicks.
As for the other weapons, it would be nice to see these unlocks being utitlized in new ways for the better and entertainment.

Imagine, b4nnys' moment of glory was done with a beggars bazooka instead. Not saying the frag itself was underwhelming, but things like that can be mind-blowing.

Honestly, what valve supremely knows is, if they completely deleted the escape plan from the game, 99% of people would continue playing, thus opening new ideas and strategies that can be potentially more exciting or more effective.

this nerf is a joke and completely unnecessary, the only thing that was ever OP about the equalizer was the damage, when it was first introduced to the game. so it got nerfed with less damage and split into two as the escape plan. ok thats fine, now taking crits simply for having it out??? pointless, scouts can never complain again. boston basher is infinitely better as a viable melee in terms of use by all classes in comp.

boston basher = build with med, bleed on hit, jump higher than normal simply by swinging it

escape plan = run fast when hurt, take mini crits when hit just for having it out, less damage on hit

I'm a Soldier and I'd say 30% less damage is ok.

If valve really wants to make the escape plan user take more damage while it's out, why not change it to how the crit-a-cola and steak sandwich now work - take a flat 25% more damage without minicrits, therefore solving the falloff problem n shit.

dmg nerf is even moreso important when understanding that a lot of roaming soldiers use the gunboats along with the escape plan

that is to say: with the damage nerf, you as a gunboats soldier are relying solely on your rockets, and are losing every other safety net for damage as a way of getting the fuck outta there if things get awry

aka: a balanced weapon, unlike this which actively harms the main point of the weapon

*

I think you underestimate how good scout mains are at finding things to complain about.

Escape plan should be changed back to what it was. Disciplinary Action should be nerfed so it only speeds up the person you hit instead of you as well. Equalizer should be changed to something powerful enough to compete with the escape plan.

Valve wants more weapon variety and I think these changes would encourage that.

Should be renamed 'Suicide Plan' or perhaps 'Rollout Plan'.

Penalizing soldiers for actually using the weapon for its intended purpose is stupid.
They should have just nerfed the damage.

I'm not sure why i got so many -frags about this. It's not like I enjoy the changes. I would prefer it to go back to normal. The OP was just throwing around some possible suggestions to make everyone happy because valve wants a change so badly.

Because you made a wall of text for a really simple (yet important) issue. Also, stop complaining about -frags.

Remove minicrit/mark of death, reduce damage to 33, and basically nobody would complain. Lets email valve and hope something happens.

Wall of text? Pretty sure it wasn't but whatever you say.

Valve's intention with the update was to encourage use of the other unlocks. I think the nerf they implemented was the only way they could reach that goal and still keep the escape plan usable.

While they're at it they might as well make it do 0 damage, since getting a kill with the thing is next to impossible with the mini crits

I think just make it do 40 damage. Means you have to 4 hit a fully healed scout/medic. Its usefulness is the speed, not the damage it does, and a lot of people's quarrels with it (apparently) are its damage + speed. Remove the one that's 'less useful'.

I think at the bare minimum this should be done. It is very annoying to be marked just because you like to switch between weapons or if you switched accidentally. On top of that, I dislike the idea of there being crits outside of the kritzkreig. Really I think the entire nerf is uncalled for.

The funniest thing is when you factor in damage falloff with the minicrits

With a simple 35% extra damage taken, long range pistols would only do 10 damage.
Because of the minicrits, there's no falloff and it uses the base damage for calculation, so the shots will do 20 damage.

Thanks for the +100% damage taken at long range Valve, you're the best.

A double escape planned a med in a scrim post nerf...
I'll post the vid when I get fraps on my laptop.