For general feedback about the game.
Steam SupportVisit the support site for any issues you may be having with the game or Steam.
You don't need to read a history book to know that Rome was a thriving empire bent on conquest, or a rich fantasy world populated by minotaurs, cyclopses and hobbits. Either way, you don't need a fancy history degree to know it was probably one of those.
You also don't need to go to four years of BS history school to get an all-class laurel wreath. You just need to pre-purchase Total War: Rome II. Once you get the wreath, try equipping it in a game of Mann vs. Machine to watch history come alive with an authentic Rome-Bot Invasion. You don't have to be a fat know-nothing history professor to figure out that we painstakingly researched every single aspect of these Ancient Roman robots for 100% historical accuracy, from going to the library only to find it closed to remembering stuff about that trip we took to Italy once, which is probably close to Rome.
So pre-purchase Total War: Rome II today to get your laurel, and sock it to those history majors who think they know more about Ancient Rome history than you just because you dropped out of their stupid history college after one semester and they got a smelly diploma.
Your time is valuable, and the fact that you choose to spend it on Team Fortress 2 is awesome. When we introduced the Item Drop System back in 2009, one of our goals was to reward you for spending your time with us.
We recently made a change that helps ensure players are playing TF2, not just leaving their computers on in order to get item drops. As of last week, players can no longer receive item drops unless they are actively playing the game.
As with any update, this change is meant to keep the game as fair, fun, and rewarding to as many players as possible. We will continue to examine how the Item Drop System is used, and make any adjustments as needed to benefit the players.
Questions and Answers:
Over the last week we've taken you through some of our thinking around maps, weapons and items. We thought you might find it interesting if we walked you through the process we use to ship an update to TF2.
There we go, update shipped.
Three weeks ago, we introduced an item import tool that lets item creators locally verify that their items meet a set of technical and performance standards. This helps item creators ensure that anything they create is more likely to be game-ready; and it also helps the community as a whole, by giving the TF2 team more time to devote to other aspects of the game.
Since we released the tool, this verification process (which grants items a “Gold Star”) has led to over 900 Gold Star Workshop submissions. We've been blown away by the speed and quality of the TF2 community's response.
Thanks to this verification system, we've been able to select a whopping 64 Gold Star items for this coming update. But how do we decide which to ship? Below, we've run this classy-looking Medic coat through a set of questions we ask when reviewing submissions. We hope this will give item creators and everyone voting in the Workshop a bit more insight into our decision-making process.
And remember: much like the game itself, the import tool is a work in progress. If you're a Workshop author and want to get advance notice of changes or to request support for new features, make sure to sign up for the brand-new TF Workshop/import tool mailing list.
*Note: We haven't seen Episode VII yet.
One of our goals as we continue to work on Team Fortress is to support a wide variety of play styles. In order to achieve that, it's been vitally important that the weapons in the game are fun not just to use, but to play against. We want players on both the winning and losing sides of an engagement to feel like their skill is being rewarded. In other words, when someone beats you, it's because they played better, either through pure combat skill, or through their strategic choices in selecting their loadout. Consequently, we are always reviewing both real world player sessions and player feedback to hunt down items that aren't meeting this standard.
We'll be tweaking the stats on dozens of weapons in this next update—but we thought you might find it interesting if we walked you through the decision-making process on a select few.
To start with, let's look at the "banner" items for the Soldier. The most popular of these by far is The Buff Banner, which provides an offensive buff enabling nearby teammates to do additional burst damage. Conversely, The Battalion's Backup, another Soldier "banner" item, is barely ever equipped. The Backup's owner-equip rate is well below what we'd consider healthy, with less than 15% of players who own it ever equipping it. If this data wasn't enough, the feedback we've gotten from the Backup's owners easily corroborates the lack of interest.
Clearly, we needed to bring The Battalion's Backup up to parity with the usefulness of The Buff Banner. Previously, The Battalion's Backup rewarded players for taking additional damage, making it a frustratingly high-risk item. We found that most Soldiers would die well before they were able to build a full charge. When the next update ships, The Battalion's Backup builds up its charge by dealing damage rather than receiving it and provides additional damage resistance while active.
Let's look at another example with the opposite problem: The Dead Ringer. At roughly 80%, the equip rate for the Dead Ringer is staggeringly high. Given the many other items available in this category, this means that players feel they don't have any other viable option but choosing the Dead Ringer. We've gotten emails from players who describe the item as frustrating to fight against, requiring too little skill from the Spies and too much from their opponents.
In our next update, the Dead Ringer will work generally the same way it always has, letting Spies feign death to escape from damage that would have otherwise killed them. However, now any damage the Spy takes after his "death" will decrease the maximum length of time he can spend cloaked. This gives any players chasing the Spy more of an opportunity to catch up and deal a real finishing blow, while also requiring more skill from any Spy trying to make his way to actual safety.
Finally, we'd like to talk about item sets. Historically, item sets have been thematically consistent sets of items that provide a unique gameplay effect when worn together. Unfortunately, these gameplay effects had two negative effects. For one, they limited player choice, making players feel like they would be underpowered if not wearing the complete set. For another, it was a balancing nightmare. An individual item that might be balanced as part of a set could feel underpowered (or overpowered) on its own.
One of the main goals of introducing a new weapon is to give players more choices that will help them explore the game in fun new ways. Set bonuses had the opposite effect, making many players feel constrained in their choices.
Set bonuses also required players to have full knowledge of other players' loadouts, including currently "invisible" items like melee-slot weapons. For example, the Croc-o-Style Kit set bonus gives any Sniper equipping it immunity to headshots. But there was no way for a Sniper to know whether a targeted Sniper had the bonus simply by looking. And this wasn't an isolated problem. Similar issues cropped up around the Scout's Milkman set bonus (extra health) and the Demo's Expert's Ordnance set bonus (extra fire resistance).
For all of these reasons, as part of this next update, we've decided to change the way item set bonuses work. Players have traded for, purchased, and crafted these items, many in order to complete the sets and get these bonuses, and we're not abandoning the bonuses outright. Instead, we've moved the gameplay bonuses to specific items within the sets, and introduced new bonuses to these sets that won't affect gameplay balance.
We look at this as an ongoing process. We want to provide more choices, more variety, and more clarity—all of which will hopefully result in a game that's even more fun. But more importantly, we want the TF2 community to feel as invested in this as we are.
So please, let us know what you think.
