Everybody loves cake. Cakes have layers. Support me on Patreon: / zesty_jesus hell: / zesty_jesus 2nd channel: / @zestyalt My website & TF2 server: zestyjesus.com/ Thumbnail by Konakona: steamcommunity.com/id/konakon...
Put the wrong Heavy hat as the restricted one, but the point still stands. Also, to clarify my stance on vscript- it's a great tool that allows for people to make amazing things, but at a certain point (if you change too much), a gamemode is no longer TF2. It becomes something entirely different, that should be relegated to community servers, and not included as official additions. Vscript can be used to include new gameplay facets that retain the core feel of TF2, while also giving us a new experience. That's the middle ground that should be strived for, and not changing the game SO MUCH that it requires complete rebalances of entire classes/weapons in order to function properly.
yeah that makes sense like the vscript vsh and zombie infection they are fun but still it does not means they should be on the official tf2 casual rotacion
After I played this SF... yeaaah, it's a lot and not themed. Everything is the same, put magic and skeleton king, I missed actual bosses and, as much as people don't like the carnival, it was still themed, and now there is no theme for a halloween update, I like the maps that are themed like the scarecrows and fishpeople... but it's just the skeletons, that's it!!! I like the zombie theme game, but I wish it was on it's own, having a rotation and not be in the pile with other maps. Sometimes I wish I had the time to make a map with a story, idk, Blue is sending food to a granny through the forest and red is stoping it because they know blue is helping a witch, the one who wrote the speell books or something, I miss that. SF now feels like a chore to be honest, I HATED playing maps to get new halloween cosmetics, is a pain in the ass. After the whole Invation update shitshow now we have this... no themed updates from the community, it's just putting stuff in the basktet for valve to grab, it is sad.
We are gonna get 25 maps for smissmas with 2 new gamemodes, 1 warpaint case and 1 hat case, smismass contracts where you get present packages with 50 new smissmas restricted hats. We also got Snow Fort which is a Ghost Fort reskin with spells (because why not) where you fight off the evil Merasmus giftbringer. And when you kill him you can enter the skibidi island where you fight off peter griffin to obtain the smismass stocking which gives you w rizz and the verified mark on twitter for free.
It's also hard to enjoy Scream Fortress 'cause here in Brazil, *ALL* the Halloween servers are filled with bots... Stealing names, being unable to be kicked, another entering right as one got kicked, filling entire servers, players getting a kick-cooldown ( So the bots can't be kicked after a while 'cause everyone kicked a bunch of them, resulting in most players quitting the match ), etc... There's no way to play the Halloween maps around here, probably in other places around the world too.
Recently had a friend of mine (who actually owned what I think was the #1 or #2 most expensive backpack in the game) suddenly quit and cash out. Why? He lives in Singapore, and can't play the game. No nearby community servers that are ever populated, and official servers are flooded with bots. It's a shame that outside of NA/EU, most other regions can't properly engage with new content... at all. It's ridiculous.
Valve should find a way to stop making steam account on masse will be a good start of making the bot less of a problem. I do play on singapore and europe (+80 ping) and i tell you the biggest reason why tf2 is dead here. is MYM. legitimately casual killed tf2 here. i still find games where i live but it's one server normally that the matchmaking put their and everyone is literally a baby, other then the few vets like me and the friends who que up together on the enemy team. every local community server is dead where i live after MYM. so heath my warning. don't let anyone tell you that Quick play is looked upon fondly because of nostalgia. Quick play is objectively good. the 100 players who looking for game on the community browser don't know about the other 99 players who also looking for filled server. we need the 2014 quick play version back, and this is coming from someone who joined tf2 in 2015 (aka only valve servers are in quick play)
@@aspiceeone i personally think we got like 50k real players if the game say 80k. casual mode is functional but still broken in term of being terrible system. i don't remember but i think the blue moon update was literally the last update to touch the system as also comp matchmaking. we playing on the bad mvm queueing system..... that why.
Here's a quote I read recently that perfectly encapsulates why TF2 is the way it is now: "The lesson to learn from Halo is this: A franchise is the sum of the people that made it great. If you replace the people, you're making a different game." -gubzs from the comment section of "The Absolute Chaos of Halo Infinite".
