Leagues order Promod à la carte

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posted in News

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May 16, 2020

While not an altogether new topic, the last several weeks has seen a large amount of discourse among the community on the topic of plugins that modify TF2's gameplay to varying degrees. The pack, available on GitHub contains a variety of fixes developed principally by twiikuu, with contributions from stephanie and laurirasanen. The plugin contains quality of life improvements such as:

Removal of randomness in fall damage amounts
Fixing crossbow bolts not connecting at very close range
Fixing inconsistency in ramp slides
Fixing stickies not detonating while switching weapons
Removing projectiles colliding with teammates at certain ranges
Removal of Halloween soul particles
Transparent Soldier memorials

In addition to this, there are two more controversial toggles: removal of Medic attach speed, and Gunboat resistance always applies. With many league seasons fast approaching, we reached out to admins from the top leagues in EU, NA, and APAC to find out what their leagues would be doing going forward regarding plugins, in the first part of teamfortresstv's ongoing coverage of the situation.

Europe has seen the most widespread testing of promod plugins, with much of today's discussion being spurred on by Matthes' mix group created to test the removal of Medic attach speed. On May 4th, ETF2L announced they would be taking on the following quality of life mods for season 36, and the preseason qualifiers:

Ramp slide fix
Consistent fall damage
Sticky detonation fix
Crossbow bolt fix
No Halloween souls

We reached out to ETF2L head admin Aoshi, who shared their reasoning and hopes for the future.

As the discussion about plugins only being started up quite recently we feel like this might have blind sighted some players that aren't as active within the community forums. So we're giving it a bit of breathing room to allow for players to get adjusted to these plugins at a rather slow speed for now. Which is why we've largely focused on bug fixing as well as small quality of life plugins.
The only major plugin that we're still looking at being the medic scout speed plugin. However, we wanted to get sufficient feedback before simply dropping it into the upcoming season. In the case that this plugin doesn't make it into this season we would still have interest into a potential future with the plugin or a variant of it after larger scale testing.
With the lack of updates being added into the game this almost feels like a natural progression to avoid staleness. Updating or adding in new elements will allow for changes directly aimed at improving competitive TF2 which would be very improbable with actual updates. We hope that if an eventual push is made for a promod this gets done on a global scale.

Moving on to North America, in initial announcements for season 3 of their traditional sixes league, RGL included a survey to their players on how the league should move forward regarding a promod. As of May 5th, the results are in (as seen below), and while for this season specific balance changes have been ruled out, the following fixes will be applied for the upcoming season:

Ramp slide fix (88% for out of 696 votes)
Consistent fall damage (88% for out of 695 votes)
Sticky detonation fix (88% for out of 694 votes)
Crossbow bolt fix (90% for out of 694 votes)
No Halloween souls (69% for out of 526 votes)
Transparent Soldier memorials (not in poll)

In the blog post announcement, head admin exa_ shared the league's rationale behind their decision.

For the remaining promod features, there remains insufficient testing in the North American scene for us to properly gauge the impact they have on affecting gameplay, as many players have not properly play tested in such an environment yet. These features additionally turn off settings enabled by Valve or revert changes in previous updates that alter the game. As such, we classify these as features and not fixes. Plans to have an offseason cup to test these variables will be looked at in the future.

Looking down under, ozfortress has taken a comparatively conservative approach, again citing a lack of regional testing, but will be implementing the following changes starting with the upcoming season 28:

Sticky detonation fix
Ramp slide fix
Removal of Soldier memorials

Head admin catfish elaborated on the league's decision and plans for the future.

We currently have plans to use the sticky det bug fix next season and likely in all future competitions, however outside of that we have no immediate plans to incorporate any of the other changes from the plugin. Our reasoning for this is that while the sticky det bug is clealy a bug, the other issues the plugin fixes are deliberate decisions from Valve (or at least seem somewhat intentional) and we feel that this crosses over into promod territory, and changing core game mechanics is a significant step for the game. We aren't opposed to implementing these changes in the future if there is demand, however if we do it will likely be in the form of a test cup first and would also require further discussion.

Last but not least, we end with AsiaFortress. While the league has made no formal announcements at this point, we were able to chat with head admin Fwishy, who confirmed that the league was looking to test both balance changes and quality of life plugins for future seasons of the league.

