It's not best in the world level play but both Opti and Zikto (roughly high/prem level demos) ran quickiebombs full time at gamers assembly and were pretty effective with it.

good thing its banned in esea

people actually hate you more than they hate me

i'd get off tftv if i were you

I got no idea why americans want to ban it, It's not that strong and I feel like ESEA shouldn't take the opinion of mid players so seriously that they ban it. This is just my opinion and personal experience but losing the ability to use pipes is a huge deal as it leaves you very vulnerable and the health boost doesn't do much when you have a soldier with gunboats sitting on your head. When you run out of your 8 sticky's you are completely useless and a sitting duck, if a good scout knows you are running booties they will abuse this. This weapon will probably only be used by people who struggle with aiming pipes but even then they will be at a disadvantage vs demomen who can aim pipes so it's better to just learn how to aim pipes. It might be really good for early mids but I feel like you can counter this and then he has no pipes to spam or to defend himself with.

Playing with booties does take a decent amount of skill as you need to play around your huge disadvantage of not having pipes. You need to have top positioning, ammo management ect to be able to use them effectively throughout the game.

Playing with booties might take skill but it doesn't add any to the class. Punishing mistakes that were already punished doesnt mean that the weapon rewards skills that were previously unused. The gunboats do and thats why they're a good passive unlock

Booties are a powerful unlock, and sure they make the demo deal more DPM, while the presence of pipes, although less reliable as a weapon in a 1v1 situation can be very important especially in chokes and in the hands of good demomen it's a good way to deal high direct damage (and they do allow the demo to put out more firepower in a sense). I see the Booties as one of those weapons which players would probably find more problems with at lower levels.

The thing about it is that it offers two passive upsides while removing a weapon, which is kind of a lame-ish thing. Demomen sees a lot more use in two different weapons while other frag classes generally keep it to their primary to deal damage. As someone said before, not op but trading skillful play for passives is eh.

I'm confused now. Booties do add something to the class. I think booties and gunboats are very similar. They take a weapon away (shotgun, pipes) and give you a buff on a different aspect of the class. So you need to learn to adapt to play without that weapon, which adds a new skill to the class. Learning to play without pipes is just like learning to play without a shotgun and learning to use the advantage booties gives you is like learning to use with the advantage gunboats give you. Gunboats didn't add a skill to soldier, rocket jumping was already in the game, gunboats just get you to make the most of that skill, just like booties get you to make the most of other skills such as positioning or ammo management.

Booties add a passive health benefit and a speed boost. The gunboats remove damage on blast jumps. On the surface their similar because their passive shoes that remove a weapon for a stat buff, but the implementation and effect are really different.

That isn't what makes the gunboats require different skills than the stock tho. Playing without a weapon is inherently simpler than playing with one because the number of strategic options you have is limited and you therefore have to think less about how to use yr weapons and where to position for them. Since no one even uses pipes as a primary anyway, the difference between stock and booties on how demos actually play is minimal. There is no increased mobility or any other skill based technique that is offered by the booties. You're simply better at what you were already doing.

Gunboats don't emphasize a skill that the soldier already had. They make short jumps better or w/e but the actual interesting and skill indexed part of them is how the reward skilled jumping by allowing you to string together 4-6 rockets and still be relatively alive. Long chains of jumps with speedshots and shit are technically possible with stock, but so impractical as to be useless, whereas with the boats they're an actual option and they allow roamers to stratify their skill levels not on just DM and gamesense but jumping ability as well. You lose the ability to improve at hitscan aim, but gain the ability to outplay people in an area that was previously not part of the soldier's skillset. The booties otoh only stratify demos on their Gamesense like normal demos, but put even less emphasis on DM. The booties are regressive to the skill ceiling of the demoman, while the gunboats are progressive.

Gunboats are not a game-changing unlock because you can go around speedshotting and treating things like a jump map.

They're a game-changing unlock because they make every normal rocket-jump far less damaging, letting you jump without being tethered to a medic and letting you move around the map more quickly. It's not an unlock that you have to be skillful to use.

True that, I'm seeing what he said as the Gunboats allow Soldier to use one of his skills (rocket jumping) with greater liberty and allowing Soldier to do stuff he normally wouldn't be able to do, without it just being "I have more HP when I bomb" or whatever.

Being good for the game isn't the same as being a well designed weapon tho. Gunboats are well designed AND add to the game. Just because the Booties are a bad weapon doesn't mean they're bad for the game. Something can be OP (EP) or niche af (Conch) and still make the game more fun and interesting, but the idea should be to make weapons that both expand what the class can do with skill and allow the class to close holes in the game that are causing stalemates or unpleasant gameplay. Obviously not every weapon fits both criteria, the Basher isn't a hard weapon to use, and the winger doesn't change the game significantly, but hitting at least one of those is really important in making a weapon that works for 6s

Booties don't create a shift in the demoman class the way the gunboats do. They're not game-changing, and that's strike 1. Strike 2 is they're overpowered. 3 is they're less skill indexed and lower the skill ceiling of the class. Sorry that I didn't really complete that thought earlier but it was mostly a response to like a 3 month old post talking about them being shitty weapons, not shitty for the game.