I know people like to say "Those who can't create critique," but you need people who take a critical view because people who can neither create nor critique will just blindly consume whatever they're given. That's why I really like Zesty Jesus because not being afraid to speak out is rare nowadays.
Those who create absolutely to critique. That is the only way creatives grow. However, it isn't hard to look at something and know it sucks. People have standards even if they personally can't create something that lives up to those standards.
@@RiskOfRayne The worst are excuses. Peoples can't admit that tf2 start being shitshow cause they were ones who wanted desperately new content and when said content become bad they cope with "at least we got something" and it only gonna result in getting used to it
"If you don't like the fact that the couch is on fire, just go into the other room. It's that simple." The only problem is that eventually the house is going to burn down. Too many bad maps means new players will see a gigantic name-only list of maps that are all garbage, and existing players will get burnt out and stop caring. It's not sustainable.
And when the house eventually burns down people will switch over to "yeah, but how does it affect you personally though? Just move to a different house if you don't like it.". And once you get fed up so much that you do move out it's "So you never were a true fan after all.".
Everything you say is true, I dunno why people hate you for it. As for all the issues you point out... What the hell can I do about it? As a player, with no agency over its community, what can *I* do to make this situation better? Not a whole lot, and that ticks me off. Because the people that *can* end up changing it and making a difference, the people uploading to the workshop, even VALVe themselves, are the ones who need to listen to this. But only we hear it, leading to nothing being done. as usual. I don't want this game to die, so what can I do about it?
vote in the workshop, i can't say my voting made an item get added. but but commenting and up voting items you like, will put them on the top of the workshop for that day. and as someone who at least do it 3 times a week when i am bored. quite often the good items I upvote or favorite. get added later. people do have power, we just need to speak up about it. i remember sending Bomb Carrier warpaint to Zesty and everyone liking it but we thought it will never be added but behold. it's in the game (so glad it got added. i have rocket launcher of that warpaint) also everything Zesty listed above is good way to make a change ☝☝☝☝☝
@@ZestyJesus To be honest, you not only have to NOT spend money on the game, you have to also do the same to the rest of their games too. I feel like Valve is intentionally dragging their heels on TF2 properly updating, because they want to strongarm people into playing their Pet Project game, CS:GO... Which I hate because it is just another generic PVP that lacks the Charm of TF2.
@@ZestyJesus At this point all of our criticism is not just the TF2 community and for the sake of saving TF2. Criticism should come from EVERY single Valve-game community be it Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead, Half Life, etc. So unless we get the entire VALVE community to speak up against the company's practices than all of our attempts will be in vain.
@@ZestyJesus And the fear of Valve going nuclear is still in my head. I don't love the state of the game and some of the stuff in it, but I also do like it enough to not want it gone.
As someone who played since the very first update (or at least older ones) - It was something else - If we can get even a fraction of that excitement and passion that those old major updates had, the game will be in a better shape.
@@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413 Wrong, it was Meet your Match that was the nail in the coffin. Everyone had a good time with Love and War because of the new weapons, balance changes, maps, and a SFM short. You're lucky to even get one of these now.
Remember, when we are saying that TF2 is suffering from content bloat now it doesn't mean that we are hating the game. We just want it to be better or rather back to its original greatness.
Man, that would have been so much better! Imagine the case being entirely themed around zombies and whatnot. With respect to the artstyle and halloween restrictions. Its not that much work either...
@dvnk6971, the Voodoo cursed souls already exist. No more zombie cosmetics, thank you. But how about we select a few *older* community made halloween cosmetics, which are quite charming and fit the game? Trust me, sort the workshop by halloween and newest, and go the very back page, and go from there. Really nice cosmetics
The year is 2033, TF2 is somehow still alive but the number of halloween and smissmass maps have heavily outnumbered the ammount of all year round maps. The meta revolves around sniper as usual with tons of comp players wearing the Spotted Target hat which is a literal archer target over sniper's face. Millions keep getting excited when Valve announces that they will do a collab with WhatTheBoom to include the skibidi boss battle in Bloodryo (its Hydro with blood) and the new warpaint case "Counter Striking collection" dropped with 16 new neon based paints. And no one sees whats wrong with it.
