Team Fortress 2's New Matchmaking Changed Following Complaints

[Steven Bogos]

Team Fortress 2's New Matchmaking Changed Following Complaints

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Team Fortress 2 fans were not happy with the harsh penalties imposed on players for leaving games early.

Last week, America's number 1 hat simulator finally got the Overwatch-style "leaver penalty" [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/167877-Team-Fortress-2-Competitive-Matchmaking-Patch]. Thankfully, Valve is listening, and has already make some changes.

Previously, leaving a game in progress counted as a loss and prevented players from joining another game for 10 minutes. This penalty has been completely removed, with Valve stating that "Your feedback has convinced us that it is more important for players to be able to come and go as they please," Valve explained.

Next, regarding the long wait times casual players are experiencing finding a match, Valve says that this is actually a bug in the matchmaking system that will be fixed very shortly.

Finally, the option to choose a specific map to queue up for is on the way. "We'd intended to roll out the number of match options available to players incrementally, so as not to overload the matchmaking system with too many variables on Day One," said Valve. "In retrospect, of all the match options to hold back, map selection should not have been one of them. It is the next feature we are adding to Casual mode, and you will get it very soon."

You can read more about the changes in the official blog post [http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=22797] Valve made regarding the matter.

Source: Valve [http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=22797]

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[Neverhoodian]

Fair adjustments all around, and this is coming from someone highly critical of Valve's handling of TF2 in the past.

This update is one of the best things that has happened to TF2 in years. Folks in matchmaking are actually using their mic, coordinating their efforts, working as a team...everything that's been sorely lacking from your average Valve server experience, which typically consisted of twenty potatoes and four teamstacking pubstompers. Not only that, but I'm seeing the first stirrings of decent community servers cropping up again now that Quickplay is dead. Does this signify a renaissance of the friendly, tight-knit server communities that were prevalent during the game's halcyon years of 2007-09? One can only hope.

 

[Kajin]

I still hope they have some kind of leaver penalty, because few things in multiplayer gaming suck harder than having to put up with fighting an enemy team when you're down a man or two.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

I still hope they have some kind of leaver penalty, because few things in multiplayer gaming suck harder than having to put up with fighting an enemy team when you're down a man or two.

Doesn't TF2 still have servers?

It's been a few years since I've played, but back when I did, I would normally just find a server (usually one running 2Fort) and not care if my team wins or loses; I just wanted to shoot some dudes.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Ok, but I think they shouldn't have done away with the abandon penalty completely, instead implementing something like the system that existed for MvM matchmaking where you got the penalty after abandoning repeatedly within a certain timespan. This would let people still let people come and go as they please, so long as they don't overdo it.

Also, Valve should probably do something about the rampant cheating in casual (maybe also ranked) matchmaking. Out of the 6 casual games I played yesterday, 4 of them had players using blatantly obvious aimbots and/or wallhacks. One game even had 3 of them at once. Some of them even freely admitted it, because matchmaking disables votekicking, so legit players have no choice but to put up with it. You can still report them, but that won't help you during that game and even if it gets them VAC-banned they'll be back in no time with a new Steam account.

 

[Ed James]

Ok, but I think they shouldn't have done away with the abandon penalty completely, instead implementing something like the system that existed for MvM matchmaking where you got the penalty after abandoning repeatedly within a certain timespan. This would let people still let people come and go as they please, so long as they don't overdo it.

Also, Valve should probably do something about the rampant cheating in casual (maybe also ranked) matchmaking. Out of the 6 casual games I played yesterday, 4 of them had players using blatantly obvious aimbots and/or wallhacks. One game even had 3 of them at once. Some of them even freely admitted it, because matchmaking disables votekicking, so legit players have no choice but to put up with it. You can still report them, but that won't help you during that game and even if it gets them VAC-banned they'll be back in no time with a new Steam account.

You have to have a mobile number linked to your steam account, or need to buy a $10 competitive pass if you want to play ranked, so there's a monetary barrier to entry for cheaters to make a new account. Idk if this is linked to unranked, but community servers and ranked play is a good alternative.

 

[Ed James]

Also, very click baity title

 

[MHR]

There are a host of other problems with the system besides just those. Player votes have been completely disabled meaning it's impossible to get rid of hackers, trolls, idles, and those idiots that insist 5 snipers is the way to go.

Removing the leave penalty is unfortunate, because now leavers completely ruin the game. The matchmaking is nowhere near fast enough to find replacements before a match is over, and disabling team auto-balance means the numbers can stay uneven all game. Leavers also still get experience points toward their level, which is just criminal imo.

Besides that, the matchmaking plain sucks. I live on the east coast and sometimes get thrown into Brazilian servers and even a few times I ended up in Tokyo. This kind of garbage is unacceptable and it's made the quick match-finding system significantly worse.

 

[NooNameLeft]

Until Valve start using a harsh weapon restriction or even restrict to vanilla weapons only, this whole "competitive team fortress 2" thing is a joke. There are so many overpower weapons and when you see an enemy you have no idea what he is capable of, Is he a "normal demoman" or a demoknight...

Weapon restriction was used in competitive tf 2 servers for years, I honestly have no idea why valve decided to just allow all weapons and call this thing competitive.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

You have to have a mobile number linked to your steam account, or need to buy a $10 competitive pass if you want to play ranked, so there's a monetary barrier to entry for cheaters to make a new account. Idk if this is linked to unranked, but community servers and ranked play is a good alternative.

Yes, I know. I was mostly referring to casual matchmaking where cheaters currently have almost free reign. That said, I'm sure they're also present in ranked.

I've seen plenty of people point out community server as an alternative, but in practice that can turn out less than ideal depending on where you live. Case in point, I felt like playing some cp_process a few days ago and went looking for a server that wasn't running some kind of plugin or mod. Found none. 2Fort, Hightower and some others popular maps? Plenty. Anything else was slim pickings. I suppose this may end up rectified over time as more community server start cropping up

But until then, I'll have to make do with whatever I can scrounge up. And I'm not fond of it. For all of Quickplays faults, it did let me play -insert game mode- on -insert map- whenever I wanted.

 

[Ed James]

Until Valve start using a harsh weapon restriction or even restrict to vanilla weapons only, this whole "competitive team fortress 2" thing is a joke. There are so many overpower weapons and when you see an enemy you have no idea what he is capable of, Is he a "normal demoman" or a demoknight...

Weapon restriction was used in competitive tf 2 servers for years, I honestly have no idea why valve decided to just allow all weapons and call this thing competitive.

So you want comp TF2 to stay in the same stale meta state that it's been in for the past half decade? UGC, EFTL etc. Aren't going anywhere.

On the subject of load outs, DOTA is a competitive game, and equipment bought in game isn't visible on players - no one complains about not being able to see what boots a flying dragon is wearing.

Plus your demo knight example isn't the best as the altered stance and visuals accompanying it make it quite obvious. A case could be made about not knowing which watch a spy has, but that's the point with the dead ringer. Not knowing if he's dead or not adds to the strategy.