These are the decisions that have been made, but the future lies in the hands of you, the people. If you're looking for some takes from people who are better at the game than I am, check out the VOD of our latest episode of Fully Charged. Or while you're stuck inside, try out local efforts to test these changes.

Menachem

49 Frags – +

finally, some good fucking news

jimmij

64 Frags – +

who voted no for the bug fixes

72456

97 Frags – +

[20:18]
valve tf2 jill:
that thread has done it there will be no major

well done guys

[20:18]
valve tf2 jill:
that thread has done it there will be no major

well done guys

brody

1 Frags – +

what's the ramp slide fix

dbk

10 Frags – +

zx37what's the ramp slide fix

no more randomly stopping when ur sliding on ramps

[quote=zx37]what's the ramp slide fix[/quote]
no more randomly stopping when ur sliding on ramps

brody

1 Frags – +

dbkzx37what's the ramp slide fixno more randomly stopping when ur sliding on ramps

like when you start slowing down a bit? or is it a bug where u just stop for no reason?

[quote=dbk][quote=zx37]what's the ramp slide fix[/quote]
no more randomly stopping when ur sliding on ramps[/quote]
like when you start slowing down a bit? or is it a bug where u just stop for no reason?

Pum

13 Frags – +

Am I the only one that thinks the Gunboats change isnt a good idea? I feel like it goes against the core design of the soldier, where his weaknesses were designed around his primary weapon.

Pum

2 Frags – +

wolsnePumAm I the only one that thinks the Gunboats change isnt a good idea? I feel like it goes against the core design of the soldier, where his weaknesses were designed around his primary weapon.The gun boats change strictly makes it so when wearing them and attacking a point blank enemy, the damage applied will be as if rocket jumping and not full self damage. The change is not gunboats effect even with shotgun equipped.

I know... I am talking exatly about that... Even if you have gunboats I believe you should take full damage if you fire a rocket at someone that got in your face, they out-positioned you.

[quote=wolsne][quote=Pum]Am I the only one that thinks the Gunboats change isnt a good idea? I feel like it goes against the core design of the soldier, where his weaknesses were designed around his primary weapon.[/quote]
The gun boats change strictly makes it so when wearing them and attacking a point blank enemy, the damage applied will be as if rocket jumping and not full self damage. The change is [b]not[/b] gunboats effect even with shotgun equipped.[/quote]
I know... I am talking exatly about that... Even if you have gunboats I believe you should take full damage if you fire a rocket at someone that got in your face, they out-positioned you.

GrapeJuiceIII

37 Frags – +

Pumthey out-positioned you.

eating a 112 damage rocket is not out-positioning somebody

[quote=Pum]they out-positioned you.[/quote]
eating a 112 damage rocket is not out-positioning somebody

#10

Collaide

refresh.tf

0 Frags – +

No removal of friendly projectile collision in etf2l? :(

#11

plunk

26 Frags – +

cant believe twiikuu killed tf2...

#12

twiikuu

15 Frags – +

catfishOur reasoning for this is that while the sticky det bug is clealy a bug, the other issues the plugin fixes are deliberate decisions from Valve

I would like to contest this decision when it comes to the crossbow by providing some insight:

The virtual method `bool CBaseProjectile::CanCollideWithTeammates(*this)` returns the field `m_bCanCollideWithTeammates` which is initialized to false and updated to true during `CollideWithTeammatesThink`.
`CBaseProjectile::Spawn()` schedules this `Think` to execute after `gpGlobals->curtime + GetCollideWithTeammatesDelay()`, the latter returning 250ms by default.
The file concerned is `game/shared/baseprojectile.cpp`.

`CTFProjectile_HealingBolt` overrides `GetCollideWithTeammatesDelay` to always return 0ms,
however the projectile obviously doesn't collide with teammates as soon as it spawns.
I believe this behavior to not be expected, the intent seems to want it collide as soon as possible but it seems that `Think`s are only precise over a few server ticks.