Unfortunately it's not just TF2, modern gaming philosophy is that market niches and cohesive design choices no longer exist in general, everything has to appeal to everybody or else both the executives and the consumer will throw a massive hissy fit, the former because they see niche markets as a profit limitation (and number must go up every fiscal year no matter what), the latter because most people are selfish/stupid and want every piece of media to fit their whims. Once you notice, you'll see it everywhere, be it on stablished series, modern singleplayer games, or older online games that still get updates; all of them eventually give up to the consumerism "must please everyone in the community" brainrot. They don't make things as good as they used to, and objectively so, because strong team direction and offering a niche/focused experience has long been replaced by comitee and appealing to the lowest common denominator. I could give a zillion examples for a zillion different games, but I'd be here all day, so I'm just gonna say that TF2 is an excellent example of an insanely good game which unfortunately peaked more than half a decade ago, and nowdays is just a bastardization of what it used to be, and it's a fucking shame.
this is nothing new, tf2 was made for the masses since 2007, many tfc players complained at how it basically got rid of everything that made team fortress what it was
The file size issue is an underrated issue. I have a pretty bad laptop with tiny RAM. I spent ages adjusting my cfg so that TF2 is playable. But with all these updates, theres no way i can keep tf2
Spells were one of the worst things added to the game. Not because of helltower, spells were designed for being used in an open map like that but, when they're slapped everywhere it becomes one of the most intolerable experiences ever.
Usually i don't consider any map that uses spells to be taken seriously, which is only a good thing if the map is something like Carnival of Carnage or other maps that give spells scarcely or place them in a hard to reach spots away from the objective
Dont you just love it when your team works hard to capture a point then NOPE someone summons a meteor shower or monoculus and ends your entire team’s existence then retakes the point? So fair. So balanced.
It's videos like this that really make me wish I could have showed up earlier. I only started playing in 2017 (because I was 4 when this game came out) so the only major update I experienced was Jungle inferno, and at the time I was too new to appreciate it. Usually I'm able to cope with the things I missed from being too young with: "they're still there, I didn't 'miss' anything", and usually that holds up with things like emulators or remaster projects like Sonic 3 AIR, but for events like scream fortress, it isn't true in a literal sense because if things like the truce mechanic on Ghost Fort and Eyeduct or the removal of weapon spells, but more importantly in a cultural way. I can still play Halo 3 today, and in arguably a better way than ever on a modern PC, but I will never get to experience the cultural excitement and fanfare of the release of Halo 3. Scream Fortress feels the same way, I'll never get to understand what it was like to get one great map that everyone plays on and celebrates, with all the promotional material, comics, and cultural fanfare. I showed up to late for that, and it sucks.
As someone who’s first time playing TF2 was in 2012 at the age of 12 or 13, getting to experience major updates like Mann vs. Machine, Tough Break, and Gun Metal (as controversial as those last two updates sort of were) was an amazing experience. Ten years later, I hate that people have to come to the game and get to experience it the way it is nowadays - a shell of its former self. It truly was beautiful, and it still is to some extent, but it’s a shame it’s being handled the way it is. I can also heavily empathize with your comparison to Halo 3 as a Halo fan who started with Halo CE Anniversary on the Xbox 360 and then went back to experience all the other Halo games on 360, with Halo 4 being the only one I really got to actually experience at its launch and during the peak of its multiplayer popularity. I never got to play online multiplayer for any of the original Bungie-era Halo games aside from a little bit of Reach before at last getting to do so through MCC on PC. I absolutely know how you feel about having missed out on these things.
I've said this to people many times and I'll say it once again, no person has a bigger love and passion for TF2 than the one that points out the glaring issues that this game seriously deteriorates from.
@@seronymus I'd rather take no more updates over the bastardization of a game I (used to) enjoy, want the reason why? watch the video above, it goes pretty in-depth on the reasoning behind this notion.
*Less is more* -Le Corbusier. and i'd say he knows a little more about aesthetic, because he invented the 5 principle of architect. so he can design and never be beaten in the ring of honor.
I know this is a month old, but I thought i would give my two cents. It really feels like tf2 has fallen into the trap of constantly trying to appeal to its audience, even when the audience doesn't know what makes a good game. Reminds me of something Hakita (ULTRAKILL dev) said about the game: "If I let the fans design this game, it would suck." What people want in the short term often does not lead to a good outcome in the long term, and sadly since tf2 does not have the dev support to be able to push out large, long term updates, we're stuck with these short term highs.
