[TF2] Crafting is Crap 

Having to manually add 200 weapons when creating a collector's item is one of the most agonizing thing one can do in a video game

I remember when I was a newer player and I desperately waited for the random drop system to give me a weapon I didn’t have.

Tbh, I value crafted cosmetics heavily. That little "Craft by" makes it really worth it for me, it's like a one-of-a-kind item that's unique to me(or whoever crafted it)

I crafted the dead of night before, a cosmetic that goes for around 38 ref so i spent 3 ref for a 38 ref cosmetic and i was pretty happy... until i realized i used untradeable ref to make the cosmetic untradeable moments like these make me wish i had a time machine

As one of the luckiest people on the surface of TF2 apparently I was able to craft the sharp dresser, the YER reskin, the quackbert-t (stock watch reskin) and the AWP-hand on the first try with the class token way

I'll still saying that the Golden Wrench need to be added back at the Crafting system with a stupid low chance o 0.20 or something. When im bored i like to turn my refs into craftable hats and then pass them to my brother

Seriously the rocket jumper and sticky jumper should be easier to get cause part of the point of them is to practice jumping

The crafting system must've been designed by Saxton Hale. it just feels like so in character for him to do (from the comics) because of the absurdity of it, and also because he makes a giant stinking profit.. All the while the ones at the recieving end are at the mercy of his whims.

I'm am new and f2p, its useful when I'm scraping weapons your either not good at using or is uninterested and trying to get the ones I want, due to f2ps only having limited storage. my main complaint is that it's so unnecessarily expensive and inconsistent.

I think the next logical step to take here is the Killstreak Kits. By playing a specific game mode, on a specific couple of maps, and complete 4 rounds on that map, you get items that allow you to track your kills per life, as well as Fabricators that require the odd Robot Parts and a Killstreak item to give your Killstreak a shiny ripple effect over the weapon, or have your eyes bleed out the same color as an effect. Some kits, even the basic tier ones, go for a fair bit of money thanks to demand, even some fabricators, while most fabricators are only worth 3¢ because you have to put forth the effort. And there are even weapons out there that don’t have Killstreak Kits, the biggest example being the Crossing Guard, which, while having a strange variant, does not have its own Killstreak Kit. The only way to get one is to pay hundreds of dollars for one, by getting a glitched universal kit.

I love the inclusion of Terraria music, as that game also has ludicrous crafting trees

Crazy how a 14 year old game has some outdated content

Honestly, the ability to get reskins via token crafting is probably the only viable use for this system. Get a sniper token and a melee token, and you have a pretty high chance of getting a reskin (as sniper only has like 3 unlockable melee weapons) Also, you have 1/3 chance of getting a Quackenbirt invis watch reskin as well, so yea, thats cool PS. You can also craft a Conscientious Objector if you're lucky, so thats neat too

Man this game is so beginner/newbie-unfriendly it's crazy. When I first got the game in 2020 I felt like a peasant that entered some extravagant club. And the monetization of this game is extremely gross, as if Valve don't make enough money as it is.

"Weapon reskins" such wise words from a wise man.

you can craft a pda slot token with 3 invis watches. i have crafted 3 of them and they serve no purpose

Lately, I've focused on the "Set headgear" recipes because those are the ones that I actually know I would get. Can we also talk about how easy it is to screw up and craft your own achievement items? Seriously, why couldn't Valve have made those uncraftable to begin with?

For some reason I feel the Solemn Vow’s ludicrous recipe is meant to be interpreted as getting a urine sample from the other 8 classes so you can figure out how to see their HP regardless of team. A lot of the recipes seem to follow that sort of logic, so I think it tracks.

I remember years back when I first learned about crafting, one of the first things I ever crafted and was going for was The Sharp Dresser. I was a huge AC nerd at the time too so it was really awesome. Another one of the other first things I crafted was The Unarmed Combat - something else I was going for. I just got really lucky that day, I crafted about everything I wanted first or second try

The thing that gets me is that there's a lot of different weapons in TF2, and having to go through page after page to find a weapon for the class you picked earlier is a slog. It seems like a relatively easy fix: If you select a Scout weapon for the first slot, the second slot only shows Scout weapons. The same for every other class.