One could argue that developers were aware of the effects of both methods as `CTFProjectile_GrapplingHook`, which is just below and shares its mother class with `CTFProjectile_HealingBolt`, and simply overrides `CanCollideWithTeammates` to always return false.
I don't believe this to be a fair assessment. Grappling hooks were added later on, and the only way to implement the logic to ignore teammates would have been by overriding `CanCollideWithTeammates` (or `CollideWithTeammatesThink`), possibly creating the need for a virtual method altogether.
In this case, as the behaviors are different and as the Crossbow's current implementation was probably not known to be an issue, it was overlooked and was not updated.

The file concerned is `game/server/tf/tf_projectile_arrow.cpp`.

Thank you.

[quote=catfish]Our reasoning for this is that while the sticky det bug is clealy a bug, the other issues the plugin fixes are deliberate decisions from Valve[/quote]
I would like to contest this decision when it comes to the crossbow by providing some insight:

The virtual method `bool CBaseProjectile::CanCollideWithTeammates(*this)` returns the field `m_bCanCollideWithTeammates` which is initialized to false and updated to true during `CollideWithTeammatesThink`.
`CBaseProjectile::Spawn()` schedules this `Think` to execute after `gpGlobals->curtime + GetCollideWithTeammatesDelay()`, the latter returning 250ms by default.
The file concerned is `game/shared/baseprojectile.cpp`.

`CTFProjectile_HealingBolt` overrides `GetCollideWithTeammatesDelay` to always return 0ms,
however the projectile obviously doesn't collide with teammates as soon as it spawns.
I believe this behavior to not be expected, the intent seems to want it collide as soon as possible but it seems that `Think`s are only precise over a few server ticks.

One could argue that developers were aware of the effects of both methods as `CTFProjectile_GrapplingHook`, which is just below and shares its mother class with `CTFProjectile_HealingBolt`, and simply overrides `CanCollideWithTeammates` to always return false.
I don't believe this to be a fair assessment. Grappling hooks were added later on, and the only way to implement the logic to ignore teammates would have been by overriding `CanCollideWithTeammates` (or `CollideWithTeammatesThink`), possibly creating the need for a virtual method altogether.
In this case, as the behaviors are different and as the Crossbow's current implementation was probably not known to be an issue, it was overlooked and was not updated.

The file concerned is `game/server/tf/tf_projectile_arrow.cpp`.

Thank you.

#13

Stylax

3 Frags – +

PumwolsnePumAm I the only one that thinks the Gunboats change isnt a good idea? I feel like it goes against the core design of the soldier, where his weaknesses were designed around his primary weapon.The gun boats change strictly makes it so when wearing them and attacking a point blank enemy, the damage applied will be as if rocket jumping and not full self damage. The change is not gunboats effect even with shotgun equipped.I know... I am talking exatly about that... Even if you have gunboats I believe you should take full damage if you fire a rocket at someone that got in your face, they out-positioned you.

I also think you should take a shitload of self damage if you shoot a rocket launcher into an enemy that is essentially pressed right up against you. As I said in the thread about the changes, it feels like a get out of jail free card for soldiers when you've ended up in what should be a bad position. I know it's annoying when some scout eats your direct and one shots you when you meet round a corner, but then you should prefire corners or whatever. Essentially this change means that instead of enemies waddling into soldiers to cause a lot of self damage, soldiers can walk into enemies to do lots of damage without taking much. Seems arbitrary.

Imo, the gunboats are for rocket jumping only.

[quote=Pum][quote=wolsne][quote=Pum]Am I the only one that thinks the Gunboats change isnt a good idea? I feel like it goes against the core design of the soldier, where his weaknesses were designed around his primary weapon.[/quote]
The gun boats change strictly makes it so when wearing them and attacking a point blank enemy, the damage applied will be as if rocket jumping and not full self damage. The change is [b]not[/b] gunboats effect even with shotgun equipped.[/quote]
I know... I am talking exatly about that... Even if you have gunboats I believe you should take full damage if you fire a rocket at someone that got in your face, they out-positioned you.[/quote]

I also think you should take a shitload of self damage if you shoot a rocket launcher into an enemy that is essentially pressed right up against you. As I said in the thread about the changes, it feels like a get out of jail free card for soldiers when you've ended up in what should be a bad position. I know it's annoying when some scout eats your direct and one shots you when you meet round a corner, but then you should prefire corners or whatever. Essentially this change means that instead of enemies waddling into soldiers to cause a lot of self damage, soldiers can walk into enemies to do lots of damage without taking much. Seems arbitrary.