As silly it is for me to make this comparison, it would seem that the problem comes down to the complete degradation of society at large and the re-envisioning of "lifes purpose" to "what whatever feels good". People have become so accustomed to feeding their lower passions that they are slaves to themselves and will gobble up poison because they had not practiced moderation or temperance. This same problem exists across the gaming world: Pokemon, Sea of Thieves, etc Likely it exists across every other facet as well.
It’s a shame that Valve is being lazy, even when all that they do is choosing what to add in the game from the workshop, which is 100 times easier than making contents by themselves Must be painful to workshop creators too, wholeheartedly created awesome cosmetics? Ignored. Genuinely engaging and satisfying to play maps? Forgotten in the pile of bland craps. And those who just make under-average quality items or maps as a hobby? Death threats and hatreds, because “Valve” decided to add them. I wish they at least make some of the maps limited time accessible, via rotation. While keeping good old maps stationary, but make “content bloat” maps into the weekly featured maps boundary. If the map is awesome, people will ask Valve to make it to stay permanent anyways. Though I don’t agree with your opinions sometimes, I gotta say you are perfectly correct this time. Thank you for doing this.
i too miss the days where scream fortress was a celebration of halloween instead of just picking the most decent maps from the workshop and picking 90% trash and 10% cool stuff for the crates. Scream fortreess was almost a celebration for halloween and the game itself, now its just copy and paste.
"Are the bad maps in the room right now?" Did people forget we had the worst and broken maps last year for 2022? We got one or two good map and the rest were broken.
One of the big reasons there's so many for this year is because an entire THIRD of the maps this year were taken up by a vscript gamemode. Mr. Janitor wanted to give it the same treatment VSH got, and look where it got us with the map pool.
11:00 "it's already impossible to finish these contracts unless you're unemployed". Can confirm. I did all the contracts in order to do a mass unboxing at the end, and it was not fun, an absolute slog, and next year i don't plan on trying again. Even with a 5 stack for most of the contracts it took me nearly the entire month of october to finish.
The worst part about how heavy handed they've gotten with the new maps is that, I will ONLY play the new Halloween maps for the contract, and pretty much never touch them until next year, but some of these map contracts are just a chore (especially Hellstone, that is without a doubt, my least favorite Halloween map). The older Halloween maps I can definitely keep going back to, even if I already finished the contract, because the level of polish and quality of the old maps compared to the new ones is simply polarizing. Oh, and don't even get me started on the cosmetics, at the very least they changed the Corpse Carrier to be Halloween restricted, but the other cosmetics that SHOULD be Halloween restricted? Nah, they don't even bother, I guess that's another reason why I have been sticking with the older cosmetics, especially the Halloween restricted ones, because when I can use them, they feel more special.
Hellstone can at least be cheesed by just focusing on the bosses (they give 30+ CP points) Cant say the same thing about the other terrible maps like Brimstone and Sinshine. A tiresome chore.
monoculus and merasmus dont even work for their own maps, theyre terrible bosses because they need truce for anyone to kill them (gee who thought giving them >20k health would make that hard) why would they put them on a payload map i dont get it
This video is good shit. You say what other creaters and posters are too afraid to say about the game and it's development. And I honestly believe that the game's developers listen (at least somewhat) to what you say considering how much of the stuff you showcased in your "What I want for Smissmas" video was actually added into the game. The community and the developers need to hear this criticism or else the game will be so watered down after years of these lazy, shoehorned updates, that it will be completely unrecognizable in comparison to what it was several years ago. Keep doing your great work.
Can’t wait for people to take your main points out of context without actually understanding what you were saying, and then quote you on it anyway. The same thing happened with the team recognition video; really strong arguments with evidence to back it up, only for people to miss the point entirely.
Add an actually maintained map rotation. All new maps get taken out of the rotation after the update then a poll is held to vote one map permanently into the respective holiday rotation. Requires pretty much no effort.
Nice. I love the new gamemodes, but I cannot deny that they really just did slap it onto tf2 with bootleg elmers glue and called it a day. I actually hope next year's halloween focuses on something other than maps. Or that valve implement rigorous testing again. As unlikely a scenario as that is. Edit: One other guy also said nice when I posted this. We're both on the same wavelength i think-
TF2 is slowly being derived from its originality and is becoming bland and tasteless It has entered a state where it's being treated more like a soulless product than a game with care and love from its developers
Valve just thinks "Oh! The players want content!" And then just add the easiest content to add, Hats, Maps, and Warpaints. OooOooo sometimes they have to add a new mode, but that's it. Instead of adding good additions that are healthy for the game (Ie. Weapon balances, more QOL changes, bug fixes that have been here for years), they just thin out the players through 80 different maps and call it a day. I just refuse to play the game anymore, sure sometimes ill come back and have fun for a couple days, but I cant just keep playing the same game like I used to, because its the same.
