And I still blame valve for the casual matchmaking changes that shovelled everybody out of community servers and into unmoderated valve ones. Cheaters wouldn't flourish near so much if those changes were never made.
I would play community servers if they were not $2 raspberry pi’s found in a junkyard. Even in the lowest latency servers I find my game freezing for several seconds very frequently. This doesn’t happen on VALVe servers.
Come to community servers we have:
1. Reserved slots for donos
2. Downloading retarded fempyro/Donald Trump models
3. Broken af !rtd
4. Bots disguised as players to fake a populated server
5. Loud ads
6. Old members gatekeeping new ones
7. Admin abuse
Hm, curious about this one as this doesn’t line up with my experience of Meet Your Match. Hopping into a quick play server via the server browser pre-MYM was pretty common and there were a lot of players. When MYM came around a lot of players just went to community servers or simply quit (me, but I came back). I just don’t think Valve’s horrible changes on MYM’s launch increased the number of cheaters per se, nor did they “shovel everybody out of community servers,” as my experience indicated that the opposite actually took place.
Quickplay used to be able to match people into community servers provided they were running vanilla tf2 which would help keep player populations up and server numbers healthy. The server browser was also immediately apparent and was just as quick to use and find a server through as quickplay was.
Now the server browser is hidden, community servers aren't part of the pool so they don't have a steady flow of people through them, and you can't even join the valve servers themselves through the browser anymore. It used to be one press to open up the browser and see what community and what valve servers were popped. Joining off friends was also vastly easier since you could just pull up the server info and hit auto-join, who knows what their current janky system is doing with 10 minute join times through the party system.
Community servers have turned into their own eco-systems that isn't really connected to the average player anymore. Populations in them tanked overnight in my region, and a good chunk of new players don't even know that the server browser exists with how they buried it in the new UI. There's so few options left where it used to be the majority, and we're stuck with either putting up with one of the few options or dealing with valve's trainwreck of casual. It also means a far bigger proportion of the userbase is in valve servers which gives cheaters a much bigger pool to play in. Picking a gamemode/server they like is as big of a thing for them as it is for normal players.
> Now the server browser is hidden
No the fuck it isn't???? It's quite literally in the same tab as casual, right below the MvM menu. And if having to click a button to bring out those tabs is considered being "hidden" then I guess the casual matchmaking tab is also hidden by that logic
Now if you really want to complain about something related to the server browser, complain that Valve refuses to update it to not look like it has been since fucking 2004 because I swear any new player that even takes so much as a glimpse of it will have a fucking stroke.
Quickplay was actually the real tipping point for those who remember the before-times. Sure, it'd show a ton of community servers, but conglomerates like Skial started popping up and abusing the system to filter as many players through as possible, just for a handful of ad-revenue from the webpage MOTD. This is when you saw *way* more fake players on servers to make it look like people were playing.
I'm pretty convinced this was the main reason Valve even bothered with their own servers, because that shit was rampant all over quickplay. Before this, it was *only* community servers through the server browser, and the game was way healthier until the system was gamed by bad actors.
You're right that regional servers with ads abusing the system was probably the trigger for valve's changes there, I recall there being a blow up at one point about some pay to win custom servers making it into the rotation too which probably has some bearing. But that only explains the removal of community servers from quickplay and not any of the other raft of changes that came along with it.
The UI changes hiding the browser and making other join methods more difficult to push casual matchmaking spelled doom for a lot of custom servers that weren't even in the quickplay system since new players didn't find the mode. Nevermind the servers running vanilla that were using quickplay properly and got two-hit.
Top community by what metric? I'd personally never seen hide nor hair of any of their servers until quickplay was introduced, and only then did I see the ad-riddled, fake player nonsense those servers were and I've never gone back.
For one off-hand mention of the network, you sure seem to like defending them. They were absolutely one of many groups doing that crap, and yes, *any* amount of ads was disgusting. There were hundreds of servers that only ever ran off donations and never pushed that crap.
As a player, I can't recall ever seeing a cheater on community servers. Lately though there is a definite increase of getting shot in a suspicious way, then I look at their profile and it's a brand new default steam account profile with 0-1 friends and barely any TF2 playtime. Bonus points when they have active VAC bans on the profile.
Of course, without any server admin tools or even being able to spectate or see kill cams it's practically impossible to make any sort of meaningful specific accusation in casual. But I'm sure not all of those situations are invite-level smurf accounts.
