ROCKS

Pyros dont need long range weapon efficiency. Thats not what they do. I agree with magna. If you see a sniper in the distance use cover to your advantage and bunny hop randomly like a mad man when moving outside cover. By the way. The shotty aint so bad at medium to long.

Fish #641

Scouts have a decent pistol, the only bad thing is that you can fire for about the length it takes to empty a shotty clip and then you have to find ammo. By the way, the shotguns may be different, seeing as they have different names in console. But still, they could be exactly the same. /useless_post. As long as they don't give Pyros too big of a buff, I think everything should be fine.

MagnaCentipede

As far as I can tell, there is no technical difference between any of the shotguns.

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SpadeTF2

lol... I must of took a wrong turn again somewhere because I have no clue what you two are talking about. That or Magna started to complain before he finished reading again.

Pretty sure I said nothing about giving the Pyro any long range weapon, especially since TF2 has no long-range weapons apparently... err.. except the sniper. Which by the way is actually true, I looked into last night. After about 10 feet, rockets turn in BLT sandwiches. Although delicious, thay are not effective at slaying opponents. Unless of course the victim consumes too many and bursts of bacony goodness.

I believe my exact quote was "Pyros have no real long range weapon". Not a question, not an opinion, just a fact. Rocks is right, the shotgun isn't horrible at medium range, it's not good by any means, but when the opponent is 20 feet away, it's more effective then the flamethrower or the axe.

I can only assume that "Pyros have no real long range weapon" got misinterpreted as "Pyros definetly need to have some super fireball propelling sniper rifle so they can battle snipers on the battlements, and toast the oncoming delicous BLT sandwiches."

What I was actually trying to get across was not a complaint it was a mere thought about what possible pyro tweaks, items and upgrades are coming. I've noticed during my Pyro play, that the front door is often unusable if the enemy has a decent sniper. So I always have to find another way out, which isn't a big deal. My thought stemmed from the fact that Pyro is the only class I've played where I seem to "HAVE" to find another way out. From time to time I can jump down and not be pegged, but especially in maps where they have 2-4 snipers it becomes a pain in the ass. If i'm playing the slower soldier, and I notice the dot near my head, I'll peak out fire a couple rockets and then jump down while the sniper takes cover. Or I'll use a long range sticky if I'm a demo. Charge over the bridge pistols blaring if I'm a scout ect... So it might be neat if the new shotgun replacement item was something a little more accurate, maybe something like the flare gun from "Blood". Could set a guy on fire like the Flamethrower, for a couple seconds, or throw off accuracy, or maybe have an effect like a smoke grenade does?

Hopefully that clears up this misunderstanding.

BTW, Yes Magna, I know that engies and medics don't real have a long range attack to deal with snipers in the fashion I described. (If you don't count the engie's 400 round a second pistol) But typically If I'm a medic, I'm behind someone, or If I'm an engie, I'm nowhere close to where snipers can hit me.

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I can eat a rubix cube and poop it solved.

Fish #641

Wading through the steam forums, I actually found a few decent posts.

"The pyro is underpowered BECAUSE, in any given situation, another class would be more useful/powerful. All other classes have at least one kind of situation in which they're the optimal class. With the pyro, not so.

Underpowered doesn't mean that the class is completely useless, I play pyro from time to time and I sometimes end up on top of the scoreboard. But score doesn't really mean anything." -Masterfrog

"To be effective, you basically have to do the same thing a Spy does without the benefit of Cloak or Disguise, and even then you still have a reasonably high chance of dying. Throw a few observant Soldiers and a good Medic onto the other team and suddenly your life becomes exponentially harder. If I want to ambush, I'd rather be a Soldier or Demoman since they have better mobility options and can deal more damage in the opening second of combat without having to wade neck-deep into a pile of opponents. For Hit and Run attacks, I'd rather be a Scout or even a Medic, preferably with the Blutsauger. Both are fast enough to actually follow up on the "run" element of that strategy. While the Scout needs to get very close, he's fast enough to approach and dodge incoming fire much better than the Pyro, and still has higher burst damage. His Pistol can more or less match everything the Pyro's afterburn does in terms of finishing a wounded opponent from distance. The Medic's Syringe Gun exceeds the Flamethrower's damage at everything but near-contact ranges and allows him to engage an opponent from outside dangerously close ranges if it's tactically desirable." -Voyager I

"1. Despite being the 'close-combat' class, a pyro will never be able to take on a heavy or soldier of equal skill-level at PB range.

2. All classes except Heavy, Engie and Sniper have superior mobility to Pyro. These all have significant advantages that make up for this lack of mobility; Pyros don't.

3. All classes have an advantage over Pyro in 1v1 situations, except Sniper. Even Medic and Spy can quite easily kill pyro from medium range with the Blutsaugher and revolver, respectively." -Electric Sheep
(It was later pointed out that Engi can dispenser hop, but still.)

Those basically sum up my feelings towards pyro. He's not useless in the least, but I would much rather have a different class in the same situation.