9:11 a monthly least played map rotation is needed. just add a category of 5 maps on top of quick play that let player check the box to play on those maps. this will help revive dead maps (i miss you hydro) .
people need to learn hydro to play hydro. Nobody plays except those who remember hydro from the olden days, and so the pool of willing participants dwindles. No-one to teach the map, not enough players with enough attention span to figure out what a novel idea hydro is... it's sad.
@@ChronoSquare i myself still don't know how to play it (joined in 2015) but i enjoyed playing on it for being a mess. you know, same as you will enjoy bad maps like dust bowl. my goal of having this monthly rotation. so people might actually play other maps. i get so fatigued now playing tf2 because casual always put me in the same game modes in the same five maps. i like badwater but i am so sick of playing it over and over. because other PL maps either sucks or no one plays. At Least when we used to have *quick play*. maps within the same game mode will still have players. now if you do the same in casual. you will queue for 30m and everyone will leave the moment the game start. it's especially bad in regions with low population of tf2 players (just where i live) how is this possible. tf2 back in the day of Quick play used to have less players but i still find maps faster and no map was really dead (other than the one valve killed)
I like the idea, I certainly can think of a few great maps off the top of my head no one seems to play. Also id say no maps can be on there more than once every three months or so, just so the truly bad maps dont pop up every single month because no one wants to play them.
What you explained at the end about how it's child-like thinking is what I call The Zoomer Effect. They do this to EVERY game. It's like they infect it, destroy it, and then move on.
"Forced immortality" is probably the best way do describe the state of TF2. TF2 is a dead corpse barely kept alive by an uncoordinated community with different goals and visions in mind. The thing that Team Fortress really needs is to get revived. And no, I don't mean another "Pile of toys and shiny keys with holiday themed crap" I mean that it needs a proper sequel. Restart from the ground up. TF2 is clearly too bloated now and not made for this era. But knowing Valve I fear that even they will fuck it up because with modern Valve you can very likely say goodbye to Sprays, Soundsprays (yes that actually exist), Client side visual mods (like custom animations and reskins) and a crapton of other custom content and say hello to another unfun heavily competitive centered game
I absolutely adore the Halloween reskins, but I also just love the look. I like occasional gimmicks, a la Mann Manor's horseman and so on, but it's a nightmare getting a trillion spells, skeletons, monoculus and ghosts all slammed into one map. Like having Hassle Castle without a bunch of spells and skeletons would just be Upward, yes, but it would be arguably more fun.
As soon as I heard Nolan North's bizarre, lispy, wolf howling, not-at-all-like-his-previous-performance Merasmus voice in carnival of carnage, I knew that something was extremely wrong. The better part of a decade later, I've seen full well that my teenage fears were not at all unfounded.
More map creators should do what that asylum map did, push the design of the game further on Halloween, get a bit silly, but ultimately innovate. A procedurally generated underworld is such a fucking cool concept, we need more stuff like that, and stuff like Crasher, adding a unique layer on top of what we already have.
What makes yetis, living skeletons, sheet looking ghosts, cancerous man-eating bread, and all of the other creatures in tf2 different from the Fish Men though? I can understand the lack of appeal for the scarecrows since I didn’t find them that memorable, but in the same world that has aliens and a man’s decapitated head stuck living inside a jar stored in a german doctor’s fridge I don’t think Fish Men are too far out.
it surprises me that with how many writers that were once supposedly on the TF team they never thought to just take high-quality, interesting maps and base the entire event around those (like they did with Mann Manor, as you mentioned). like imagine if Crasher was the focal point of that year's Scream Fortress event, and it had it's own landing page and maybe a short comic to further characterize the two mad scientists. People would've loved it and it probably would've taken about as much effort as trying to get 6 different maps to work (though it would require more than just one person at Valve actually giving a shit about the game).
