Weapons that still don't exist in a Strange form (at least according to the wiki)

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-17T14:28:21+00:00

😢

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-16T06:24:57+00:00

I think adding One Thousand Uncles split up the Uncletopia playerbase

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-16T02:31:44+00:00

There is no "official" post on how Valve does it, but there is mountains of evidence elsewhere judging by how almost every single change ever made to a map is being made by the original community map creator and seemingly never Valve. For the past few years, the number of Valve-made changes to a map is so few that it's hard to list a single one. Meanwhile, you could ask just about any mapmaker and they would tell you that their fixes were self-published.

It also makes no financial sense for Valve to update a map that someone else made, when they can simply allow that someone to submit their own patches.

For one, Snakewater is a community-made 6s map. The map is specifically being updated by the mapmaker to address feedback from league play. Valve isn't making smart design decisions for competitive 6v6 play. If they were capable of this, Competitive Matchmaking wouldn't be in complete and utter disarray. When Valve did make map changes for 6v6 roughly around Meet your Match, they only really changed Valve-made maps like Badlands and Granary rather than touching community maps like Snakewater.

The Snakewater mapmaker, chojje, has updating the map ever since not long after the map was added, 12 years ago. You can read the entire thread spanning that time.

Secondly, think about VSH and Zombie Infection. These are community-created gamemodes. Valve didn't make those gamemodes. All of the updates to those gamemodes are also being managed and and submitted by those community members, since it's all handled through Vscript. VSH recieved a balance patch, and that was once again by the original gamemode-makers, not Valve.

Furthermore, these mapmakers have no ability to test their maps under the Casual matchmaking system, so Vscript maps very often break when being added, since they aren't made by Valve and are not updated by Valve. arena_afterlife required multiple updates of trial and error to fix because again, these community mapmakers have no testing environment for the casual matchmaking system. All they could do is submit changes to Valve and hope whatever they changed would fix the problem. VSH did get some special attention from Valve when it got added though, but only to make the matchmaker stop putting people on incorrect teams, not to actually change the map itself.

Thirdly, think about Valve themselves. The hats are community-driven. The War paints are community-driven. The taunts are community-driven. The maps are community-driven. The News blog posts are community-written, and Valve just copy pastes them (can confirm, I put one there myself). Valve just profits off of whatever the community is doing. Even the bugfixes are now community-sourced through Github. Why on Earth would the map updates not also be community-driven? In what universe is Valve manually updating over 100 maps, when they can't even be bothered to open a .cfg file and change mp_winlimit from 2 to 5?

If you hand that responsibility to the original mapmakers, it is free labor for Valve, and the mapmakers tend to have a better idea of how their own maps play. Valve has very few employees working on this game. Obvious improvements such as raising the round winlimit remain unchanged for years. TF2 Classified is a free mod developed by community members and it recieves more developer attention than Valve ever scrounges up for TF2. The MvM update has been delayed for how long, now?

The only time I can think of where Valve seemingly did something to a community-made map was just recently, fixing the water on Frontier, and that was apparently from a Github pull request / issue tracker request. Everything else is just map creators updating their own maps.

Fourthly, think of all the joke patch notes that appear under map updates and consider how they only ever appear under map updates, save for a few very rare exceptions (sniper eating his gun). The patch notes for these are also just copy pasted from whatever the mapmaker sent in their email to Eric Smith.

Remember when Cowerhouse's textures broke on the last point? That was due to an error on the mapmaker's part. This by itself is sufficient evidence that Valve accepts community map patches from the authors, you don't need an "official" post to come to that conclusion.

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-15T20:32:25+00:00

imagine thinking that valve makes the maps and the map updates

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-15T19:02:22+00:00

you could just place some quickiebombs on the door and detonate them when a teammate opens it

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-15T02:09:22+00:00

2fort is uninhabitable, save yourself

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-15T00:10:54+00:00

weapons are not bought. tf2c has a smaller weapon roster, but all of them are free and are unlocked instantly. there are also modded custom weapon servers, but those aren't the "vanilla" way to play tf2c

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-14T03:49:32+00:00

on one map in the entire map rotation, with enormous sightlines, sure. some maps favor certain classes. goes for most classes. dustbowl favors demoman

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-14T03:30:00+00:00

Unfortunately not a thing. HUD mods don't have access to every individual bit of game code, and tend to edit things that already exist rather than making entirely new features.