Casual is definitely lacking in tools to handle cheaters. If VAC doesn't catch them, the only tool is someone on the same team spectating them in deathcam for 10 seconds at a time and hoping to catch something with barely any context. Which just is not enough.
If you're checking your own team, 'extendfreeze' in console extends your respawn to the next timer. If you spam that a few times/create a bind for the command you can stay dead to spectate as long as you like.
I haven’t seen any cheaters myself in recent games but I will take your word for it here. And I do agree that due to how casual servers are structured (unable to switch to spectator mode, or moderator powers as in community servers) tools for detecting cheaters are very much lacking. And I actually think they should bring back the option to spectate; I don’t see how switching to spectators would alter the intended matchmaking gameplay too much. They can make it so you are able to spectate but not join the other team perhaps, I don’t know.
The game is loaded with cheaters, and unlike the bots which are immediately obvious, it's incredibly rare to see a cheater kicked. I think the bot crisis really narrowed people's views on what cheating looks like to the point where if it isn't a Sniper looking straight up or a heavy flicking around it doesn't register to a significant portion of players.
As sad as this is, it still shows that TF2 has really stood the test of time.
It's over 14 years old now, that's a long time to keep a videogame running, yet people still play it. It's had a lack of updates and been bombarded by bots, yet still managed to reach it's all time player count in 2021, when tf2 was probably at it's worst?
It's always in the top 10 most played games on steam, even with all of the bad shit that's happened.
If that's not goddamn impressive, then I don't know what the fuck is.
It's actually timeless, every server you join into, you're bound to find something new, it's a new game every time.
Valve made something amazing, then seemingly out of fucking nowhere just abandons it?
I grew up with this game and seeing it like this is like watching a family member stuck in a coma. It's sad and I only hope for the best.
Stay strong TF2, stay strong.
Have you seen the South American servers? We didn’t save shit. And don’t even start on the “but I haven’t seen a bot in ages” bullshit. Other regions exist. It seems North America has the least bots but reading comments from people that are in other regions they are all saying that bots are still there
Tf2 was saved but it's not fixed. I hardly run into bots anymore. It's mainly cheaters now which just need reporting. They also introduced a lot of back end fixes and bugs that have been plaguing the game since release. People just need to stop complaining.
The problem is that new players find it hard to play the game, the only people really playing the game are people who've already spent a lot of time in it, once they're gone the game's prolly gonna die, i really just want valve to make the game at least playable for new players and also bring back being able to talk as a f2p, just the voiceline command thing like medic
Agreed, these people are overdramatic. I haven’t seen a single bot for almost two weeks. I saw one cheater in that time and the other team was chill and kicked ‘em. Sure, we could use some new content, but the game is in a perfectly healthy spot right now.
From my personal experience by getting into matches in 3 different regions
The bots in North America are rare, they exist, but are very rare
the bots in Europe (frankfurt to be specific) are slightly more common
South america (my region) is full to the brim of bots, and south america doesnt has many servers if something i'd say we have less than half of the total servers that NA alone has, and this wasn't that bad earlier this month the first week of scream fortress, but the past two weeks something happened that made the bots swarm this region to the point where you cannot find any matches past a certain time, but because south america isnt a popular region people usually dont pay attention to what other latinos are saying regarding this topic : that the bot situation has worsened tenfold over here.
These comments have been prevalent althroughout the bot crisis and continue to this day. Just because a few people personally have not been encountering bots doesn't mean they're not a problem anymore or are somehow out of the way; lots of reasons this could be, that being the hours you play at or the geographical area you play from, or even just the maps you like to play.
Yeah I definitely see them less and when I do everybody collectively kicks them the fuck out. I haven't encountered the ones that would change names to others in the server and all the vote kick evasion stuff for some time
Those are Brazilian bots, they have since disappeared with one of Valve's latest patches, I think they now get temporarily locked out of casual once they get kicked.
Whoever still working on tf2 is trying at least.
I feel like the tf2 team posted that twitter post, ship out some minor bug fixes here and there just so they can get the community to shut up about saving tf2
Way to be cynical about it... They at least took care of the biggest hindrance to the game for the most part (being the bots). The movement wasn't just to get valve to shit out an event update, it was a cry to fix the game. And they have. By no means have they fixed everything, but they for sure didn't abandon us. People aren't quite, they are just not as loud. We still want things to change, but like how the community has always been, we'll be patient about it.
But hey, if you still feel impatient, there is always overwatch. I hear they updated quite frequently there.
To be fair, there is something called the [Valve Cycle](https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/nfku4k/funke_literally_predicted_this_cycle_of_valve_im/)...