As someone who's never been _into_ TF2 in an official capacity (as in, beyond minecraft idle trade servers dicking around with friend), I was initially hesitant to agree with the ferocity of the points you were making in this video. This was my first year ever participating in Scream Fortress, since this was the first year I've had the time and drive to. Apart from notable exceptions of quality, like the *terrible* Moldergrove, "bleh" Mannsylvania, and good Slime, I don't really know if I have the experience to agree since they all sort of blend into a miasma when you grind contracts two weekends straight. However, the thing that prompted me to write this comment was my realization that this video hit every single note I have about another game which has gone to the dogs and that's Minecraft. When that struck me, I became a convert to your plight entirely. It's wretched to watch a cherished game fall from glory by the hands of people who have no right contributing to it in an official capacity.
Pumpkin Bombs… Pumpkin Bombs everywhere… Seriously though who wants this many pumpkin bombs? It’s nice when there’s just a few and they’re placed in somewhat obscure locations. When you put a pumpkin bomb around every corner in every choke point and on top of every health pack it becomes a game of minesweeper
I unironically want a map where the gimmick is just that it's filled to the brim with pumpkin bombs, but they still try to make them hard to notice, like Harvest but much worse
It's especially funny because the neon hat was meant to be part of a set with a neon all class melee and a neon warpaint. It might have been decent if they'd added all of it. Ironic that the one time they show any sort of restraint it ends up being to their detriment.
I think it's funny how in the newest update patch for soul-mill, they removed custom textures because "they weren't needed" and yet a good chunk of the floor in the underworld is now missing textures, and there's the occasional ERROR signs.
Man, everytime I watch your videos I can relate more of the stuff you are saying. "To much of something makes it not special" is something everyone will not understand until they get old. And yeah I am sick of SF for now, I only played the old maps with friends and made some contracts And yet hope TF2 goes to a better place, and not die as a Villian
It's pretty insane how many zombie maps were added this update. Choosing a single zombie map and polishing it and making sure it works would've been soooooo much better instead of having so many.
Ehh, the issue with that approach is that only playing on one map exclusively would probably get rather monotonous; I'd say 4-5 is enough. Hell, VSH (and I'm fully aware that it didn't work for two weeks or so) got four, and half of them were just rehashes of existing maps (Tiny Rock and Nucleus were both Arena/KOTH maps, only Distillery and Skirmish were made specifically for the mode from scratch), but it was (and still is) rather well polished. If only one map was added in for VSH, even if it was some absolute masterpiece of map design, it would have gotten rather stale after a while.
24:35 Now i generally agree with this but this analogy ain't right, Having random ass lego bricks to play with is way better than a set cuz you get more options and a bigger canvas to play with in an already restrictive way to create, I don't wanna follow instructions like a good soldier i wanna make a big ass dragon and have him burn down villages and if he looks like clown puke so be it i can make my own fun You can't do that with tf2, since the maps you get aren't a canvas, they're a goal, Post-2015 updates are like having several random small lego sets that range from somewhat cool to pitifully small while the previous updates gave us a huge lego set with like bionicles and stuff and even though theres instructions they give you extra options and extra fusions so you can like, combine the bionicle parts and it's like so cool you can put it on your desk and it fills the whole desk and you keep it for years but your mom throws it out when cleaning your room when you're moving out and you get really angry at her and you never speak to her ever again yknow
I would LOVE it if we saw the community map makers coming together to make one super-tailored map for Scream Fortress XVI. That'd be great, but a very, VERY hard bargain to ask for.
This is the first year I've barely played Scream Fortress since 2014. I can't even tell them apart by name anymore. I love new maps, Pier was a great perminant edition and there have been other great ones, but I can feel the burnout
I appreciate this critique. Your negative feedback might be abrasive to some, but it's constructive and that's valuable. To balance the negative with some positive, and to kinda find what's worth keeping, let's discuss some of the better Scream Fortress maps, new and old. Among the new maps I actually think Slime is really good. Very well balanced. I like that the fog makes it impossible to see at long ranges, especially important for this map and its otherwise generous sightlines. I don't know if the fog changes on lower settings, I kinda hope not. The Salmenn are cool too, even if their hitboxes and hit registration absolutely need work.
