So, I’m sensing some general unhappiness with the TF2 crafting and item drop system. The complaints can be summarized as followed:
Crafting:
1) Crafting is dumb and gay and stupid. What is this, WoW? Gay.
2) Crafting is a cool idea but the drops aren’t frequent enough to make the stuff I want to make.
3) I want hats.
Item Drops:
1) Item drops are gay and dumb and gay. Why can’t I just have all the stuff I want right away? Dumbgay!
2) Drops are a nice idea but I’ve played TF2 for 6,941 consecutive hours and I’ve only gotten an Ambassador which I already had anyway. WTF Valve.
3) I want hats.
My personal view is this: I want hats. But I also think item drops and crafting are both good ideas, though they could use some tweaking.
Here are my ideas to tweak the system without completely changing it:
When you get a item drop, instead of finding a random, specified item, like an Ambassador or a Pyro’s Beanie, you are instead told you found a class of item, like a primary weapon, or a Spy’s weapon. Then, you get to choose from a selection of those items.
For instance, you’re told you found a primary weapon. Instead of the game randomly picking one for you, you are shown a list of, say, three or five or seven of them to choose from which you can compare against your inventory. If you’re missing one, like the Direct Hit or Backburner, you can choose that one. If you’ve got all of the items displayed, you can at least purposely choose a duplicate to work toward something you’re crafting, be it scrap metal, a class token, or slot token.
Same if you find a class weapon. If you find a Pyro’s weapon, you can choose from any of the Pyro weapons. If you’ve got them all, you can then at least choose a weapon for a specific slot. So, if you’re working on building a primary slot token, you can choose the Pyro’s primary weapon and use it for crafting that token. I think this would make drops a little more productive even if their frequency doesn’t change. You’d have a better chance of finding the stuff you need to fill out your kit, and if your kit is complete, at least you’d have a better chance of getting an item you could put towards crafting tokens or hats.
For hat drops, pretty much the same thing. You’re told you found a hat but can choose from a random spread of different ones, upping the chances you’ll find one you like. You could also be told you’ve found a Demoman’s hat and then get to choose one from the entire Demoman fashion catalog. This way, hat drops can still be rare, but you’ll at least wind up with a better chance of finding something you’ll actually want to wear around the base.
41 Comments
December 22, 2009
Crafting, drops, hats and Valve are dumb, gay, and stupid. Everything is dumb, gay, and stupid.
December 22, 2009
I disagree, n00bie51; I find crafting, drops, hats, and Valve to be “fucking” gay and “retraded.”
December 22, 2009
agreed.
Also: over 100 items for a class specific hat is just insane.
Removing the “refined metal” tier would probably help
December 22, 2009
New internet term: Dumbgay.
Thank you Chris. :3
December 22, 2009
My goddamn fedora. That is all.
December 22, 2009
Uh dunno about those ideas.
But the only new items I got randomly dropped are 2 pair of gunboats.
And they suck :(
December 22, 2009
I agree with you on the semi-choice, but also with point 2. The frequency needs to be boosted, it happens too slowly at the moment to accumulate 81 weapons needed for a random hat, if I remember correctly. And every three of them needs to be the same weapon. That’s just a nightmare…
Also, dumbgay!
December 22, 2009
Good ideas
December 22, 2009
Great idea. Also, I hate you! I was minutes from finishing my own post about how to rejig the unlock system when this popped up.
TDM: lol
December 22, 2009
Anything but the camera beard. I hate that thing.
December 22, 2009
I just want a goddamn chicken hat. Is that so much to ask?
December 22, 2009
hmm, i dunno. maybe making it easier to get weapons would be good, but i think it’s GOOD that the good hats are rare as hell.
i would like a way to customize my weapons a bit though - just cosmetically, i mean.
apparently valve tweaked the crafting system in an update this morning so hat1 + hat2 will never give you hat1 or hat2 anymore (yay).
December 22, 2009
For a more casual player like me, I’ve come to accept the fact that I’ll never get a hat. I do have three cloak-and-daggers, though. Hurrah.