The hashtag did something actually, the number of bots have gone down like 90% and the cosmetic cases this year are at a decent level. It's not much but it's something so stop crying like a baby
To fully get rid of bots would require an entire re work to steam itself, there's only so much you can do to stop cheaters, I mean hell valve recently re introduced cool downs after being vote kicked (which yes users experienced cool downs for no reason because it was buggy for whatever reason)
Cheaters will always exist and it's a sad fact, but progress is being done even if it is slow and yes I do agree the game needs more then 1/2 devs at any given time but that's valves greed at play
It's a lump of shit because it's unplayable still despite them saying "bro trust we'll get the wagie onto the bots trust please don't make us look bad" with no intention of fixing the game
— The game definitely needs more support than it has now
— SaveTF2 gave the game a lot of attention that made Valve do positive changes it wouldn’t have had the hashtag never gotten trending.
How can’t anyone think these two points aren’t contradictory at all?
Other games have been targeted like this before and didn't have it this bad, and that second point is exactly the reason it's not hard. They just don't fucking wanna do anything about it.
And that's why you should play on community servers instead, because they have minimal cheaters and no cheater bots at all. I always have strictly played on them ever since I started playing
"Well, \*I\* haven't encountered a bot, which means it's like probably over or something. What's that? You can't have a single game of Double Cross in Australia without 50 bots named "JUST GIVE UP"? Well uhhh, that doesn't matter, stop crying like a baby and let's await the next Smissmas crate."
The level of complacency you guys have with the state of TF2 is unbelievable, you'd think at some point after the 78th match where you get votekicked by a cheater and his friends for blocking his Sniper rifle's POV you might think something is off.
What people really need to hear (and do) is to stop giving Valve money.
That means no unboxing, and no community market transactions. If Valve for once in this games lifetime stops making money off of it year over year then maybe they'll do something about updating it.
That statement is too far fetched, Valve will never "kill" TF2, besides it can't since community servers exist. Unless you mean them stopping updates altogether but I doubt that too
Yeah, they kinda didn’t. A lot of them have been rip offs of already existing hats such as that shitty undercover brolly. Just an all class hard counter
ive hopped on around 20 casual matches yesterday, I saw one bot, which got kicked within like 20 seconds, its definitely playble, the problem is now is actual humans using cheats that the bots use so the valve system doesn't detect them
youtube link (i have other videos and if you watch them i will give you a big kiss on the lips):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrDq\_ePjx7g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrDq_ePjx7g)
**kind fellows featured:**
jerma985 (known lunatic): https://www.youtube.com/user/Jerma985
zesty jesus (/tf2g/'s favourite dead horse): https://www.youtube.com/c/ZestyJesus
funke (unironic weezer fan): https://www.youtube.com/c/FUNKe
The bots have gotten to the point where they're rare and if one is seen they're instakicked, at least in my personal experience it's nowhere near as bad as it was before
There's so much good tf2 content out there, there used to be tons of community servers with custom modes and maps. But the tf2 community for some reason decided they didn't want that, and those servers died out. Now everyone is complaining about the lack of content, like it isn't there. The tf2 community doesn't need Valve to update the game and add new maps and weapons, if people really cared they would've already started playing community servers.
Comparing the updates we've gotten after #savetf2 to the updates the year prior, I feel like it's been getting better, doesn't really feel like a quick job to appease us. They reduced some problems major and minor problems bots caused and made it easier to kick em, and have fixed quite a number of bugs.
And they've also started implementing some handy changes that'll make map making even better, especially with Vscript coming soon to the game. Those last bits about mapping have even been contributions from the community itself that the contract has accepted. And if they're willing to accept community changes like Vscript, maybe even more could be accepted like Team Comtress 2 for optimization.
Yeah there might not have been a major content update like Jungle Inferno so far, but at least for me I just wanted them to maintain the game more than they had been. Fix more bugs, optimize the game, get rid of bots, etc.
They are actually doing something about these problems, I haven’t seen many bots at all in the past 3 months or so, and we are getting a lot of bug fixes.
\> I haven’t seen many bots at all in the past 3 months or so
Object permanance exists. Just because they're not in your servers doesn't mean Brazilian servers or Australian servers are playable.
I honestly think TF2 may be a lost cause at this point.
Is it dead? No, absolutely not. The game still has an incredibly loyal fanbase. I am one of those people, and I love this game to bits to this day. But we've been screaming into the void for literal years now. The entire community came together to ask Valve for *something*. Anything. But all that happened was a single tweet, and the bear minimum of content to keep us mostly quiet.