While yes, valve didn't playtest zombie infection themselves, the gamemode WAS tested on community servers, and they responded to feedback from those that played early versions... The early builds of Zombie Infection were WAAAYY buggier than on launch in casual, and an even worse balancing mess. If that didn't happen, every map would have really stupid good holdout points. TBH the devs for ZI should've spent much more time polishing the gamemode, but it could've been worse.
I honestly can't remember when was last time I played a new Halloween map. I mostly just stick to my favorites, and even contracts and free hats don't encourage me to try the new ones.
Zesty, it's true. I played Team Fortress 2 from late 2009 to 2014. The Carnival of Carnage update was such a piece of disgusting shit that I abandoned that game for years. In the spring of 2023, I decided to come back to Team Fortress 2. I swear, my eyes were in so much pain it's hard to describe. Poorly made hats and accessories, dull maps, cheaters, bots, lack of optimization. It's no longer my favorite Team Fortress 2. It's a mess. And it really hurts.
@@bruschetta7711 Nah the standard of content tolerance was very different back then, Ie. I have quit over Gun Mettle when it came out, because it completely changed the cosmetics trend and weapon accessories uniqueness, making the australium skins less unique, for example... and now I find the update completely okay compared to what has to come afterwards
You hit the nail right in the head with how people just forget about SaveTF2 all because of regular content updates and shiny new toys that people will just forget within a week
90% of these new Halloween maps are played just to complete a contract objective and then not touched until next year. I liked zombie Infection, even if it has massive problems. Hope they keep updating it. The other maps this year I just can't even remember, they blend too much with all the others. The biggest problem is the dissipation of the playerbase. Almost all my scream fortress experience has been in half empty servers and it's not fun. Also, I just can't agree with you on competitive maps in casual. I have not even played competitive but have so much fun on 5cp comp maps in 12v12, especially snakewater, sunshine and gullywash. Reckoner was the map I had the best time on, this summer. I think they are balanced fine for the casual format, don't see any problems with them.
The update would’ve been a lot more cool if they kept only those maps and themed around it. Maybe cosmetics and stuff related to zombies and zombie-like media.
I agree. Many of the new maps are just awful to play. I especially hate that one where a different boss spawns every 5 seconds during the last part (hellstone). I remember being excited to see new maps, now they're just another contract I have to fulfill.
Perks is honestly the best Halloween map created this year. It's simple and fun. Only thing holding it back from being perfect is random crits and crit pumpkins especially. It's almost as if small buffs and such is more fun than overpowered shit being thrown at you at every single minute while playing.
lmao what are you talking about, the map is literally 1 chokepoint and if you try to do anything you die because youre running into a choke with 12 enemies in it now repeat that for a couple of rounds and thats about it, no choice, no thought, nothing
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the mapmaker patch out crit pumpkins in an update or something? I know for sure that it's at least possible to do, since the guy that made VSH released a vScript program that stops them from spawning.
Once again, basically my exact thoughts. These updates have had the same energy as a divorced dad microwaving a TV dinner for his only son while forcing a smile to appear ok.
As someone who started playing TF2 in late 2019, Scream Fortress (despite no longer being in its prime) was still a fun and memorable experience. I anticipated the event every year... and this year I just didn't play it. I've been playing lots of casual, but none of the new Halloween maps and I think this argument perfectly sums it up: too much of a good thing, and lack of quality control.
I think i would love a community vote system After every event say halloween, christmas, summer etc, all the new maps added for that season are put up to vote, with the top 3 being kept for next years events, and the rest being removed from the game, with the chance that map makers can take their maps that got added for the season but didnt get a top 3 votes can then look at the feedback for their maps, and use that to work on them for the next season giving a way to slow down maps being permanently added, but atill allowing for that exciting seasonal content drop, and a way for bad maps that were added to be reworked by their designers for another shot
To be honest the balance problems of the mode have more to do with the fact players on casual servers cannot cooperate whatsoever. And now zombies team is the overpowered ones with human team forced to huddle up and pray they can run down the timer instead of roaming around with classes that were good at roaming around like scout and demoknight, getting royally shafted.
@@simplysmiley4670To be fair that's just the Zombie Survival experience in any multiplayer game It's the same in CS, it's the same in Halo (infection) so I'm not surprised it's the same in TF2 Not saying you have to like it, just different tastes for different people
@@simplysmiley4670 Demoknight was literally a nightmare to fight against before its nerf. Every round would just devolve into 23 zombies chasing after and dealing chip damage to one demoknight who heals all his health back after every guaranteed crit swing towards the crowd of zombies eating each other's melee hits.