I have only ever crafted one item: The Horseless Headless Horsemann's Headtaker

The only time I would recommend that new players use the crafting system is to rebuild halloween exclusive headgear that they get from Scream Fortress contracts. Other than that, it's a complete waste of time.

I like how each video animation gets better. And how your commentary is fun and informative Keep up the great work man. Also, the only crafted thing I made was the awperhand first try 😎

Finding duplicates in horizontal menu is pain, Finding a recipe you're intested in is pain, 95% of the screen is not utilized, just text and few boxes, Finding weapons to get metal is pain(at least without MvM grind), It's just as outdated as the engine the game runs on.

So story time When I first started out tf2, I was pretty damn dumb, but I wanted to get myself a cool looking hat or cosmetic That's when I found out about the crafting system of tf2, and was shocked by the fact that I have to smelt a crap ton of weapons to make scrap. I thought to myself "that's easy, I get a random free weapon in some games and I like using 2 classes." And boy I was so wrong because I didn't know how the drop system works. After months of playing games to get randomly dropped weapons and then smelt them to scrap, I finally had 3 reclaimed metal and was about to craft myself a hat. Then, at that moment, I found out that f2p players like me can't craft hats. Afterwords I got pissed and then just crafted a bunch of different weapons using the remaining scrap and other weapons available to me.

Even a change as tiny as having the crafting recipe for some items shifted, like having the headgear craft be 1 refined and 2 reclaimed instead of 3 refined would be welcomed because it now gives an incentive to try for that small percentage of a well priced hat.

The only thing I ever really crafted was the Horsemann's Headtaker. It was always more profitable to use metal for trading.

I dunno man, grinding all my hats into more hats is alot of fun.

2:12 I fashion myself a fairly simple man. I hear Terraria music, I press the like button.

If by "extra line of text" you mean the "Crafted By", you can use the restore option to remove it

your sfm animations really improved since the last time i watched your vids

I think it has potential if the system got revamped, possibly a good metal sink (you know, like what it's supposed to be in the first place.)

While I mostly use this system to craft refined/hats, I have used on occasion to craft some unique reskins. I'm surprised you didn't mention the Nostromos Napalmer since that Flamethrower skin is also craftable.

6:50 You dare think I missed that drg music, man?

Got a few rapid-fire pieces of feedback for ya Space for your personal use (and to help those algorithm gains): 1. Really like how you interjected your usual use of alliteration into the script. Sprinkling it with other commons phrases and using it to complement your train of thought rather than gargling your point and leaving us with a backwash of thesaurused synonyms adjacent to the point is much more satisfying. 2. TF2's inventory system is one of the most interesting piece of minute but it is also painfully outdated, especially for those simply wanting to gather all possible weapons for their loadouts. Cosmic Afro proposed in a years' old video that there could be a system where by sacrificing Unique versions of weapon, we should be able to get infinitely useable versions of unlocks that don't take up backpack space. At the time, he dubbed it an "Arsenal" and he proposed it would act as the Stock weapons do. Graying out the item quality to show that these are semi-permanent features in the player's inventory. 3. You've really come a long way in terms of your SFM skills. Really goes to show that you've learnt a lot just by doing this for a few years of editing and trying out the tool. 4. When it comes to crafting hats, I find that it's pretty fun to buy up a couple keys worth of Refined just to mass craft hats as giveaways/gifts for random players or friends I make in-game, like how some do mass Secret Saxton gifting. My biggest complaint with this process though is that there's no way to batch the process and Ref, as a commodity, is a constantly expanding community resource that most people aren't doing anything with. Calling back to Cosmic Afro and the Virtual Economist, there should be a more convenient way to sink massive amounts of metal into the crafting system, draining our digital coffers of this mostly worthless currency while getting a kickback for the hassle. A few people have proposed the ability to craft non-tradable consumables like Mann Co. Tickets or Keys but I'd, personally, rather see something similar to the Meat Your Match or War! updates where we donate Metal to our side in a conflict and the winner would decide on a global reward. Maybe it could be similar to the Robo-Crates or be a curated collection of cosmetics that we want to see in the next crate. Like a collection based on the old Frontline or Courve community projects or re-entering unused Invasion cosmetics and maps.