ROCKS

QUOTE: But score doesn't really mean anything." -Masterfrog

I think score should mean everything if the scoring system is correct. Every class should get points when they are doing what they should do in order for the team to succeed. Heavys when they kill, soldiers when they kill, spys when they sap, kill, trick and medics heal. Maybe the point system is not quite tweaked enough to reflect this. If the pyro is not meant to finish people, give him points for just setting people on fire or every x damage points he "saps" he can get x parts of a point. Like the medic but in reverse.

The real point is that the point system should not register frags but how well you are doing at your job. If your an engy on D and you have a sentry up you should get points for every x minutes that pass without it dieing. of course if you place it more strategically youll get more points cause youll have kills and more spys trying to take you down. Over the long run the best at each class should score similar scores. If the best pyros are usually not at the top (at TG I cant recall one that has) then his point system needs a buff so he is rewarded for whatever it is he is supposed to do or he needs the buff.

SpadeTF2

Valid points.

I'm going to have to concede that the Pyro does need a little buffing, on the medic fact alone. The truth is that offensive medics are pyro slayers, which is not right. Medic's natural regeneration nearly negates the burn of the Flamethrower, and the new syringe gun allows them to hurt and heal all while staying out of flame range. It's kinda ridicoulous that I can chew through a soldier and a couple demos with ease, then a medic shows up and slaughters me.

As far as the point system goes, it is a little lop-sided, and probably could get a little tweaking. Playing pyro I do top the board from time to time, but the workload to be there sure is a lot larger then playing as a spy. As a spy if I can get 4 backstabs and a couple zaps, I'm already at 10 points, where as with a pyro if I burn 6 guys to the ground, and assist on 6 more guys, i'm at 9 points.

It would be nice if the point rewards were a little better distributed. Perhaps cut back the backstab and headshot points from 1 to .5, like an assist. Up the points for kill assists for Pyro and medic to .75. Soldiers, demos, and heavys don't really need any tweaking I wouldn't think. Scouts could maybe get an extra point on captures. And engies I think need the biggest tweaking of all. For the most part, the defensive engineer is a pretty thankless task, especially on a winning team. I wouldn't mind seeing engies getting an extra point per capture defense, and perhaps getting some points based on dispenser distribution. Maybe 1 point for every 100-200 hp healed? Or maybe 1 point per every 10 ammo refills? Lets face it, those teleporters into the enemy base, that lone sentry protecting our otherwise defensless point, and that dispenser in the intel room sure come in handy. Even if that engie is at the bottom of the scoreboard, he was arguably as vital to the teams success as the heavy/medic combo atop the charts. So perhaps he should get a little more reward for it.

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I can eat a rubix cube and poop it solved.

Fish #641

Score never was that important to me, but there was an email from Valve that was posted on the board...Let me dig it up...Ah, here we go.

"From: Robin Walker (Robin@valvesoftware.com)
Sent: 07 January 2008 17:15:33
To: buzzbob@hotmail.co.uk

Hi Buzzbob.
Thanks for all the feedback, and I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the
game. We are indeed investigating Soldier changes, and one of the
changes we're trying out is focused on making Soldiers a little more
careful firing their rockets at point blank targets.

As for the Pyro scoring, we have a minor tweak coming down the pipe.
He's going to get a small amount of points for every enemy he ignites.
This should reward you for those moments where you drop into the middle
of an enemy pack and light them all up, hurting them all and disrupting
their plans, but not managing to actually kill them.

Robin."

I didn't see the initial email, but it seems that Pyro will be getting a few more points.

MagnaCentipede

lol, that's the fake email that said that soldier was getting a self-damage nerf. Because as we all know, Demo got that, not Soldier, because Soldier is pro and everyone else is a retard for not pressing the skill key, [2].

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Fish #641

I knew I shouldn't have included that part of the email. Just for the record, it's much more difficult to doublebounceshotty a guy than to backstab someone. Both kill.

MagnaCentipede

Backstabbing doesn't kill. Double-bounce-backstab-with-a-cherry-on-top-and-a-voodoo-witch-doctor-to-turn-the-mojos-to-your-favor has about a 40% success rate.

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ROCKS

New Pyro tactic #1:

Be a team player! stand next to an engie station spam-flaming any spys that happen to stop by and compressed gas away any stray soldier and demo goodies that happen to be flying towards your engie friends sentry. Is there an ubered heavy moving in on your engie friends position, while hes busy messing with the sentry blow away his uber (this one will be more dificult in practice if you cant swing around the back of him).

You know these updates may push the envelope on the team part of the game. There will have to be a lot more coordination in pushes. For example, typical show down:

Fish (not so much any more as he is more of a demoman these days), load up an uber. Yoshi, please take out that sniper, then take out the pyro. Then please wait for the uber so that the heavy can go in while a spy (MAGNA) saps sentry number 2 so it doesnt pin the heavy down. Then the boys swing in and mop things up.

TEAM Fortress indeed.

Headshot Yoshi

Sniper's only advantage is range. And then they give pyro a long range weapon which basically cancels the snipers ability to use range. Great balance there.

Fish #641

It's not likely to be a laser-guided-rail-gun-flaming-apocalypse-OMGWTFBBQ...Q. I have a feeling you'll have plenty of time to dodge.

MagnaCentipede

Not if the Pryo comes at any angle that's more than 10° from the sniper's line of view.

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