Why would 6v6/hl adopt a plugin to change the way the weapon works from literally anything that isnt a scrim/match server? I understand it sucks that they did this change so late and right before lan etc., but they dont care about that in this game.

that is what is most shocking to me in this thread.

random crits
random spread

ever heard of those?

This is just my opinion: First off I think no matter what happens people will adapt and it won't seem so bad as time goes on. However, in the few scrims I played I think ultimately demo has become more reliant on his team. The problem I see with this is if a flank is not checked properly then a scout from behind can easily take out the demo, as he has little means of defense at close range. While pipe dm could be beneficial, if the scout gets close to you, you'll end up nearly (or in a lot of cases) fully killing yourself if you hit your pipes. I don't fully understand the argument of the pipe launcher supposed to be a primary weapon as playstyle doesn't revolve around what loadout slot your weapon is in. The medigun is used primarily by medic even though iy is a "secondary weapon".

Tl:dr I think it'll be harder to tell who's a good demo at a high level since they'll be so reliant on the team.

Again, this is just my opinion and I don't mean to offend anyone or anything.

someone please explain to me without sounding like an incompetent high school freshman how this "makes 6s fucking awful"

Correction playing 6s and HL as if nothing happened makes them fuckin awful, especially for people that are demo mains.

tf_weapon_criticals "0" and tf_damage_disablespread "1 are commands. "tf_sticky_fulldamage" doesn't exist.

I do, what's your point?

Hellbent if you think that roamer is just going to shift to secondary pocket then I think you haven't thought about it enough. You don't get away with "crazy stuff" just because you have a demo alive - and the fact that demo is now weaker at defending means that EVERY PICK that you get or every point of damage, or every piece of ground that your bomb takes is proportionately better for your team (seeing as it usually comes to the pocket and scouts acting off this, and your demo just kinda backing up the train these days anyway). If the enemy demo is less effective at holding the choke and spamming aggressively, everything you do is more effective. The only impact that this will really have on roamer play (generalising big time) is less focus on demo on mids, and less moronic bomb & repeat around corners and chokes for days at a time... which if you think is a bad thing for the game, then you're already beyond hope. Have to be effective with what you do, otherwise your team will be punished instead of being able to hide behind demo spam (finally...).

I'm not sure if I like how they went about nerfing stickies yet, but the fact that they have nerfed them is good. As they are, and have been for the better part of the game's life - stickies were pretty disgusting - like what plat and others have said, stickies were the only weapon in the game that rewarded slack aim. Any change which emphasises the importance of effective and coordinated individual and team play is a good change imo. Demos are just going to have to adjust to playing a different style, which I honestly think is less of a shift than when gunboats were first introduced to the game.

The meta will evolve, and so will anyone worth playing on a team with. Hopefully like gunboats it evolves for the better (imo) - really the only problem I have with this update is that (just like last year) they leave it way too close to major events.

p.s. Definitely excited for i52 now >:]

anywhere the demo stands he is caught with his pants down right now, might as well stay in spawn room if we're applying your flawed logic.

LOL, you missed my last post

why does it matter? are you saying we should be beholden to things being official valve decisions? last I checked we all used custom huds and fps configs, played custom maps, used custom spectator plugins, played pugs on irc and tf2center.com, and played in a league not run by valve

isn't it obvious that valve doesn't give a fuck about comp tf2 and we should start pulling away as soon as possible?

if this damage ramp up thing was here from the beginning i don't think it would be part of the standard lineup in sixes and i think demo would be a little more roamy in highlander and the soldier would take the place in the way we play around a demo right now.

I really can't fathom the level of dumb that is this comment.

.. LOL

mustard's just upset he might actually somehow now be worse at demo than he was before

Can we use the rock paper scissors taunt to see who picks first in pugs now?

Also - I realise its been pointed out already, but I pretty much just read the entirety of this thread in one sitting and the majority of negative comments about this change stem to an argument of "but its going to be harder now!" or "but demo is already weak against scouts".