9:30that would change a lot cuz most of the hats in the economy are crafted so the prices will go up(for the unique ones) but the crafted ones will either crash or be under 3ref

3:40 I lost a lung to this part. It was TOO good.

I'll admit that I actually actively use this system, whenever I have weapons to spare, I actually find it kind of interesting and would love to see it fleshed out more. I got my Scorch Shot and Quickiebomb Launcher that way. I had the weapons and SM to spare so I decided to go for it.

I had once an Idea for an update (named " The New Mann update") where it would refine most of mechanics of the game. One of those would be weekly contracts. It would give objective to the player every week and completing it would give a item depending on the contract difficulty and rarity. One of the examples would be to send said amount of scrap, refined or reclaimed metal. It would give mostly descent loot. Would it fix the many of problems for the crafting system? No, but it would at least give purpose to crafting and the to dust covered metal siting in the inventory of traders hoping the value of them would become better.

worth noting the token smelting giving a reclaimed is probably because in the past you needed three weapons to make a single scrap. But I think the main problem with crafting right now is that it has fallen behind on the times so to speak, and is not as practical for newer players who have less stuff.

5:54 ok it is kinda chilling to hear you say that considering that is my exact date of birth

SGO: what’s the most useless thing in tf2? The sharpened volcano fragment

Agree with all of this. I also wish achievement items were completely uncraftable, and were treated similar to stock items (i.e. don't take up backpack space), because I'm sick of selecting them in the scrap menu :P

honestly, I find random crits funny when it's perfectly timed other times, it is mildly annoying, but I don't get upset at those, I just laugh it off also, ignoring the reskins, I've pretty much gotten everything single weapon from the random drops, and I have a few hundred hours in TF2

although it is a total waste from an economical standpoint, i LOVE crafting using untradeable metal and getting some untradeable weapons and hats in return. as a result of this mechanic, i own every weapon, including craftable reskins, so i never have to worry about missing anything ever again. as of writing, i also own 12 pages of untradeable cosmetics, and 5 pages of untradeable halloween cosmetics.

When you think about it, TF2 has _really_ bad quality of life for UI / backpack / equippables / basically-anything-that-isn't-shooting-at-guys-once-you're-in-a-server

the funniest thing is that since you can choose which weapon a war paint becomes when you redeem it, those are honestly a better way for new players to get the weapons they want than crafting the weapons

Back then in 2014 where crafting was still a thing, trading was so easy just 1 weapon that anyone wants in your inventory for 1 scrap.

thabk you red button man for the new and informative video essay on a cool and underused mechanic in this small indie game i love you

I am currently waiting for my 3rd set of mantreads to come to my doorstep to craft the rocket jumper due to me running out of space and having to disintegrate it from existence.

Honestly the weapon crafting recipes feel more like some weird jokes/puns I don't get than a proper crafting tool, especially when looking at stuff like Solemn Vow recipe.

"Alright I'm gonna spend my letranger, Ambassador and Enforcer to hopefully get a new revolver" *gets enforcer*

I really do they it is at least good that set hats can be guaranteed if you use 4 ref and an weapon from that set, I just wish they brought back the unique stats but this time giving them all downsides, along with maybe insuring that if there is more than 1 hat in the set, you get the one you have the least of, also I don’t know what happens if you use a weapon from the clinical trial in the recipe because it doesn’t have an hat.

Everything one you rhyme I think I'm watching a middle age Dr. Seuss talk about tf2

As crap as this is I do gotta give it credit for immersion. This is the exact kind of trading system I'd expect Mannco to invent.

I finally learned the crafting system enough to craft a crusaders crossbow

points and laughs at getting 5 baby face blasters as random drops in a row and then gets sad

me watching the tf2 video:Time to play some TF2! me hearing the DRG swarm soundtrack:Time to play some DRG!

8:20 Oh, Spring Cleaning, I love this OST. nice choice:)

oh i feel so dumb as child me not only crafted stuff but also used not tradeable materials for them

When I was new to TF2, before jungle inferno dropped, I watched a video on youtube about the best spy weapons, or maybe just the best weapons in the game. The guy had said the Your Eternal Reward was a busted weapon, so I went all in crafting it with my untradable achievement items, after which I was left with an almost cleaned out spy loadout. To this day, the YER is still my favorite weapon in tf2, and I have an untradable YER in my backpack.