Also, not to get too far off-topic here, but Steam is having a mind-blowing Christmas sale-type thing until Jan. 3. Go check Steam. Your mind will EXPLODE.
December 22, 2009
Personally I’d put “I want hats” as the number one complaint of both systems since that seems to be all people want out of TF2 these days. “Gameplay? What the fuck is that I want me a goddamn Fedora”
Oddly enough I understand the drop frequency problem all too well, but it seems to me that in about 4 hours of play I will find 4 items, on average. Maybe it’s just the servers I play on but that’s how it’s tended to happen. Of course 4 hours of play equates to maybe over 3 days for me, and that’s all I get to play in a week, but whatever.
I think that the system does need some more refinement (and the ideas presented here are good) but it’s a lot better than when it first debuted.
December 22, 2009
Yeah, for some reason, I have yet to get a single hat. Yet I still have four Jarates. Or had, until I traded them in for some token.
December 22, 2009
Personally, I feel like the random drop system is stupid through and through. Why not get items for, say, dominating or getting revenge? At least tie it to some tangible gameplay objective, so that you have something to work for, not hope that Robin Walker’s big Hat-O-Rama wheel lands on you. Getting more choice as to what you get would help somewhat, but it’s still like being asked if you prefer lube or no lube in a prison rape. Sure, lube is *better*, but I’d still like to not get raped at all.
December 22, 2009
I think the random drop system hates me, I don’t think I’ve gotten more than 10 items, let alone hats. I agree that the item drops should increase depending on how well you’re doing. As in, if you’re dominating someone or a few people or get revenge on a domination, you’ll have a better chance to get an item. It’ll at least give me some incentive to do well.
December 22, 2009
Holy crap, Chris made a meaningful post! yay!! (notice the irony)
December 22, 2009
I am under the firm belief that Valve has me mistaken for some guy who sent complaints or threats in their mailbox and so they had disabled the drop system for me completely. I got like four drops ever since it was introduced; otherwise, milestone weapons only. Out of the four drops, I got two Direct Hits when I already had one from the milestone, one Ambassador when I already had one from the milestone, and an Equalizer which at least I didn’t have.
December 22, 2009
Like others that have posted here, the drop system seems to have it out for me. As far as I can tell, I’ve only gotten around two legit drops, the rest being given to me all at once when I join my first server after reinstalling the game, and the others (still, only two) I got on the night that the drop system went crazy. On that night, I got a Direct Hit and an Eyelander, and I was pretty pumped. It was only later, after browsing the TF2 forum, that I saw that pretty much everyone had camera beards now. I guess even on the night that the drop system broke, it still hated me.
December 22, 2009
You know why this whole system sucks? I filled up my inventory in like October, and deleted any extraneous stuff, and continued to delete any extras I picked up along the way. So, I have ONE and exactly ONE of each class weapon. And a few hats, but only the ones that were given out for free.
So, in conclusion, the system is fuck for we few OCD people.
December 22, 2009
@Alux
I did the same till I heard that multiple items would be useful in the future (aka the present now). But yea!
The item drop system IS really annoying, but is there a better system overall? Tying items only to achievements or in-game actions means that awesome players get all the items, but the player who plays fifty hours and only dominates once or twice gets squat. Sure, the longer you play the more achievements/revenges/dominations you’re bound to accumulate. However, awesome players presumably take less time to get those.
Anyways, Valve’s done a great job of fixing this system up. Crafting is new, and seems tedious, but let’s give them time to tweek everything. By the end of this we’ll have the PERFECT item system for this game (or valve scraps TF2 and makes L4D3 >.<)
December 22, 2009
Or maybe they give out class tokens or metal? They seem to have done at least some of that from what I saw playing.
December 23, 2009
You know, although everyone will brand me a gaydumbfag, I think the drop system is fine. There is no advantage in wearing a hat, it’s ourely cosmetical, and the guys who have a few hats they wanted bask in the jealousy of hatless individuals.