Harder to kill = true

stickies are easier to hit = what? How does moving faster make stickies easier to hit? Their velocity and charge times are exactly the same. Maybe you mean you go to good positions to fire quicker? It's not the same thing

in general it's just unbelievably annoying to play against = your opinion. Don't you find it "unbelievably annoying" to get hit by a direct pipe from afar or worse, by a double donk? Do you find "unbelievably annoying" that a booties demo must choose between a trap and spam?

Also someone said "if a demo uses it i'm forced to use it", WTF? As if a primary weapon (that has a fair amount of luck involved) could not turn the tides of a fight.. If you actually used this argument about the quickiebomb, then it would mean something

Props to the dude that said that nerfing something else than scout in 6s is retarded

Please..

Sorry, I'm having a hard time following this. Escape Plan is OP, and therefore a bad weapon design, but bad weapon design doesn't necessarily mean it's bad for the game. Everyone's fine with the escape plan. The booties fulfill this same criteria, but everyone isn't fine with it. And you say the conch makes the game more interesting (I agree), but there was serious talk of banning it a couple years ago because it engineers formulaic last re-pushes, reasoning outside of the scope of the criteria you've listed. Can you clarify?

For the individual player the Escape Plan is better than stock, and is OP in that regards. It makes the class stronger overall, but it does so in a way that introduces new skills: dodging minicrits and escaping with low HP whereas before you were p much dead below 40 HP as soldier. Adding more ways for players to get better at and improve the game makes the game separate levels of skill more and therefore more competitive which most people call good. As a weapon it is well designed because it makes the class more exciting, adds a new skill to master, and allows the player to interact with other players in interesting ways like rolling out. Its Overpowered but its still good for the player using because it makes the game more fun.

Holistically, the weapon doesn't disrupt the game flow and doesn't let individual soldiers control the game. It'd be hard to call it OP in the context of TF2 as a whole. The Escape Plan prevent soldiers from being relatively easy chipshot targets that can't maneuver or fight <50 HP. No one likes being killed, but fighting against a desperate EP soldier is more interesting than fighting against a desperate shovel soldier because he's more of a threat. It makes the game more exciting for both players because it removes a relatively free kill without completely removing the advantage the nonsoldier has. That makes it a good weapon for the game because everyone on the server has more fun because its in the game.

When you turn that individual lens to the booties you get what I said above: they don't make the game more interesting or exciting for the demoman because he's still just doing what he was doing originally. I think most people would agree that passive weapons are inherently less exciting than ones that are functionally different, and passives that don't provide interesting class expansion will always feel bland regardless of balance. The Razorback is relatively balanced but its not a weapon that is particularly fun to have equipped or fight against. The booties are similar. If everyone here agrees that they're not particularly fun or interesting to play with (as a player), then the discussion shifts to whether or not its worth having a boring but balanced unlock in the game because it makes the entire game more fun for everyone. I'd say fighting a demo with pipes is a lot more exciting than one that's a bit tankier and faster so its pretty clear on that count the booties don't work. I'm not sure if the booties are good for the game, but it seems they're not. They force both demos to use them, reducing the number of interesting 1v1s people can have with demos, and they don't really do much for the pacing of the game. If they allowed new pushes to be made or more exciting bombs to happen they might be worth keeping, but since they're really just a buff to the class with little substance, they should be banned

Yes they do. Rocket jumping is a skill, gunboats allow you to use that skill more often.

why is this even an argument i said that booties requires a different type of skill to play. It gives demoman a totally different playstyle (good or bad). I don't see what there is to argue here. It's the same as pretty much all unlocks, it gives you advantages and disadvantages and makes some things easier to use while other things harder. oh but its a sheepy post it must be wrong.

the most complex jump you can do w/o the gunboats is really different than the most complex jump u can do with them u literal child

idk how such a fucking retard could not get this concept but the idea is they're interesting because they let u use skills (advanced RJ) that u originally couldnt use (not that u couldnt use any skills to begin with)

this is different from boring unlocks that let u play the exact same but better, like the razorback or GRU or w/e

here's u a graph

http://puu.sh/o9ZSm/27e471e8aa.png

the red line is the most jump u can w/ stock soldier in a game adn blu is the most u jump w/ gunboats
w/o gunboats any level of skill that goes above the red line doesn't matter

u cant make a graph like this for booties therefore they're a less interesting weapon

No it's not. You can still do the most complex jump without gunboats as long as you have unlimited health. You don't seem to understand that the skill of rocket jumping itself doesn't require gunboats. Gunboats emphasizes the skill of rocket jumping by allowing you to survive doing the most complex jumps, but you don't require gunboats to actually do the most complex jump. It's the same with booties, they emphasize the skill of sticky jumping by allowing you to do more jumps but they don't actually add anything to sticky jumping itself.