8:00 Same goes for being the buyer. It is, at least for me, too much hassle and I would much rather just get whatever.

The Golden items should return as short promos only instead of Wrench it could be, say Golden Bat or Axe or anything that looks good in gold and helps poor stock melee being used

since I don't ever trade if I have a bunch of metal I will probably just craft hats and I usually have hats that I don't ever wear so sometimes I just rebuild the hat to see if I would wear the new hat

Isn't that the battle block theater main theme music?

7:00 ROCK AND STONE BROTHER

6:05 Chucklenuts lol

thanks for informing me, I now have more use for crafting stuff in tf2 to grab those tf2 reskins

One of the things that bugs me the most is that if you at any point during your crafting chain of events, you forget to check if an item is non tradable, EVERITHING YOU MAKE WITH IT BECOMES NON TRADABLE Luckly only got a non tradable scrap metal to remind me, but ivknow ppl who only notoced later

Leave me alone, I'm a broke bitch and I'm proud

I'm always pleased to see people bring up how TF2 isn't actually an untouchable masterpiece like everyone says it is. It's cool, but it sure as hell ain't perfect.

Yes.

I thought one of the answers in the beginning question was gonna be the tutorial lol

Crafting has one use, and it’s showing off my headless horseless horseman blade to everyone in the server

Showing the old rocket jumper model in this video made me sad. I miss that thing.

i actually used the crafting system to make a soda popper, i though it was pretty nice and my brother tried to make a sharp dresser but got a big earner

Your getting better at sfm surprised at how fast you learn I've been trying to learn how to animate for 2 years and im still bad lol

i craft hats all the time and love how ur name gets stamped on them, makes them really feel like your own. same with weapons like the awp and ham.

The DRG music at around 7:00 is beautiful

Dear lord, craft tokens took me back to 2014, oh my god.

I'm still making a loadout entirely made of crafted items and you can't stop me

Ways to fix crafting -Allow me to scrap ANY two weapons; not just two from the same class. -Add the "Crafted" quality to the name. -

Seeing this after the VAC update is wierd also never thought I would write this ever

dude! I haven't come to this channel in a few months, loving the SFM addition, I can see you still have some coming along when it comes to lip syncing, I think there's a lot of really great animation tutorials out there for that

Hearing a DRG song on a TF2 video was surprising, but very welcome.

Tf2s economy in general needs an update

I feel embarassed at some of the weapons I used to make tokens as a F2P player. My first spycicle and red tape recorder were destroyed, even though I was a spy main.b

The thing about crafted weapons is you literally have good sensing crafting recipes like the Buff Banner > Battalion's Backup > Conch. And you have random as 3 weapons needing crafting weapons, like the Vaccinator requiring 3 Quick Fixes or the Loose Canon requiring 3 Lock n Loads.

Remember crafting a cosmetic from 3 refined got a clip board for the medic, never going to get that 3 refined back

The first and only time I crafted a weapon was for a weapon I actually wanted. My Sharp Dresser.

I know what trading is, I know what trade sites are. Yet I still like crafting hats, the rng is aspect is fun and I don't mind wasting my many duplicate weapons for it.

The crafting tab for me has always been a place to smelt dupicates for ref, and to use said ref to buy hats. Thats it. Watching this video makes me truly appreciate how innefficient this crafting system is, and how stupid it seems.

this is almost completely unrelated to the video I know, but I like that you used a Deep Rock Galactic swarm theme at 6:53

The amount of times I’ve lost all my robot parts trying to craft specialized killstreak kits...

I have personally crafted weapons in order to then strangify them, giving a personal touch to my most favorite weapons at the top of its description

I usually just make hats using the crafting system

I have been wanting to play TF2 for years, i finally got a computer so I started playing a few weeks ago. And now learning what you have to go through to just craft a gun, a core aspect of gameplay, all my enthusiasm is gone. Thanks Valve, very cool.

Agreed, 200 and something weapons, with each combination of two being weapons for the same class, a hopeful me, and a crafting button. All leading up to a crappy medal

Presently surprised with the inclusion of RUN! From DRG.

the minecraft soundtrack felt kinda out of place for what was a section about explaining how unnecessary something is, especially in your lower voice. But then again I listen to it when I'm stuck in traffic.