Team Fortress 2

[JezMM]

Can't seem to be accessing the Item Server after this recent update either. Anyone else having this problem?

I had it earlier but then it fixed. But I guess it just depends how much of a heavy load of players there are. It's peak time in Europe now I imagine.

[Chaos Warp]

I just wish I could get into a MvM game.

[Carbo]

I finally got into one and it's definitely one of the best horde modes I've had the pleasure of playing. It's refreshing to finally see TF2 reaching that level of grounded organization that requires you to think clever with all of your friends. If I'm looking for a campaign romp then L4D already exists but for the short bursts that require a lot more co-ordination and finesse, I'm definitely going to go for this once the server kinks are ironed out.

Valve did it again.

[Tori Himemiya]

Welp I discovered a glitch.

I haven't tested this out fully but it turns out that there's a way of winning with little effort what so ever. But however to do so....

...You gotta lose.

I'm not sure how it happens at all. After seeing the scoreboard, with the text saying "Press F4 to change team name", somehow the whole team can slaughter the remaining robots they miss after losing. This advances the team to the next round but the bomb hole will still be blown. So what this means is that anything, man or machine, gets near it dies leading up to....

Yeah the robots can't cap anymore. The only way they can win is by having two tanks dump bombs into the hole. I'm not sure if its specific to this map or what really causes it but either way...

...Enjoy easy victories before Valve patches it.

[Nemain]

Anyone know if the Mann Co. servers are faster than the community ones? Sitting in a cue for 40 minutes just for a test run online or even just to play in the foreseeable future isn't really my idea of a fun time, granted some launch day issues are to be expected. I don't really mind paying a buck either way since that's rather cheap when it comes to loot drops.

Every queue we had tonight for a Mann server was 5 minutes or less. It is a LOT faster, and your ticket is only used if you beat all 8 waves. Well worth it. You also will not get the "Bad password" error that is plaguing free matchups - For some reason the matchmaker system does not exclude private servers, so after your wait you may be insta-kicked if it picked a locked server. It patched tonight so this might be fixed, but bear that matchmaking annoyance in mind if the queue for a free game is long...

That being said, the Mann servers seem a lot harder and more intense. Disk Deletion is plain nasty. The game style is completely different from normal TF2, I love the strategy element. You've really got to be on top of your game *and* work well with your team to secure a win in this mode - One uber player rampaging will meet a swift end! I played a Kritzkrieg Medic tonight and it worked marvellously well, especially when teamed with a Heavy on a Tank and with a Solly for crowd control. We wiped out non-uber robot waves in a flash. Given it was Kritz and our first time on Mann vs Machine, I'm pleased I got more ubers than deaths going. Will definitely be back for more!

[Solly]

I've been playing Mann Up lately. It's harder than the community modes, allegedly, and I've only won two games. The problem? People keep QUITTING a couple waves in. It makes finishing impossible.

In other news, Scout isn't useless.

Edited August 18, 2012 by Solly

[Phos]

Is it something with the new mode that gave the scout so many balls?

[Tori Himemiya]

Is it something with the new mode that gave the scout so many balls?

It must had been an upgraded Sandman. My only guess since I haven't used the said bat in MvM yet.

[Solly]

The Robot's voice clips reveal something interesting about the WAR Update of all things. The Robot Demomen and Soldiers have unused domination lines, meant for their human counterparts. These were probably going to be used when a Soldier dominated a Demoman and vice versa, but for some reason it never came to be.

They're a lot more friendly with each other than they are in the final game. I actually really like these quotes.

At present, there are no un-roboticized versions of these lines in the games files.

[Carbo]

I'm open for some team-up down the line or tomorrow in MvM if anyone's down for some Mann Up Mode.

You'll pretty much exclusively see me playing as Heavy though.

[Noir]

So I played four straight hours of MvM last night with friends (plus four straight hours the night before) and it's really a blast. Much more so with friends, because teamwork is such a wonderfully integral part of it. I feel like with so many people playing the game since it went F2P there's been less synergy in normal games but MvM is really refreshing. I'd been apprehensive about it since the last two new game modes have been underwhelming, but it's pretty impressive so far.

Also worth trying, if you have a group that's willing to go along with it: typing "currency_give [number]" in console can grant you infinite money. Playing at least one round with everyone fully upgraded is great fun.

[Rusty Spy]

The Robot's voice clips reveal something interesting about the WAR Update of all things. The Robot Demomen and Soldiers have unused domination lines, meant for their human counterparts. These were probably going to be used when a Soldier dominated a Demoman and vice versa, but for some reason it never came to be.

They're a lot more friendly with each other than they are in the final game. I actually really like these quotes.