I'm not going to argue that this patch is bringing demo back to their "intended purpose" of defensive play because thats a crap statement too - the reality is that this change is trying to bring the class (and specifically the sticky launcher) in line with the capabilities of its surrounding classes. Sure, its going to be harder to deal as much damage as demo following the change - but it was harder to rocket jump as many times when they nerfed the gunboats. The role of demo is going to evolve, and honestly I think that people should be more excited about that... as its these changes and evolutions that keeps the game both fresh and competitive. Aren't you guys bored of the way the game is played currently? Don't you get frustrated when you find yourself relying on your demo so much that it paralyses you and is effective a crutch to good play? Maybe its just that we place less emphasis on our demo than other teams, but I seriously feel that this is only going to encourage a faster and more exciting meta for tf2. There are going to be a lot more situations where fighting is a viable choice, and also (contrary to popular belief) I think this is actually going to open up the play a lot more - as teams will be less concerned about playing slow and relying on demos defensive capabilities to choke the game up, the flank play will be increasingly frequent and coordinated as the old suicide around chokes becomes more of the dice roll that it should be.

I think those of you that are arguing so strongly against this change should ask yourself what it is you play tf2 for. Do you play because you love the game? Do you want whats best for the competitive playstyle, or would you rather continue in your comfort zone topping the damage metres and hiding from potentially excellent changes?

Maybe it'll suck... but you may as well get excited about playing the best game you can until it changes. I really hope it (or something like it) sticks around though.

you're right, half of the people playing tf2 should be miserable

The moral of the story is that this update brings demo down to a level similar of importance to a scout or soldier. Prior to this update, if you got a pick on a scout/soldier it was still very hard to push into the other team, but if you got the demo, your demo could walk in and absolutely crush everything with his massive damage advantage. Now, if your demo dies, the other team's demo cannot just massacre your team because your demo made a slight mistake and got picked. I think this is more forgiving for demos and will make them a more fun class to play because they are slightly less valuable, allowing for more risk / reward plays than conservative spam over objects.

You people are beyond shortsighted if you think this shit makes the game worse.

1. Midfights come down to aim and positioning more than effective spam
2. Choke holds are riskier for demos, more reliant on soldiers.
3. Scouts will play the same game they always have, with more aggression being possible due to less damage done from range.
4. Prioritizing demomen during ubers will become a thing of the past.
5. That opens up the field for soldiers to open up the game as the highlight reel players.
6. Demomen will have to play more defensively when alone
7. Missing dets is more heavily punished
8. Missing pipes is more heavily punished
9. Ubers are less stressful for medics due to less spam damage from stickies.
10. Kritz soldiers will be better off
11. Medics wont be so scared to walk through hallways vs demomen
12. You cant win mid on granary or badlands by yourself anymore just because of your speed
13. Your roaming soldiers may need to play a little more defensively to keep your demoman secure, putting more pressure to gank on the scout pair

Like the game is hugely changed.

The biggest change though is overall the amount of health on everyone in drawn out teamfights will be higher than normal, meaning missing 3 rockets or 2 scatters is worse, because that sticky they ate isnt as good.

This will become the most aim-reliant this game has ever been, just from a change so 'small.'

Please, I beg you to argue with me, and tell me how this ruins the game in any way, or why demo isn't viable anymore.

Please.

They still need to revert the sticky damage somewhat to make kritz reliable enough to risk using again. I don't think many people in this thread are completely against the nerf, but rather the huge extent that demo was nerfed.

IMO the biggest problem with the update is that kritz may see significantly less use.

I'm not sure kritz soldiers is the solution because generally if the other team has figured out you are running kritz, they're going to be too far back for kritz to be effective. they'll pull back and then come back in with uber.