Imo, the gunboats are for rocket jumping only.

#14

Pum

5 Frags – +

GrapeJuiceIIIPumthey out-positioned you.eating a 112 damage rocket is not out-positioning somebody

Getting forced in a situation where you have to shoot someone at your face thus taking so much self damage IS getting out-positioned. Soldier is meant to be weak at point blank range like demoman, a player managing to exploit one of your class weaknesses shouldn't get punished (or just the soldier being able to escape for free) with an unlockable weapon (Gunboats).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxMzJZ7ddpg&t=8m7s

[quote=GrapeJuiceIII][quote=Pum]they out-positioned you.[/quote]
eating a 112 damage rocket is not out-positioning somebody[/quote]

Getting forced in a situation where you have to shoot someone at your face thus taking so much self damage IS getting out-positioned. Soldier is meant to be weak at point blank range like demoman, a player managing to exploit one of your class weaknesses shouldn't get punished (or just the soldier being able to escape for free) with an unlockable weapon (Gunboats).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxMzJZ7ddpg&t=8m7s

#15

glass

0 Frags – +

what is the crossbow distance now? if you shoot a bolt from inside someone's model, will it heal them or go out?

#16

Collaide

refresh.tf

-3 Frags – +

Pumstuff

The weakness of the 200hp soldier class is taking self damage from rockets, but the weakness of the squishy 125hp dude is somehow not that because he shot faster and/or has a heal beam up his ass

[quote=Pum]stuff[/quote]
The weakness of the 200hp soldier class is taking self damage from rockets, but the weakness of the squishy 125hp dude is somehow not that because he shot faster and/or has a heal beam up his ass

#17

Reflecto

-4 Frags – +

Pumthey out-positioned you.

a scout double jumping at my face in close quarters is not out positioning. even if you want to argue that it is out positioning you, then you would still need to explain why something that wasn't difficult for you should be so consequential for the soldier. i've never seen a scout like hit an insane surf to get in range of you to do more self damage to yourself. most of the time it's accidental and is the scouts only option to not insta lose and it should not be so punishing for the soldier.

[quote=Pum]they out-positioned you.[/quote]
a scout double jumping at my face in close quarters is not out positioning. even if you want to argue that it is out positioning you, then you would still need to explain why something that wasn't difficult for you should be so consequential for the soldier. i've never seen a scout like hit an insane surf to get in range of you to do more self damage to yourself. most of the time it's accidental and is the scouts only option to not insta lose and it should not be so punishing for the soldier.

#18

YeeHaw

15 Frags – +

The gunboats change plays fine you actually have to have good movement on scout and cant just w to kill a soldier in close range. If you miss a crucial shot you will now not get the kill when the soldier jumps away instead of being rewarded a consolation frag.

#19

messiah

9 Frags – +

if you're applying this self damage change to soldier, does demo also get this change?

idk when i read this change the first thing that comes to mind is a soldier fast bombing into process choke or even fast bombing mid to demo.

thus landing his body onto him or to a group of players by surprise and only doing like 30 self damage seems a bit ridiculous. doesn't really make it into a suicide play anymore

if you're applying this self damage change to soldier, does demo also get this change?

idk when i read this change the first thing that comes to mind is a soldier fast bombing into process choke or even fast bombing mid to demo.

thus landing his body onto him or to a group of players by surprise and only doing like 30 self damage seems a bit ridiculous. doesn't really make it into a suicide play anymore

#20

jetz

23 Frags – +

spacing rockets so that they dont chunk your own health is also part of having good soldier mechanics

#21

GrapeJuiceIII

-5 Frags – +

Nathan

if your rocket does damage to an enemy, regardless of if it is splash or direct, it no longer counts as a rocket jump and you are going to take massive damage for no reason

see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWpbKBQ8MlM

[quote=Nathan][/quote]
if your rocket does damage to an enemy, regardless of if it is splash or direct, it no longer counts as a rocket jump and you are going to take massive damage for no reason

see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWpbKBQ8MlM

#22

Sean

ozfstats

3 Frags – +

twiikuu-snip-
Thank you.

as per my previous email......