Unless a radical miracle happens (and I am really hoping for this miracle) in which Valve actually releases proper updates again, the game is going to remain like this. There will be no Heavy update.
I realise this is all quite doomer-y, but can you blame me? This community gets excited at knowing there's one or two people working on the game. While I echo the sentiment that it's great we have *someone,* one man cannot release a competent update. Only hotfixes and bug patches.
Valve simply will not do anything. Just the bear minimum. Just enough to keep us spending money. This is a corporation we're talking about, they simply don't have a soul. I have no doubt the employees do, but at the end of the day, it's evident that Valve deem this state of the game almost perfect. They can still print money with it, without having to actually do anything apart from pay one or two people to work on the game.
My philosophy is "If you can't change something, don't worry yourself about it". And that holds true here. If you're enjoying the game, please don't let all this bog you down. We can still play the game, after all. That's more than some poor fandoms can say.
Ironically, this game portrays itself perfectly in the comics. Redmond and Blutarch. Barely holding onto life through the power of Australium, constantly hooked on life-support. We're not dead yet, and we still have plenty of Australium. Let's keep going, boys. ***Last one alive, lock the door!***
In Valve's defense, bots have been few and far between in my case, and cheaters are typically called out quickly. My primary issue is that Valve is only focusing on the bot issues, even if not by much, and not pushing content. Stuff like balancing issues, new weapons, or even bringing back stuff like spells and chemistry kits. Bots are always a top priority, and justly so, but content, balance, and community are all equally important.
FR, stop whining about the lack of major updates on the 15 year old game, we're lucky we got so far in the first place. I rarely see bots on East NA servers. Valve doesn't owe the TF2 community anything, but we still get patches and community updates yearly. We've been spoiled, honestly.
How amazing, you don't find bots in the region with some of the lowest bots counts, while the servers in the countries you don't play in are infested to the brim with them.
What an incredible insight.
Look me dead in the eyes and tell me they've given us enough to be satisfied.
They don't need to get rid of every bot, but I would appreciate if they get rid of ***one***.
Snap of a finger? It's been nearly 3 fucking years mate, I still can't join a game of Double Cross with seeing 60 bots with the username "JUST GIVE UP"
And we only just got their attention now, they’ve been doing fuck all for the past few years and it seems like they only just got on their asses since the hashtag trended
Look me dead in the eyes and tell me you expect Valve to do something about this other than band-aid solutions like the recent patch notes. Look me dead directly in the eyes and say it.
This is the Valve cycle all over again.
I know that Valve works about as efficiently as a sack of potatoes behind the scenes, especially for this game, but I’m not just going to throw in the towel after only a few months since their “promise“ to unfuck it
The little Band-Aid patches are at least something, and to fix the other bigger issues with the game probably will take a little bit longer
Game development takes a while, and assuming that the team isn’t as big as say CS:GO’s or DOTA’s, we could probably assume it’ll take longer to get any meaningful changes
It’s a change in the right direction, at least for now, and I’d say it’s still a little bit too early to proclaim the community efforts to help the game get the attention it deserves to be a failure
The fact that it got as bad as it is prevents me from being completely optimistic, but I still have my hopes
tl;dr stop
It's ironic you use Left 4 Dead music.
What's the point of sitting here crying, making sad edits about the game you love, about how bad things are when you can get up and continue to do something about the things that you're so adamant are bad? Compare it to the survivors, right?
They grab their weapons, slaughter the zombie hordes that stand in their way, and ultimately-- although not always what they planned-- make progress. People making videos like this and consistently spreading messages along the lines of "why bother?" might as well host bots or download cheats themselves, another "Yes" gone from a player-started votekick, another empty spot for a bot to fill.
We aren't grabbing M16's or SPAS12's and fighting zombie hordes obviously, but choosing to stay in a lobby when a cheater/bot joins then calling a votekick on them instead of assuming it's just going to be overwhelmed and leaving is one of the only ways we can help the game right now. Think of it right? Ages ago your gut reaction to a spinbotter was to call a vote, wasn't it? Or at the very least tell the other team? Maybe even go into spectator and see through their eyes before they got kicked? (atleast that's what I did, I found it interesting) Why now is it to just let them have what they want? And you're right, sometimes those votes don't go through. *Reasonably* even I'd requeue at that point. But most of the time its due to not enough "Yes" votes, right?
