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

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.

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

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

went to one last semester and transferred :)

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.

"if only because esportsnerds are so ornery and superstitious"

do people only read half of posts?

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.

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

The gunboats are different in that they increase the skill ceiling and let you do jump map jumps in game, while the 25HP of the booties doesn't confer nearly the same movement buff. Gunboats trade active hitscan skill for a passive buff that is only really useful if you're good at an arguably harder and more active skill. The Booties trade active projectile skill for a passive health buff and a move/jumpspeed bonus that can't really be actively used. If the booties opened up new ways for demos to be better than one another, they'd be much more positively embraced imo

no one here would call themselves 99% of mouse users tho :(

Wireless mice have always been fine for dads and office workers and normies and even casual gamers, but considering everyone here makes active decisions in their setup that result in saving maybe a tick or two, I'd be surprised if anyone would voluntarily use something like this even if the sensor delay was only 50% slower than a wire, if only because esportsnerds are so ornery and superstitious

ok

wonderful cool calm collected epic etc

i feel sorry for people with looking threads like this because their friends guarantee no one will pick them up

worst part is a game ban from tf2 overwatch wont mean anything based on this