Like how much more clearly do I have to explain, gunboats allow you to take less damage when rocket jumping but don't actually add anything to rocket jumping itself, so it emphasizes a skill that the soldier already has.

@eee

U VERY DUMB PLS STOP TALK

theres no graph u can make to illustrate how good you can get at shotgun and how much skill it requires because its definitely more complex than just whatever ur accuracy

ur also talking about the edge cases of all edgecases as 99.9% of the time it doesnt matter how complex of a rocket jump u can pull off when ur playing

u guys are also forgetting that both of these weapons take a lot of the toll off medic/healspread of the team

u dont have two soldiers always trying to get above 200 hp cuz rjs cost like 40 hp

u now have demos that get 100 hp from packs and can evade heavy classes a lot easier/take more spam while getting through a choke without getting mauled

yeah but you don't have unlimited health as soldier?

minimum sticky self damage is 45. You can't do any more jumps with the booties than without. They don't emphasize sticky jumping, they emphasize having more health.

you do on rocket jump maps or if you enable cheats. thats not even the point, the point is that gunboats don't affect rocket jumping or the skill of rocket jumping. it only affect the damage you take when rocket jumping.

not talking about the shotgun because it doesnt fit into what im talking about process mid rollouts depend on gunboats and w/o them shitty jumpers would be just as effective as normal jumpers no one is arguing that the booties dont make demo stronger theyre arguing that the gunboats and booties are analogous but theyre not because the gunboats are both a good weapon and good for the game as a whole which most people disagree with in regards to the booties

dumb

emphasizing an already existing skill doesn't mean you aren't also expanding on it. I promise u i understand that the gunboats work mechanically by reducing self damage, but the end effect of what they let players in game do means that better players get more out of them. The end result is that by emphasizing rocket jumping, you make it more central to the soldier's play style and reward people who are better at it by letting them be faster and more efficient with their movement. Shitty roamers can barely get to mid, but good ones can make it their much faster. Or get last to last really fast or w/e. Obv most in game situations aren't that silly but its p clear that the gunboats being in game mean that roamers are expected to be better at goin fast

and thus the jumps you can practically do in a match

you are aware that you can't turn on sv_cheats in a match right?

Please gunboats don't change anything whatsoever about the process rollout. Gunboats do not affect someone doing the process rollout, what gunboats does is stop you from dying in the process rollout. You could give youself unlimited hp and do the process rollout without gunboats, it will be exactly the same. Do you see now how gunboats doesn't affect the skill of rocket jumping in any way whatsoever and it doesn't make any difference to it, rocket jumping is always the same no matter what. Gunboats just emphasize that skill, it doesn't actually do anything to the skill itself.

Read what I said above. You are misunderstanding what i'm saying.

Look at the graph pls

If you can't do a jump in game, it doesn't matter if you can do it or not, therefore the skill of being able to do it is useless

If you can do it in game and it confers advantage, then the skill is not useless and the people who are lower skilled are punished because you're faster than them.

Since the process rollout is ONLY practical with gunboats, it means that the gunboats have introduced a new rocket jumping route into the game, and since that route's effectiveness and speed are determined largely by the user's skill at rocket jumping, the skill ceiling has been raised

since the Booties do not allow you to jump more, this does not apply to them

mustard what have u started

This is so wrong. What are jump maps? there's more to rocket jumping than the rocket jumping in 6v6. I have no idea how you have gotten to this point. You said that gunboats affected the skill of rocket jumping, it does not. Rocket jumping is the exact same, gunboats or no gunboats. You can still do those fancy jumps without gunboats, you just need cheats to do it. Gunboats just allow you to take less damage when jumping, why can't you just accept this. This is the 1 time I know that i'm not wrong.

Being super good at syncs or edge bugs doesn't help you in game. If an item was introduced that let you do them, then being able to do them in a 6s game would mean you're better than the other player at jumping in game.

"You said that gunboats affected the skill of rocket jumping"

no retard

i said they make being better at rocket jumping actually matter, which means that they raise the skill ceiling for IN-GAME rocket jumping

I'm an open demo so take this with a grain of salt.

When I use booties, I get more damage and fewer deaths. Bad positioning gets punished less because I have more health/it's way easier to just walk/jump away with the extra health and speed than it is to hit pipes. I also have less fun because hitting pipes is fun and this is pretty much the only reason I use pipes. Ammo management while more important is actually simpler because you only have to manage one weapon.

I don't know if I think they are op, but I very selfishly want them banned so that I can justify running pipes full time.

it doesn't even matter what I say cause you will just disagree and it will literally go on forever. You have a different view of gunboats ok.

You are wrong on booties being OP though. They aren't OP.