I haven't played this situation yet so I'm not sure if kritz sniping the med is actually impacted that much, just the biggest problem I foresee being possible at this point

dude you're saying what some of us have been arguing this whole time, now demo is better off going for risky plays like a roamer and the roamer will be more passive. You flip your arguments around to suit your need to be correct or something it's really frustrating trying to follow your statements.

I agree that they don't care and they never have. However Custom huds fps configs and anything else you use to customize your game(viewmodel visibility/crosshairs)use things valve allowed us to customize using commands/tools that they added with the intent of allowing players to use what they like. You are however asking for a plugin which makes a weapon behave differently in any server not using the plugin which is an awful idea.
Whos to say they're done changing stickies or that they aren't about to change various weapons/classes?

You realize the meta has shifted before right. Before b4nny carried tyrone to an ESEA Championship, most medics were playing off their soldiers a lot more.

Every team plays to its strengths. If your demoman can hit pipes, you uber your demoman. If your soldier has good shotgun aim and ammo management, you uber your soldier, and if you're pyourr in season 5 you blow your ubers letting enigma and carnage meatshot everything.

This game evolves every year.

Why should demo kritz surprise be an auto win? Are you serious? That's an argument? I really don't understand.

The biggest issue that i am finding is that higher division players, players that have an impact in the community are not acting responsively and are just flinging shit around. Casters are talking beyond logic and making people that watch the stream to see competitive TF2 question what is going on. I am honestly quite annoyed that people are acting as if it's the fucking end of the world, when it's literally the same game, but the demo can't be as caught out as before.

People are talking about Promods, Cvars and what not, but that will create even more distance between Public and Competitive. I also want to see how that would afect LAN and competitions between different Leagues and different Regions. It's really such a short sighted idea... There are more leagues than just ETF2L, and if ETF2L does implement the new Cvar that Annakin created (tf_sticky_fulldamage 1) then it will affect how players prepare for different leagues, or different game modes (6s, Highlander).

Accepting a plugin, a promod or even a cvar is opening a can of worms, people will start asking for other stuff to be changed and or removed. Weapons made in the future might not be accepted. TF2 is about team play, yet a change to a weapon of one class is making people talk about the end of competitive play. Get a grip.

It's honestly great to see that some higher level players in both America and Australia are taking it cool and moving on, it's an evolution, and it might not even be a permanent change, Valve could possibly reverse.

Yet.. we see Epsilon playing a pcw without a demoman whatsoever and instead playing with a heavy. With attitudes like that, of course people will be flinging shit and be scared the meta is gonna change.

I might be a scrub, and my insight might come from someone that plays around the div 4 level, but as it is, as long as certain people (ahum...) continue acting like only and only Prem level insights are welcome then they will be able to pull as much shit as they want, and we have seen the results of that (ESL, others).

I can't speak for UGC/ESEA/CEVO obviously, but things like a promod (obviously kills competitive tf2) and even a command which reverts the change will not be condoned and explicitly disallowed in ETF2L.

Moving competitive TF2 further away from public TF2 with a ProMod or a mechanic as big as sticky rampup will slowly remove any significant number of new players joining competitive TF2. The only viable league to use a ProMod, or a plugin to revert the change would be ESEA since they are not aimed towards new players. However if they would run such a plugin they would completely alienate themselves from all other TF2 leagues. It could work for ESEA, but it's risky in my opinion.

Basically, using a plugin to revert the change or a ProMod is really stupid. We need to go along with what Valve has chosen and embrace it with open arms.

running kritz can tend to be somewhat high risk/high reward. If you increase the risk (less likely to get med before he gets uber), you'll see it less. And I think most people agree that kritz is an exciting part of the metagame.

Again, I'm still not sure how much this update actually affected running kritz.

How is it an autowin? It was high risk, high reward. Your demo could still whiff stickies, or they built their uber while you didn't, or their med is positioned well enough to get out.

Right now there's just no reason to use kritz because it's high risk low reward.