Hell, I myself don’t have a single hat (other than that lame halo), but if I finally get one I’d like to have, it’ll be glorious.
If the drops are upped and everyone gets shitloads of hats, they won’t be as much of a status symbol (of your outrageous luck, you smug basterds) anymore and will become dull.
tl;dr: think about the joy of getting a hat you want with the current system in place.
Now think about getting your 6th hat drop in a week after the drops have been upped. Gayfagtarded? Why yes, I think so.
December 23, 2009
Ugh, you gaydumbfag.
December 23, 2009
sure would be nice to read a post not about tf2 :D
December 23, 2009
@Headwound
Exactly, just like I said. This system isn’t going to be better any other way. Hats SHOULD be rare. I mean listen to you people screaming for hats! Valve’s got you eating out of their hands!
December 23, 2009
Speaking of hats, is the one pictured at the top of this post a nod to Firefly?
December 23, 2009
I agree on the weapons, but I like my hats like I like my steak: rare and requiring a health disclaimer before ordering.
Sure, I only have 1 non-event hat (the delightful number you crafted in the image for this post) but it’s better when hats stand out as unique. Soon, even with high crafting reqs, everyone is gonna have SOME hat or another.
December 23, 2009
So like, uh…. am i the only one that doesn’t really care about hats?
December 23, 2009
Seriously, how is this crafting system useful? It needs dozens of items to build a gun, several dozens to make a hat, and over 100 to make a specific hat. I mean, I get one, two if I’m really lucky, drops per week that I play. I’d have to play until 2013 to get enough weapons to craft a hat.
December 23, 2009
This is kind of like WoW encounters dropping badges instead of items, wherein you can trade in your badges for class-specific items. This way the probability of drops being useful for you increases dramatically, but it does so at the cost of believability. “You found an item” followed by “what do you want?” is kind of jarring. Perhaps they could make it less so by focusing on narrative and emphasizing the past tense: “And then you found an item! What was it?”
December 23, 2009
All I can say is that you guys are all dumb and gay.
December 23, 2009
If you like Twilight and are a man, then you are gay. I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense, simply in a “You want to press your testicles against another man’s testicles while grabbing fistfuls of chest hair.” kind of way.
December 24, 2009
I like the idea of being able to choose your weapon.
My idea was that they tie weapon unlocks into achievements. Finish 5 achievements, get a certain weapon. The hats would still be random unlocks.
Also, Happy Holidays everyone
December 25, 2009
I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with crafting if you could get restructured and refined metal as frequent drops. That way it’ll still take a bit to get a hat you want, but people will feel like they’re making progress towards a hat as opposed to blindly hoping that one will fall into their lap.
Also, Happy Holidays everyone!
December 25, 2009
Why don’t you guys just want hats and weapons handed out freely to everyone? I really want to know.
I don’t enjoy the weapon system at all. As you may have guessed I want all content unlocked and to have this unlockable sidequest adventure over with. I want people to just play with the content, not try to achieve it.
December 27, 2009
Headwoünd, you are gaydumbfag. Ever since drops were introduced, i got total of ZERO hats. Sure, i may have got one or two weapons before a milestone, and a handful of duplicates, but even they are basically USELESS - there are simply NOT ENOUGH to use them for crafting. And i only have one of each melee weapon, so i can’t even use it to the fullest.
IN SHORT, DROP SYSTEM SUCKS. Big time. And i hate it, because it’s dumbgay.
***
Hey Chris, you remember “Epic Drops” idea you had? As in, actually LOOTING dead enemies? Maybe picking up 10 of the same gun or 50 of the same hat off of the ground would give it to you, or something?
December 27, 2009
@Kollega
I LOVE that idea, mostly because it would WORK.
Also, impending comments lock - possible last post!
December 28, 2009
YOU BASTARD YOU DELETED THE CONCERNED FORUM.
December 28, 2009
I just think that the frequency of the hat drops needs to stay the same, without it, who cares about crafting? I was on the boat with you until the hats.
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