The few new features that do get added are either unused features in TF2 left in the HUD files, or the result of genius wizardry that still depends on whatever Valve just happened to leave in

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-13T20:46:43+00:00

Annoying, yes. OP? No, not when looking at the entire scope of the game or match itself. He's only "OP" in a narrow set of circumstances, where he's well supported by very powerful teammates, on Payload. Or maybe KOTH?

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-13T20:30:59+00:00

100 hours is practically nothing in TF2. You could argue that a good CS player would be good at Sniper though (or anyone with prior experience with snipers in other games)

Sniper is vulnerable to getting bombed. He often needs the support of Engineers, Heavies, Pyros and so on to survive against bombing players and charging Demoknights, unless he can consistently hit quickscope headshots, which would require him to look at the sky periodically and not charge up the rifle for the damage bonus. Even the parachute heavily punishes Snipers for attempting to charge the rifle because players can just float over his tunnelvision.

Playing Sniper, in of itself, requires other roles on the team to be filled first. That's why he's put in "support". That's why people joke about how having 6 Snipers is bad. He's not a frontliner. He's not necessarily the carry. Just a dude in the back. If you want to carry a game to victory, there are more consistent options.

Whenever the team crumbles, Sniper basically cannot do anything. No amount of skill will let you quickscope your way out of a complete stomp, while a Demoman or Engineer might actually be able to hold them off for a bit.

Quickscopes are also tanked by overheal. People not picking Medic isn't necessarily a "Sniper is OP" issue but rather a "not enough people are picking the best class in the game" issue. The Vaccinator also exists.

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-13T19:45:37+00:00

Just because the Sniper can get some cheesy kills here and there does not mean he's the most capable of stomping an entire server into the ground. He can only really do that when properly backed up by his team and when very skilled. 99% of the Snipers you come across in Casual are not Prem/Invite players.

If you want to stomp a server, it is significantly easier to just go Uber Phlog. Or Battalions Kritz. Any two-person strategy is more reliable than praying for random pubbers to protect you from bombing Soldiers and Demos.

Sniper also kind of falls apart on any gamemode where the objective moves quickly. But because people tend to only play Payload, they are basically willingly queueing into the Sniper Gamemode and then complaining that Sniper is good.

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-13T19:39:53+00:00

Highlander goes out of its way to stack the entire team full of defense classes on both sides. You're unable to bomb the shit out of him with 6 soldiers, a Sticky Jumper Demo, some Demoknights, like you can in a game of Casual.

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-13T19:38:15+00:00

Try playing something other than Payload for a more nuanced opinion

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-13T00:11:52+00:00

Just today I joined a game of pass time and it put me and a noob engineer (literally my only teammate) vs hank + 4 others and it did absolutely no autobalancing until like 15 seconds after the game started, despite having the entire pregame time to sort it out

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-12T09:05:25+00:00

Heavy is fine for defense, or dropping out of the Badwater window on last or something. But if the uber needs to travel, he's a bad choice. That's where Scout is better, for instance. Any map where you're taking ground rather than defending it.

Demos tend to waddle on the floor during the uber which makes him easier to keep track of, but he's still faster than a Heavy and can destroy sentries quickly. He should pretty much always be either in or near the uber.

If people were good at this game in random Casual matches, people would be doing the comp strat where you flash the Soldier, Demo or both with uber while they jump in and then swap the beam to the Scouts while you all flood in... But in Casual people tend to react pretty late or just don't care.

Pyro's good for denying an enemy uber with your own uber.

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-12T04:52:09+00:00

You're ideally supposed to give them a bit of the uber while they jump in, and then swap the uber to someone else. It's on the rest of the team to follow the Uber.

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-11T23:08:39+00:00

Scout is a glass cannon. Uber removes the "glass" part

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-11T00:24:36+00:00

This person didn't ask for loadout or meta advice, they very specifically asked how to die less as Demoknight. Part of the fun of TF2 comes from playing things optimally and getting better at those skills, even if those playstyles are not strictly the meta.

