i think the majority of people who say they're pleased with it are just tired of being disappointed by valve.
the skins and contracts are nice, a much better system than the one we had before hand, but i was never into that at all so it doesn't really effect me. still a good idea by them though i guess, but the pyro shit is terrible. none of the new weapons apart from the dragons fury are even worth talking about, i guess you guys can use the gas passer in comp, but its impact is still not that significant.
i dont even really need to talk about the jetpack cause we all know its useless. it should be apart of the base pyro and have more diverse movement options in the air though, but it was a good idea, its just the way it was executed wasn't good. pyros just get shot out the sky and rushed when they use it, like everyone predicted.
the dragons fury while not overpowered at all is just stupid as fuck.to dodge it, you just hold s, which is just boring. when you're dodging a soldier or another scout or a demo, its interesting because theres different ways to fight it. the range being its downside is such a stupid way to balance it, for the pyro and the person fighting the pyro. if you're out of range you're just never getting hit and the pyros just helplessly spamming the thing, but if you are, your health goes from 125 to 20 in a sec because it does way to much damage way too quickly for the skill required to use it. every single wep that does that much damage in the game is much harder to pull off. so when a pyro just comes behind you, before you could just turn around and deal with it, but now that it kills even faster you just insta die. people who say the fact you gotta hit it 2x means that its skillful, i don't get that. doing the flare degresser thing took more skill than using this thing for sure, and thats not even as strong. why did they buff afterburn damage? that makes no sense either. you just die while the kid is just spawned simply because there's no health pack around and then you die as it spawns. there's nothing casual or good about it, its just plain stupid.
pyro is just as stupid as it always was. i think its even more stupid now for the same reasons that we all thought it was. its just that the flames are visually fixed (jediflamaster rejoice) and then everything else is just mad dumb.
the pistol is stupid. no one asked for that. why did they think that was a good idea? how many threads have we made where we asked for an accurate tracking gun, but they make these things? the amby didnt need a nerf at all and their reasoning for it is stupid as fuck because if i died to one at range i was more impressed than anything. i'd play spy when people got annoyed with me for playing scout just to use it, because it was hard, satisfying and no one got annoyed that i was killing them, but now that i can't just hit them from all ranges i just won't play the class. the bison is good it should never have been really changed in the past as im sure we can all agree on.
the most significant thing i think to take away from the balance changes is how many times we see the same weapons over and over again. its clear they don't even understand what they're doing, you guys give them the advice cause you actually play the game and understand its mechanics, and they just ignore it. it doesn't make any sense..