Pyromania Round-up + more Mann vs Machine rumours

[ríomhaire]

Ok a lot has been happening with Team Fortress 2 lately hasn't it? Meet the Pyro was finally released as well as a demonstration of Source Filmmaker. You can sign up for the beta of Source Filmmaker here.

A major update was of course also released and here's what you need to know:
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Pyrovision courtesy of Reddit users postfish and MrOddsAgainst.[/box]

• New Special Delivery gamemode which has both teams competing to carry a neutral flag to a drop point (in this case a Mann Co. rocket).
• New item sets for Scout, Sniper and Soldier and a new flare gun for the Pyro.
• Pyroland was added to the game. You can visit Pyroland as a Pyro by equipping the Rainblower, Lollichop, Burning Bongos or Infernal Orchestra. You can visit Pyroland as any class by equipping the Pyrovision Goggles (to claim yours at "Vintage" quality just play Team Fortress 2 any time between now and the 5th of July) or Balloonicorn. Pyrovision Goggles will still be available after the 5th of July if you manage to dominate a player who has a pair of their own.
• In Pyroland everything is bright and cheery, health and ammo pickups use their birthday mode models, sillygibs are enabled, blood is replaced by balloons and fire by pixiedust and rainbows. Other players laugh when injured and have higher-pitched voices. Pyroland items are only visible to players in Pyroland. Other players will either see nothing or the stock items. Pyroland is only fully supported in DirectX 9 and on the following maps: 2Fort, Dustbowl, Badlands, Doomsday, Viaduct, Hightower and Gold Rush. Otherwise you will see some features of Pyroland but not others.
• In the advanced options menu you can set the game to always show Pyrovision when spectating.
• Various community contributed cosmetic items were added; the Medic can now wear an Ushanka to match his pocket Heavy's.
• All the "secret treasure" items (the banana peel, pocket link, etc.) are now piles of ash. Crafting ash will result in either a Pyromania item or a scorched crate. You can open scorched crates with scorched keys, available in the Mann Co. store.
• The following weapons have received balance changes: Gloves of Running Urgently, Tomislav, Quick-Fix, Crusader's Crossbow, Cozy Camper, Concheror, Crit-a-Cola, Bonk! and Phlogistinator. All Flamethrowers have had their damage tweaked and the Equalizer has been split into two weapons: the Equalizer and Escape Plan.
• New Robot Chicken Hat which you can claim by signing up for the Adult Swim newsletter before the 4th of July.
• Alien parasites, stuffed dolls, parrots and balloonicorns equipped by the player get kill assist credits for all unassisted kills.
• Various bug fixes were also implemented.

Full patch notes here.


New Team Fortress 2 mechanise was added to the Valve Store, including highly detailed portrait posters of all nine classes and Saxton Hale and your very own inflatable Balloonicorn!


But that's not all! According to rumours popping up on the Facepunch forums and SPUF Valve has snuck in robot heads (see below) for each of the nine classes into the Source Filmmaker beta. They are definitely not the same as the ones made by Hunter-Killer that we previously discussed and were probably made by the TF2 team themselves. Reddit user bhaji also claims to have received an email response from Jeep Barnett of Valve that Source Filmmaker was not the "top secret project" mentioned in a previous TF2 blog post. One can only conclude that we still have some sort of robot mode to look forward to later in the year.

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[Selkcip]

A similar set up to the one in Foundry is also in Doomsday. Behind the Blu spawn is a staircase leading to a room full of data tapes with a soldier guarding a "Top Secret" door. Behind the door is a spy, face in palm, with the same string of blurry pictures in front of him. Maybe they just like to rub it in our faces that they know exactly what's coming and we can only speculate.

 

[Dekstar]

"All the "secret treasure" items (the banana peel, pocket link, etc.) and now piles of ash. Crafting two piles of ash together will result in either a Pyromania item or a scorched crate."
Just loaded up TF2 and it says 3 piles of ash need to be combined.

 

[ríomhaire]

Notes on weapons:

• Baby Face's Blaster (new Scout shotgun) does not work how I originally assumed. Boost is not an active effect like the Soda Popper's Hype. It builds as you do damage and as the bar fills your speed increases. That's it. It's entirely passive and once you hit the max Boost you can run at 130% Scout speed indefinitely as long as you do not jump (being knocked into the air does not count).
• Beggar's Bazooka (new Soldier rocket launcher) is definitely a spam weapon. It's a strange one; it has no clip. When you want to fire you have to load in the rockets and as soon as you release fire all rockets loaded fire rapidly one after the other. This moves the delay in firing to before you shoot, not after. You need to plan attacks here. The main thing I see being done with this is ducking in and out behind corners while spamming. You'll eat through ammo pretty quickly doing that so the lack of dispensor restocking is actually a fairly bad downside. Attempting to load more than three rockets into the chamber will result in each subsequent rocket exploding on you (though the three already in the chamber stay in the chamber). The random variation in accuracy is there whether you are firing one rocket or all three.
• Hitman's Heatmaker (new Sniper rifle) gets Focus whenever you get a kill or assist with any weapon. Once full it automatically activates and starts to drain away, but can be kept up indefinitely by continuing to get kills. While you're Focused you do not unscope between shots, your shots charge faster and you leave Machina-like bullet trails leading back to you.
• Cleaner's Carbine (new Sniper SMG) is basically a KGB SMG and if you can keep up a killing spree and kill someone every three second with it you can continue getting infinite critical shots.
• Scorch Shot does not crit on burning targets. The flare is not immediately destroyed when it hits a target. It bounces around a little bit before exploding.
• GRU no longer drains health. Instead the Heavy is marked for death (takes mini-crits) while using it and for three second after he changes weapons. Damage penalty reduced to -25%
• Tomislav effects are no where near as prominent as they used to be. Now only has 10% faster spin-up time (was originally 75%)
• Quick-Fix Medics now get blasted with his Soldier or Demoman whenever they do an explosive jump.
• Crusader's Crossbow has a greatly sped up reload.
• Cozy Camper now regenerates 1HP a second and doesn't slow movement when aiming quiet so much.
• Concheror now charges faster and only charges by damage done.
• Equalizer now only increases damage at low health. All Equalizer owners also given the Escape Plan which increases speed at low health.
• Crit-a-Cola now increases Scout's movement speed by 25% when used and lasts 8 seconds (Bonk! now also lasts for 8 seconds)
• Flamethrower damage increased by 10%. +10% attribute removed from Backburner (same damage as before). -10% damage attribute added to Degreaser (same damage as before)
• Phlogistinator damage protect reduced to 75%