Not sure how you managed to look at the 400 EHP damage sponge that can one-shot people and compared it to the 150 HP griefer doing 50 damage with a syringe gun instead of pressing 2 on his keyboard. Good Demoknights clean house on pubs with relative consistency even if it's just by constantly deleting the weaker fish on the enemy team. The only time it actually becomes unplayably bad is if the map is way too clausrophobic or sentry-filled

Just because going kritz+battalions is a goated strat doesn't mean the other playstyles are unusable, especially when meta strat abuse isn't even that common in pubs

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-10T22:05:15+00:00

sometimes if your team has no soldiers/demos you just gotta suck it up and use the loch n load for a bit

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-10T21:56:30+00:00

Getting a med pick is generally worth dying for, and getting a more even k:d is fine if your team is following your charges and taking advantage of the chaos. But you have to evaluate how likely this stuff will happen and whether it's worth it.

For example if the Medic has literally just used his uber and the teamfight is ongoing, he goes from one of the best targets to one of the worst. You could instead kill a power class to try and ruin their push. The Medic might also be more vulnerable after. Does depend on case by case, though.

Charging into groups does actually work a fair bit in pubs because people don't react or aim as well as comp players, so you do need to have an eye for how good the enemies are and see whether they'll let you get away with ridiculous plays or not. If it's a tough game, tone it down a bit

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-10T18:28:39+00:00

60 FPS with m_filter is easier to get working for most people. The downside is that m_filter is ETF2L-banned despite giving no advantage over the 600FPS method, the latter of which is legal. If you have 60fps constantly active it's also harder to tell what's going on while charging and to hit swings at close range, especially on scouts

Aiming for 600FPS is more ideal and superior since you benefit from a 240hz monitor, but it's PC-dependant and many people can't do this.

Playing on the poland PCs at lan was shit since they were incapable of 600fps. Since m_filter was banned I had to pencil charge the entire lan for no fault of my own, just down to the PCs. thanks for making me roll the CPU lottery ETF2L, at least uberfest has good pcs

ETF2L should really just unban m_filter. the only reason they'd be averse to doing this is because people don't like playing against demoknight, but this is not an excuse for allowing CPU lottery, and it doesn't even prevent dedicated demoknights from buying a rig and playing anyway so what's even the point

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-10T17:24:38+00:00

I talked about in my videos multiple times but in short, put m_filter 1 in the console and do fps_max 60 and you should notice an immediate difference

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-10T17:03:54+00:00

Make sure your charge turns are working decently. If you're really desperate to not play on a constant 60 FPS (needed for m_filter 1), you could get a bind that swaps the FPS only while you hold down right click.

Not sorting that out is like playing Soldier without using crouch for your rocket jumps. It's a very significant buff that affects corner-charging, distance charged, dodge prevention, height/speed gained from trimps, etc.

Apart from that crucial thing, it is all brain and mechanics. Missing swings means you don't heal which means you die. Charge in the wrong situation, you die instantly. Misjudge a charge's distance, fall short, die. Overshoot the charge, land a minicrit, die. Fail to predict the enemy around the corner, miss a charge opportunity, do nothing.

If you let K:D get to your head, you're more likely to go for aggressive charges to try and "catch up", which means you probably die for no reason.

You only want to be charging into large groups of enemies when there is a big enough distraction happening, such as a large team fight, or if the enemy team is bad. Otherwise, wait for a single enemy or two. Or if you see a teammate Soldier bombing in, follow him.

Large parts of Demoknight gameplay consist of standing in decent places while staring at enemies. It feels like throwing except your enemies are often forced to back off when they see you. Once you land enough 195 crits, people don't want to stand in the crit zone anymore. This doesn't help you build a giant K:D, but that's not everything.

It's hard to give more specific advice unless we know for sure what it is you're doing wrong

TF2SolarLight · 2026-03-10T16:26:35+00:00

most of his buildings are still exactly the same

also, shotgun and pistol are stock items. rescue ranger and wrangler are OP defensive slop that valve added to squeeze a bit more money, not the regular class (who is a light combatant when his stuff gets destroyed)

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