[quote=twiikuu]
-snip-
Thank you.[/quote]

as per my previous email......

#23

jetz

7 Frags – +

GrapeJuiceIIINathanif your rocket does damage to an enemy, regardless of if it is splash or direct, it no longer counts as a rocket jump and you are going to take massive damage for no reason

see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWpbKBQ8MlM

yes the skill is in spacing the rocket so that you are not in the splash range. maybe i just think about this because im an ammomod neet

eg: dont just shoot someone straight in the face for 100, doing like 80 to yourself, shoot the rocket slightly behind them and do 70 to them and 0 to yourself

[quote=GrapeJuiceIII][quote=Nathan][/quote]
if your rocket does damage to an enemy, regardless of if it is splash or direct, it no longer counts as a rocket jump and you are going to take massive damage for no reason

see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWpbKBQ8MlM[/quote]
yes the skill is in spacing the rocket so that you are not in the splash range. maybe i just think about this because im an ammomod neet

eg: dont just shoot someone straight in the face for 100, doing like 80 to yourself, shoot the rocket slightly behind them and do 70 to them and 0 to yourself

#24

Menachem

-5 Frags – +

Nathaneg: dont just shoot someone straight in the face for 100, doing like 80 to yourself, shoot the rocket slightly behind them and do 70 to them and 0 to yourself

and then when they live with 20 hp and meatshot your ragdoll 30 yards away, curse this game and everyone who worked on it

[quote=Nathan]
eg: dont just shoot someone straight in the face for 100, doing like 80 to yourself, shoot the rocket slightly behind them and do 70 to them and 0 to yourself[/quote]
and then when they live with 20 hp and meatshot your ragdoll 30 yards away, curse this game and everyone who worked on it

#25

messiah

2 Frags – +

you guys suck at soldier

soldier is winston with a rocket launcher

you guys suck at soldier

soldier is winston with a rocket launcher

#26

nazara

12 Frags – +

messiahyou guys suck at soldier

soldier is winston with a rocket launcher

the dark souls of team fortress 2 classes

[quote=messiah]you guys suck at soldier

soldier is winston with a rocket launcher[/quote]
the dark souls of team fortress 2 classes

#27

jetz

-3 Frags – +

NathanGrapeJuiceIIINathanif your rocket does damage to an enemy, regardless of if it is splash or direct, it no longer counts as a rocket jump and you are going to take massive damage for no reason

see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWpbKBQ8MlMyes the skill is in spacing the rocket so that you are not in the splash range. maybe i just think about this because im an ammomod neet

eg: dont just shoot someone straight in the face for 100, doing like 80 to yourself, shoot the rocket slightly behind them and do 70 to them and 0 to yourself

also getting good at this can also make you really good at making your rockets unsurfable by medics so it is a very worthwhile skill

[quote=Nathan][quote=GrapeJuiceIII][quote=Nathan][/quote]
if your rocket does damage to an enemy, regardless of if it is splash or direct, it no longer counts as a rocket jump and you are going to take massive damage for no reason

see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWpbKBQ8MlM[/quote]
yes the skill is in spacing the rocket so that you are not in the splash range. maybe i just think about this because im an ammomod neet

eg: dont just shoot someone straight in the face for 100, doing like 80 to yourself, shoot the rocket slightly behind them and do 70 to them and 0 to yourself[/quote]

also getting good at this can also make you really good at making your rockets unsurfable by medics so it is a very worthwhile skill

#28

TailorTF

Stream Highlights

0 Frags – +

I'm unclear on how exactly the sticky det delay bug worked. Could anybody help me understand? Was it just you couldn't det stickies when you switched weapons?

#29

syph

4 Frags – +

zx37dbkzx37what's the ramp slide fixno more randomly stopping when ur sliding on rampslike when you start slowing down a bit? or is it a bug where u just stop for no reason?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_JYJiB0CYw

[quote=zx37][quote=dbk][quote=zx37]what's the ramp slide fix[/quote]
no more randomly stopping when ur sliding on ramps[/quote]
like when you start slowing down a bit? or is it a bug where u just stop for no reason?[/quote]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_JYJiB0CYw

#30

Hedge

2 Frags – +

gunboat resistance always applies would benefit soldier in soldier v demo ... doesnt make sense

1 2

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