At present, there are no un-roboticized versions of these lines in the games files.

Solider x Demo OTP

[Phantomime]

Oh hell yes.

Also, now that I'm qualified to give tips for Mann Up, here's some from my experience....

Scout: USE THE FAN OF WAR. I AM NOT KIDDING. IT IS LIKE HAVING A BAT FULL OF INFINITE PISS.

Giants will go down in the blink of an eye when EVERYONE is getting minicrits, and you don't have to recharge! Just wait for when they aren't looking give them one good whack, then GET OUT, firing your scattergun all the while. GET PENETRATION UPGRADE. Uber canteens are your best friend when facing multiple tough enemies.

Soldier: Spam Buff banner or you will be a waste of player slot. Also big clip size is a must.

Heavy: Use the Brass Beast, and camp dispensers. Get Kritz canteens when you can, to deal with super bots.

Engies: Build sentries anywhere you can get a clear shot at everyone, then use wrangler, also build dispensers in spots heavies can camp at.

Medics: Use Kritzkrieg, heal everyone evenly, but always jump to the aid of a dying camping heavy.

Get high DPS with charges. Heavy is great for this, but for predictable single targets, there's no one better than our good friend...

Demo: Use the Scottish Resistance. I'm not joking. If you set sticky traps with an upgraded one a these babies, and have them kritzed at the start of a round or whatever, you can take down over a quarter of a tanks health with 14 kritz stickies at once. Great for guarding the bomb.

Pyro: Pretty straightforward. Spray and run away for large groups, heckle with flare gun, keep ammo upgraded, airblast is your best friend, and try knocking bomb carriers into chasms or pits where they have to turn around/die.

Sniper: PISS. PISS PISS PISS PISS PISSSSSSSSSS. Use fast charging/reloading pissrifle. Throw jarate into groups and on danger targets. Snipe Medics and cover everything else in minicrit joy. It's alllllll about the yellow. If you do not make every even SLIGHT threat covered in YOUR BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL PEE, THEN YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

Spy: Use the bots dumbassery to your advantage, and... upgrade sapper and use it a lot? Get chainstabs on small enemies like normal heavies? Not too much to say.

So yeah, I hope you find my advice helpful. Not saying you have to follow it, but it's what worked for me.

[Solly]

Soldier: Spam Buff banner or you will be a waste of player slot. Also big clip size is a must.

The Buff Banner is great for this, but the Beggar's Bazooka is AMAZING. I'm not even kidding, if you're going to play Soldier it's a must-have.

Put your money into fully upgrading reload speed, then an upgrade or two in clip size and put some into ammo capacity and congratulations: you have become DEATH. You can shoot out a barrage of 5+ rockets almost instantly. Only downside is that dispensers won't give you ammo but it's still insanely good.

[Carbo]

The Salt Rock building at Coaltown. Best camping spot for a Heavy. Period. If you have a Dispenser AND a Medic right there, you're fucking unstoppable for the most of the part. Crit canteens are your best friend and alongside penetrating bullet perks and optionally some berserker-ish perks (health on kills) or resistance perks (mostly for the Soldiers) they are your absolute priority. You'll be stopping them dead in your tracks.

This spot is also perfect for absorbing Spies. Spy bots will ALWAYS run to you before they proceed any further beyond the map and it's reasonable to assume no one else will bother going to you in that building. The medic will keep your back but it also doesn't hurt to turn around when the alert for Spy bots are going off.

Giant Heavies are never a big threat if you know what you're doing. Scouts and Soldiers on the other hand, are. Use crits on them.

Focus on one Tank at the time. A great strategy for this if you're an Engineer is to build a sentry right in front of the gate since a Tank will obscure most of the Machine support before it becomes a problem, and you'll be able to quickly move it when it becomes too risky to be around. Heavies don't do much to the Tank so they're better off fending the support since most people tend to forget that there is still an additional bomb in play.

Oh yeah, and in Coaltown, assuming you're setting up your defense right in front of the entry, ALWAYS place the Heavy/Medic/Dispenser combo and a turret into one of their own separate alcoves containing ammo/health. Turrets are preferably placed into the middle one because it's cornered up and you run a good chance killing most robots before they reach the goal assuming they aren't giants.

[Nemain]

Medics: Use Kritzkrieg, heal everyone evenly, but always jump to the aid of a dying camping heavy.

Get high DPS with charges. Heavy is great for this, but for predictable single targets, there's no one better than our good friend...

Demo: Use the Scottish Resistance. I'm not joking. If you set sticky traps with an upgraded one a these babies, and have them kritzed at the start of a round or whatever, you can take down over a quarter of a tanks health with 14 kritz stickies at once. Great for guarding the bomb.