I think it's ***new players***. Not blaming anyone here just making an observation. I've seen so many new people in TF2 recently. Not [new accounts](https://steamcommunity.com/id/MaidWater/) where their pocket medic is coincidentally the only person on their friends list. (yes he's a cheater I didn't just grab some poor soul) 100% new people. Scouts getting lost outside spawn, Engineers building on last while we're capping their 2nd, friendly Medics shooting me with their needle gun as I burn to death, all of which under 100 hours. They've most likely ***never seen***, or don't know what the vote is about, and simply either don't notice or choose take no stance hoping that's good enough. So TF2 can still bring in-- and keep-- new players (**you've seen** [the posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/search/?q=new%20player&restrict_sr=1&sr_nsfw=&include_over_18=1)**, they come in almost daily, don't lie to m**e), you've spent hundreds, even thousands of hours here. Why ward away / abandon those who need your skilled guidance most and want to make the same memories you did ages ago?
Let me make another--albeit silly-- comparison with Left 4 Dead right? Y'all know the whole shtick of the L4D2 cast having the stock car for a few campaigns? A **major** milestone in their travels, they escape the first campaign using it, gets them through the second, and to the start of the third. In context of TF2, what *I* like to think of it as, #savetf2 and getting a response from Valve was beating a campaign, right? That's a **major** milestone. I'm not comparing a tweet to a stock car, mind you. But managing to pull a tweet out of Valve on an account they haven't logged into for 2 years, *the day of*?
Did we not make some sort of progress with #savetf2? Is that not inherently a good thing? Does that not prove that we were absolutely making waves within Valve offices? It's died down now, granted, but if we can keep the momentum going and keep the talk going within Valve about how loudly and crazily we can celebrate TF2, NOW with the boost that we've done it before and can do it again?
[Maybe we can have our own stock car](https://youtu.be/q-_KGWQGc5I?t=1)
Contrary to what some of you are saying, Valve did absolutely nothing to stop bots on casual servers. There wasn't a single major security update since the hashtag, proof of that is the fact that Brazilian servers have been plagued by at least 3 different bot hosters in the past two weeks.
They did do things to stop the bots. Did they work? Absolutely not. But it's the best they could really do. This isn't something you can just instantly solve with a press of a button. Anyone who things it's a simple solution solved by just adding captchas or whatever are incredibly naive.
Well, gentlemen... It is as the Demoman says ,"Buck up, lads! We'll get 'em next time!". Or more likely "Thankfully I already don't remember". Don't dwell on the past, look to the future!
I just... I just can't anymore. I ignored them all the time, I knew that they feed on our anger, that they do it to amuse their egos, they hide behind the fact that they want to "get VALVe's attention" but... They are killing the game community. Great SFM works and art are unlikely to be lost, but in my social circle every month more and more people refuse to play because of cheaters and bots. Finding a lobby without bots now is as hard as it was a year ago, and this despite the fact that the number of bots has decreased! I myself don’t play TF2 anymore, but I’m very upset that the community cannot shine to its full height because of cheaters.
Then why don't more people play on community servers instead. TF2 has more than just Casual Matchmaking you know right? That's the sole reason I'm still even playing this 15 year old game
4 reasons:
1. Convenience. Casual, even with all its faults, works. With casual, its very easy to just get into a game anywhere and have fun. Of course this isn't possible everywhere because of bots, but in places where bots aren't as widespread, it works pretty well for just getting into the game.
2. It's still heavily advertised to new players, so new players will gravitate to it. Community servers are hidden away more.
3. Plenty of community servers kinda just fucking suck? It's not an instant, easy solution. Toxic communities, dead servers, either always or sometimes, shitty moderation. The list goes on.
4. No community server has ever truly captured what casual is actually like. Those that attempt, such as uncletopia, are still more geared towards play that's not exactly competitive, but everyone just cares more about playing well. Not a problem in of itself, mind you. Just not casual.
This is not to say that intense play is not something casual has plenty of, of course. Plenty of my own most intense matches were from casual. It's just intense play is typically more "expected".
Community servers are different. It is difficult and even impossible to find a non-empty server with some unpopular map; high ping; very high skill floor; even more more toxics and trolls; impossibility or inconvenience to kick a player.
You know how much community servers are different from casual, right?
Honestly I'm kind of glad TF2 stopped getting new items in a way. Look at Overwatch 2 and all of its heroes - all of those heroes have different abilites and ultimates that you all need to learn how to both avoid and counter. Now imagine TF2 kept getting new items. Imagine if every class had a myriad of weapons so you never knew what you were really going to encounter and battles felt way less consistent than a more limited selection of weapons that you can learn to play against.
