There's not a lot here but it's some pretty significant stuff. Also, I might have broken heavy. But, that's okay. He was already pretty stupid, right?

Heavy is no longer the slow moving immobile sentry that he was. He's dropped down to 350 hp and recieves 50% less healing from medics (was 25%). He's found his running shoes and is now just a vicious killing machine. His surviveability might still be a little too high, but we'll see how this works. This will certainly encourage heavies to not stand around on the intel and defend it--and they won't have to! Scout bat, once again, no longer gives absurd air control. It was originally added to put scouts up in the air more and give more opprotunities for airshots or cool plays...but the whole air control thing went a little too far. Despite them being up in the air, they were unhittable, and most of us know the game entirely revolved around flying like a super hero.


Even if a pesky scout does run away with the intel now, not all hope is lost. The intel can be instantly returned to the base by touching it, Quake/Tribes style. All of this greatly reduces the scout's potential, I realize. We'll be looking at what he needs to help him continue being an effective capper. Dust off your wingers, they're still really good.

I'm still not entirely sure what to do with sniper, but if I did know...It might also help counter the heavy who may be super powerful now. Keep in mind, the heavy can NOT pick up the intel so he can't do everything by himself. (let me know if he does, those are called bugs).

Another major consideration right now is changing heavy to be unlocked for a team on flag caps, rather than a 2 minute timer. This would encourage objective play, but potentially snowball a team for a quicker victory. It would be interesting to see everyone pull back for defense knowing they could have a heavy after a cap until he's dealt with. Who knows?


List of Changes:
Demoman sticky launcher fires faster
3 Ammo for grenade launcher, up from 1
New Heavy Minigun (again)
Heavy shotgun is now destroyed on backstab (not minigun)
Scout bat air control removed
Scout bat speed buffs allies
Syringe damage lowered
CTF flags can now be instantly returned

Servers work! That's a pretty big change. Halloween broke everything, as most official valve updates will tend to do...but the larger holiday ones explode things more betterer. I've been busy and because of the server explodes, not too many changes this week.


Demoman got a grenade launcher that can actually be used. Pull people into your sword or traps.


ONLY on the chicago server will I be testing out some drastic Sniper changes. I'm not sure how annoying, frustrating, or overpowered these changes might be, so it's not live on all servers--but I still do want to see how it all works out.



New Grenade Launcher
Eyelander range decreased
Crusader Crossbow damage reduced
Bonesaw gives 15 uber instead of 25
Spies decloak a little slower
Engineer no longer gets health from ammo
Engineer health -20
Spy revolver reloads faster
Reduced heavy's heal on kills
kukri needs to be aimed more precicely
kukri added knockback
Heavy heals +25 on shotgun kills (old +100)




Frankfurt: 31.186.251.39:27015

New York: 74.91.116.100:27015
Chicago: 216.52.143.165:27015
LA: 64.94.101.6:27015

There is 1 eu server now. Woah!



Frankfurt, Germany: 31.186.251.39:27015


Remember for your first time playing, use stock not-strange weapons. type "!help" in the chat for the changelist, you may need html_motd enabled from the advanced options.

I didn't expect to update things so soon after an update, but there's a couple of important things I wanted to address! We also have a half-finished spy now and a different engineer.


Engineer
Sentries are gone and engineer is a bit more of an offensive 'utility' class. I feel what demomen were doing to defend flags or points was way more engaging and exciting than what a sentry could ever be and the mod is lacking a bit of meaty fighters that can stand being out on the field--so I sent engineer out there. He'll potentially gain a bit more 'utility' in the future, but we'll see how he sits for now.

Spy
Spy changes woooo. I thought it would be really cool to keep the stealth aspect with spy but try and use health as a resource you need to manage on a class. Currently the only way 'managing' your health will benefit you is a greatly increased knife damage under 50hp, but the groundwork is layed for the idea. You cannot disquise but decloak much quicker. (There's no sentries, you don't NEED a disquise to get by guns) Looking to maybe add some unique stats to spy when overhealed in the future or at various health %s.

Lagz.
Something has been lagging up servers pretty fierce, I don't know what it is. I'm quick to point the finger at Heavy, so he recieved a bunch of lag reducing changes and buffs. I tried some other things I can't really even remember right now...but I'm aware of it.

quick changelist;
New minigun
More heavy shotgun ammo
More heavy resistances
Heavy fist kill gives mini-crit boost
Increased heavy heall-on-kills
Soldier shotgun loads slower
reworked stock engineer
reworked stock spy
Most unchanged weapons added to banlists
banlists still don't work ideal, stick to stock weapons :>
longer critboost on SMG


New York: 74.91.116.100:27015
Chicago: 216.52.143.165:27015
LA: 64.94.101.6:27015

We've got some really cool changes this week! The coolest? GIANT ROBOT HEAVY!!

Besides that heavy has gained some damage resistances across the board to make him live longer(still takes 75% more melee damage). He got a bigger melee range to make sense with his size and a new minigun that was crashing servers...so he doesnt have that now. I'm still not sure what the minigun will end up being, its rather boring as it is right now. We'll see.

Different map rotation. It may change again next week, trying a lot of different ctf stuff now.

I wanted to focus on some new ways to kill scouts without slowing them down and make it so you don't need a sentry. Scouts now take massively increased damage from explosives. Anything that doesn't kill a scout will knock them back 400% more.


Along with that, demoman's stickies now will forever shoot out more bombs that blow up shortly afterwards. We'll have to see how this plays out, but a demoman could potentially defend an intel much more effectively now and reduce the need for the sentry by just that much more. 1 volcano lava-bomb can kill a scout, they'll have to be much more careful entering areas demomen are defending. Demoman also heals even more from fire damage now.

You may find the soldiers new shotgun to be a scout killing machine if you have it ready. Also! Hit an enemy with your shovel to launch them into the sky for airshot time. Even heavies will be popped up, who usually only recieve 5% knockback.

MEDIC recieved some minor but important changes. First, the weirdest change, medic is always in 3rd person perspective. I'm not sure about this, I kind of like the awareness it adds to the support class, but we'll see how many people tell me they want me to die related to this change.
The medigun overheals slower now, but can overheal for a lot more. Ubercharges are earned more slowly again because they felt very insignificant before to earn, and to kill a medic.

And a few more things added that aren't spy changes. Try em out!

New York: 74.91.116.100:27015
Chicago: 216.52.143.165:27015
LA: 64.94.101.6:27015