Thank you for finally putting into a proper script what I like to call "Fortniteification" of games. Most PVP video games nowadays are no longer the same game they were a year ago. They don't care about quality or fixing problems, just throw more slop and some of it will stick. New content now has an expiration date, not because it will get removed in two weeks but because the next round of key jiggling will be added by then, making everyone move on to the next gimmick. Imagine if the real world worked this way, imagine going to watch a football match and every week a new thing was added. Now you can carry the ball with your hands. Next week we're adding a basketball hoop on top of the goal post. After that, a starving cheetah will be tied to a pole in the middle of the pitch etc How many people still be around by week 4? Why is that somehow okay in video games?
Can't wait to get a christmas themed vscript deathrun map for smissmass 2023, where a santa's hat antlers wearing Merasmus kills the mercs by trapping them inside candy cane surrounded pits, and having his evil minion skeleton zombie elves eat them alive.
I agree with basically all of this, but I feel like the Lego analogy didn't work so well lol. There was a whole movie about why enforcing "following the instructions" and sticking to what it was "meant to be," while an acceptable way to go about it, is just as valid as taking things apart and making your own wonders out of them.
I won’t lie and say that I didn’t like any of the maps this update, but I feel like most will be forgotten very fast. I mean zombie infection is fun but I agree that it will most likely be forgotten like mannpower. What they should do is make game modes like ZI and VSH to be seasonal like the update themselves, so that it becomes something you wait for and hope to play during the summer or fall. But that little idea over, the only maps I really remember liking this year were Spineyard, Slime, and Perks, one being a nice payload map with a little gimmick, another being a king of the hill with a similar gimmick, and the other finally making a enjoyable arena mode. I don’t really know why these were my favorite maps, but maybe just because they have an idea what they want to be, they all have a clear goal of a map and they don’t add anything extra. I feel like if they had focus on zombies or even one of this other ideas the update would have been better, but I’m already on a sinking ship and I love this game to much to get off it, even though it does seem each update is worse and worse.
This year was my first ever exploring Scream Fortress, as I've never had time before. I've seen the bosses and was aware of some of the memes surrounding the events for a while but it was my first time ever playing through any of the maps. I've been grinding the contracts and so far, out of all the newly added ones in the list, the map added this year I most enjoyed was Slime. It in particular feels really polished, whereas some of the others I spent 3 rounds in and was like "get me the fuck outtah 'ere, dude. I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE!" Desperate to get the kills to move on to the next mess of a map. All this to say: yeah, Slime is good.
top sf map: 'gimmickville', contains every single possible gimmick the game can handle in one single map (immediate merasmus+eye+lessman+skeleking+extras]
Yeeeeah the fact that I spent the first like two weeks of this update just figuring out which maps I actually liked and then reluctantly doing all the contracts just kinda sucks
It makes me so sad that vsh died. I know nobody really asked for it, but having it tossed into the spotlight of casual breathed life into it, and now it’s been tossed into the dark, untouched pits of “misc”.
If all of the maps were at least good, I could see it being okay, because then it wouldn't be frustrating in the moment, and there would be fans who would want improvements, but that's unfortunately not the case. Regarding Vscript modes, I'm actually a huge fan of them, and community server players probably love the representation in official servers (discounting bots), but they need more balance and more spotlight. The "misc" mode category is a terrible place to put them, since I think as a unique kind of mode with unique team structure, they should have their own tab. Also show of hands how many people know every map from misc mode and why it's not a normal map, cuz I certainly don't.
See, I would be more accepting of vscript gamemode additions if it didn't split development control between valve and the community. Just look at VSH. It has completely different balancing within community servers, that long time fans of the gamemode prefer over the Vscript version, which will (unlikely) continue to be developed separately from the community server version most people are familiar with. This means people will keep returning to the community server version, as the official version rots away from lack of interest/trickle of balance changes. As soon as a new gamemode is relinquished to valve, you lose the immediacy of control that community servers have for balancing, which these modes SERIOUSLY need on the fly in order to be properly tweaked for the official game. It's just a shame.
Honestly the crazy thing is that you don’t even get to play most of these maps as people will sit on the same few maps at the start of the contract branches and constantly vote for them