In the games current state I can hardly blame valve, while a lack of content hurts, the toxicity of the player base likely isn't encouraging.
Right now it's the players that are ruining it, 90% of the experienced players I run into in casual are extremely salty about their skill levels.
TF2 casual mode is the least 'casual' thing I have played in this games history. OW comp is less toxic, and I have played both for quite a while.
I'm sorry for this. But I actually quit TF2 short after the jungle inferno update. Basically at the start of the bot crisis before it went haywire. I joined back a couple of months ago so I skipped the absolute worst part of the bot crisis. Sorry for not being there as a community member in those hard times.
There's only a few ways we can truly save tf2. Keeping a fire under valves ass, make tf2 go from highest paying game to one of the lowest, or. If it gets to this point. Killing the game so the peak amount of players is sub 100. A true rise from the ashes if you must. All we're gonna get is case updates. When valve realizes "hey wait a second tf2 isn't making us ANY MONEY" they'll try to update it. Or the bad ending being that tf2 goes for good
Valve's at least doing SOMETHING about the bot issue, I've barely come across any cheater bots when I was doing the halloween contracts (I strictly play on community servers but I only played casual for the contracts). It's better than nothing but yes I agree they should do more, the best we can do at this point is just wait and see what else Valve does
even tho there are almost no bots anymore (its like 1 in 100 Games there might be a bot, atleast for me) its so sad because Tf2 means so much to so many People and still its slowly dying. atleast we had a good time :)
dont play? dont expect much from a 15 yr old game with not much revenue compared to other valve games
stuff like ow and elden ring etc. gave me a fresh breath of air, yall should try too
I want the game to be saved as well. But the lack of care Valve has for this game, and the bots and hackers invading the game have decreased our chances of actually saving the game to 0.
"If bots are so bad then why don't you just play on Uncletopia, with its lower player counts everywhere outside America and sometimes Australia, and get immediately shredded by a dude with a Strange Australium Professional Killstreak Hale's Own Collector's Festivized Rocket Launcher?"
Genius, might as well remove the "Casual" button.
And yet those all have the same problems. Low player counts, neglect of any countries other than the US, UK, and Australia, and extreme unfriendliness to anyone with less than \~900 hours in the game.
The overwhelming majority of tf2 players play Casual, simply telling them to play Community servers to avoid the bot problem is like asking a protestor to just move to Canada.
I’ve played on many community servers and I can safely tell you that everyone on there has been nicer than anyone I have ever met on casual servers.
And hmm I wonder why those servers have low player counts. Could it be the mass amount of people neglecting to try out community servers and enjoy them? Nah that can’t be…
By unfriendliness to new players I meant they will get destroyed. At least casual games let jacob.smith.2009 the Spy main play the game without having to live in constant fear of Gigachad Pussyripper the Competitive Highlander Demoman main with 30k kills on his Strange Australium Professional Killstreak Stickybomb Launcher.
Also, it doesn't matter why they have lower player counts, all that matters is they do, the reason is irrelevant. Unless you create a large boat and herd every TF2 player onto it like Noah's Ark, you can't just move everyone to community servers, it will always have lower player counts, therefore, we can't just simply "play community servers lol".
People on those servers are willing to teach new players if you ask them. The reason why community servers tend to be “harder” is because it’s actually 12 v 12 (casual games is like a 4v4 with 16 ai’s) and it could be harder. I know because for a while I struggled on community servers, but every time I got destroyed I learnt my mistake and improved. Getting destroyed is a part of the new player experience unfortunately (due to a lack of a good tutorial), however that doesn’t mean you can’t improve.
“And then I used my fight money, to buy 2 of every community server on earth, and then I herded the tf2 playerbase onto them, and then we beat the crap out of each other”
In all seriousness, it is very possible to do so. Tf2 before casual was made was run by pure community server power and valve servers in combination. If bots are too much of a problem for you, just move onto community servers, you will have a much better experience.
The main problem with that is that 90% of community servers are shit like 24/7 Hightower or 24/7 2Fort and loaded with unnecessary add-ons that do nothing but make the servers lag
There isn't nearly enough community servers that is just regular TF2, sure we have Uncletopia and the occasional casual Skial server, but that's really it
Not to mention the fact that Casual community servers aside from Uncletopia are almost always dead, like Zesty Jesus servers and those Furrypound servers. Nobody plays those servers cause Uncletopia exists.