Such an underrated tactic and one that can draw ridicule from those that don't realise what you are doing ubering before the start of a round, but a set of crit stickies at the beginning of a tank round is amazing and really helps! We generally go Heavy/Solly/Demo with a couple of supporting classes, usually Pyro and Engie, and spreading a Kritz Medic between those three offensive classes works wonders - Let the Solly/Demo unload his clip for crowd control/giants and switch to Heavy while they are reloading. It's such a nice change in MvM - Kritz is overlooked and even frowned upon in standard play (at least going by the number of times I've been shouted at to go normal uber before showing what a Kritz can do on defense!)... But in the right funnel spots a skilled Kritz Medic and Heavy in MvM can easily take down an entire wave of non-giants in seconds.

Also, this arrived in the post today. Archimedes is the best. Thing. EVER.

[Solly]

My Archimedes should be in the mail tomorrow. So far from Valve I've bought a Sentry Gun mug, Mann Co. work shirt, inflatable Balloonicorn and a plush dove covered in blood. They sell STRANGE THINGS.

I completed my Mann Up tour and I actually got to play with some people who knew what they were doing. One guy on Mannworks went Scout for the sole purpose of collecting money in the first two rounds and we got all the cash + the $100 bonus. He then switched to Demoman and we all proceeded to wreck everything with POCKETS FULL OF DOLLAS.

Having a good team is amazing.

[Phantomime]

So in the latest update, a bug was added where if you switch between classes wearing the same item, said item stays between classes, even when the actual versions of the hat/misc are different for each class.

Naturally, this has some very fun uses:

[Candescence]

I finished my first tour of duty and got a strange botkiller wrench for my trouble. Not bad.

Also, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps future updates may involve reserving the flow of battle - the players attacking the bots rather than the other way round, trying to fight back against Grey Mann to stop his evil schemes. It might also result in Grey Mann being seen or heard in-game, too.

[Kuzu]

So the BBA just raped this game, twas fun.

[Cola]

[Vec]

So I got a new laptop...it'll mostly sure run this game. So tomorrow I'll make a try.

[Blue Wisp]

I was lurking around on the wiki when I suddenly found this beauty:

GLORIOUS

So uh, I suddenly want one of these, does anyone have one/know how to get one?

[Senator NinjaShark]

TF2 UPDATE, MOTHERFUCKERS!

New Tours!

Much like in Goldilocks and the Three Bears, specifically the part where Goldilocks broke into a bear's house looking for a place to sleep, some of you thought the one Tour of Duty we shipped with Mann vs. Machine was too hard. Others of you found it too soft. A lot of you thought it was just right.

In the fable, of course, Goldilocks held the defenseless bear family at gunpoint until her boyfriend Chet got there, at which point things turned truly grim. This is where our story diverges from that true crime drama, because we've sidestepped the issue by adding more Tours of Duty to MvM mode. Now, in addition to Operation Steel Trap (hard), we've got Operation Oil Spill (less hard) and Operation Gear Grinder (very hard). As Chet might say, "You goddamn bears are in for a lonnnnng night."

New Loot!

In the same way that Goldilocks and Chet drove off covered in bear blood and honey with a flatscreen TV and fourteen dollars in cash, we've cooked up some tour-specific loot you can take to your hideout in Florida. Just like the Botkiller heads awarded to survivors of Operation Steel Trap, we've got some brand new spoils of war you can only get in these new tours: rusty, blood-covered 'bot heads for the intermediate-level Operation Oil Spill, and some 24-carat diamond 'bot heads for the expert-level Operation Gear Grinder, so those of you players who survive the tour can show off a little bling to prove it.

(Remember: as always, loot is the only difference between MvM on the unofficial "Boot Camp" server and official "Mann Up" servers. Otherwise the gameplay is identical.)

Improved Matchmaking!

You can now select multiple missions you'd like to play, to maximize the chances of finding compatible players as quickly as possible. We’ve also added some handy buttons that'll let you select all missions of a particular difficulty level, or all missions not yet marked off on a Tour of Duty.

Lastly, like when Chet and Goldilocks beat a retired cop to death in Boca Raton and were sent to separate federal prisons, when your MvM group beat a mission, we used to disband the group. Now we've made it so that when you beat a mission to death in Boca Raton or elsewhere, you and the other players on the server are sent back to the matchmaking screen as a group, so you can keep playing together.

NEW Botkiller Weapons!

NEW Tours of Duty!

(and still no ammo of Healing Target Visible for Medics outside of MvM)

in addition to that, we got the usual New Crate with more Strange Parts, so if you are into those, have fun.

[SweeCrue]