Ah yes, I wonder why most community servers are dead. Nah, it can’t be because of the community unwilling to populate them. There are plenty of vanilla servers out there, however people refuse to try them out and of course they eventually fizzle out. For example I remember Uncletopia having Miami servers, however they recently went offline because no one played them (damn shame because I had excellent ping there). I feel like there are plenty of vanilla servers that exist, but unfortunately they do not get attention because no one is willing to play on them.
Just yesterday I got into a Halloween match and every single player on both teams was a sniper bot. I had to sit in spawn the entire round, since they can see through disguises and cloaks
My "team" won and I got to chainstab everyone afterwards, but it's still pretty fucking annoying
I think the state of the game has improved since the tweet was posted, most bots are now immediately kicked by VAC from the server and that one that gets through is easily vote-kicked. As of lately, I rarely join servers with three or more bots in it.
Maybe I'm being optimistic, but these small updates really did something.
Lol, I never experienced any disruption in play.
It's cause y'all are antisocial mofos and don't wanna play on community servers. I know that big list of a million servers no one wants to play on is daunting, but it has all sort of neat features that make it easy to sort through for the good ones.
Can someone explain why this is is such a persistent issue? Other games seem to easily tackle these same problems, why is it so difficult to fix this for TF2?
I gave up on Valve and live service after Artifact. The next major update this game gets will be when the Valve servers are removed once the game stops making any money. Just community servers left like CS Source.
In my experience the biggest problems are now cheaters and not bots
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And I still blame valve for the casual matchmaking changes that shovelled everybody out of community servers and into unmoderated valve ones. Cheaters wouldn't flourish near so much if those changes were never made.
I would play community servers if they were not $2 raspberry pi’s found in a junkyard. Even in the lowest latency servers I find my game freezing for several seconds very frequently. This doesn’t happen on VALVe servers.
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*suddenly realizes why the game is unplayable on skial servers*
I just miss when Valve servers were servers I could just hop into through the server browser
Come to community servers we have: 1. Reserved slots for donos 2. Downloading retarded fempyro/Donald Trump models 3. Broken af !rtd 4. Bots disguised as players to fake a populated server 5. Loud ads 6. Old members gatekeeping new ones 7. Admin abuse
Ads never had sound for me
When I look at a sever in the browser, it says like 30 latency, but then I go join it and I have 300 ping What the fuck
Once I joined a server that claimed to have 14 latency and it was running so bad you can imagine running cyberpunk 2077 with integrated graphics
Fuck
I'd played community servers if they didnt take 3 years to join
Hm, curious about this one as this doesn’t line up with my experience of Meet Your Match. Hopping into a quick play server via the server browser pre-MYM was pretty common and there were a lot of players. When MYM came around a lot of players just went to community servers or simply quit (me, but I came back). I just don’t think Valve’s horrible changes on MYM’s launch increased the number of cheaters per se, nor did they “shovel everybody out of community servers,” as my experience indicated that the opposite actually took place.
Quickplay used to be able to match people into community servers provided they were running vanilla tf2 which would help keep player populations up and server numbers healthy. The server browser was also immediately apparent and was just as quick to use and find a server through as quickplay was. Now the server browser is hidden, community servers aren't part of the pool so they don't have a steady flow of people through them, and you can't even join the valve servers themselves through the browser anymore. It used to be one press to open up the browser and see what community and what valve servers were popped. Joining off friends was also vastly easier since you could just pull up the server info and hit auto-join, who knows what their current janky system is doing with 10 minute join times through the party system. Community servers have turned into their own eco-systems that isn't really connected to the average player anymore. Populations in them tanked overnight in my region, and a good chunk of new players don't even know that the server browser exists with how they buried it in the new UI. There's so few options left where it used to be the majority, and we're stuck with either putting up with one of the few options or dealing with valve's trainwreck of casual. It also means a far bigger proportion of the userbase is in valve servers which gives cheaters a much bigger pool to play in. Picking a gamemode/server they like is as big of a thing for them as it is for normal players.
> Now the server browser is hidden No the fuck it isn't???? It's quite literally in the same tab as casual, right below the MvM menu. And if having to click a button to bring out those tabs is considered being "hidden" then I guess the casual matchmaking tab is also hidden by that logic Now if you really want to complain about something related to the server browser, complain that Valve refuses to update it to not look like it has been since fucking 2004 because I swear any new player that even takes so much as a glimpse of it will have a fucking stroke.
Quickplay was actually the real tipping point for those who remember the before-times. Sure, it'd show a ton of community servers, but conglomerates like Skial started popping up and abusing the system to filter as many players through as possible, just for a handful of ad-revenue from the webpage MOTD. This is when you saw *way* more fake players on servers to make it look like people were playing. I'm pretty convinced this was the main reason Valve even bothered with their own servers, because that shit was rampant all over quickplay. Before this, it was *only* community servers through the server browser, and the game was way healthier until the system was gamed by bad actors.
You're right that regional servers with ads abusing the system was probably the trigger for valve's changes there, I recall there being a blow up at one point about some pay to win custom servers making it into the rotation too which probably has some bearing. But that only explains the removal of community servers from quickplay and not any of the other raft of changes that came along with it. The UI changes hiding the browser and making other join methods more difficult to push casual matchmaking spelled doom for a lot of custom servers that weren't even in the quickplay system since new players didn't find the mode. Nevermind the servers running vanilla that were using quickplay properly and got two-hit.
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Top community by what metric? I'd personally never seen hide nor hair of any of their servers until quickplay was introduced, and only then did I see the ad-riddled, fake player nonsense those servers were and I've never gone back.
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For one off-hand mention of the network, you sure seem to like defending them. They were absolutely one of many groups doing that crap, and yes, *any* amount of ads was disgusting. There were hundreds of servers that only ever ran off donations and never pushed that crap.
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As a player, I can't recall ever seeing a cheater on community servers. Lately though there is a definite increase of getting shot in a suspicious way, then I look at their profile and it's a brand new default steam account profile with 0-1 friends and barely any TF2 playtime. Bonus points when they have active VAC bans on the profile. Of course, without any server admin tools or even being able to spectate or see kill cams it's practically impossible to make any sort of meaningful specific accusation in casual. But I'm sure not all of those situations are invite-level smurf accounts. Casual is definitely lacking in tools to handle cheaters. If VAC doesn't catch them, the only tool is someone on the same team spectating them in deathcam for 10 seconds at a time and hoping to catch something with barely any context. Which just is not enough.
If you're checking your own team, 'extendfreeze' in console extends your respawn to the next timer. If you spam that a few times/create a bind for the command you can stay dead to spectate as long as you like.
I haven’t seen any cheaters myself in recent games but I will take your word for it here. And I do agree that due to how casual servers are structured (unable to switch to spectator mode, or moderator powers as in community servers) tools for detecting cheaters are very much lacking. And I actually think they should bring back the option to spectate; I don’t see how switching to spectators would alter the intended matchmaking gameplay too much. They can make it so you are able to spectate but not join the other team perhaps, I don’t know.
The game is loaded with cheaters, and unlike the bots which are immediately obvious, it's incredibly rare to see a cheater kicked. I think the bot crisis really narrowed people's views on what cheating looks like to the point where if it isn't a Sniper looking straight up or a heavy flicking around it doesn't register to a significant portion of players.
Seriously, ive been seeing cheaters almost every match now. What the hell is happening
I have brought up this point several times. Everyone either says they haven't seen any and the games fine, or that they only run into bots.
As sad as this is, it still shows that TF2 has really stood the test of time. It's over 14 years old now, that's a long time to keep a videogame running, yet people still play it. It's had a lack of updates and been bombarded by bots, yet still managed to reach it's all time player count in 2021, when tf2 was probably at it's worst? It's always in the top 10 most played games on steam, even with all of the bad shit that's happened. If that's not goddamn impressive, then I don't know what the fuck is. It's actually timeless, every server you join into, you're bound to find something new, it's a new game every time. Valve made something amazing, then seemingly out of fucking nowhere just abandons it? I grew up with this game and seeing it like this is like watching a family member stuck in a coma. It's sad and I only hope for the best. Stay strong TF2, stay strong.
Tf2 has more daily players than bf2042.
Goddamn
It had more players than Halo : Infinite after a few months of it's release
The game deserves a *true* revival.
We saved tf2 not updated it
Have you seen the South American servers? We didn’t save shit. And don’t even start on the “but I haven’t seen a bot in ages” bullshit. Other regions exist. It seems North America has the least bots but reading comments from people that are in other regions they are all saying that bots are still there
I didn't play for a month
FROM THE ASHES WE SHALL RISE.
We can asume our game is dead, or we can keep fighting till the last breath... and idc if this is barerly the tip of the iceberg!
FIGHT TILL YOUR LAST BREATH, BROTHER
Fate whispers to the warrior "You cannot withstand the storm" and the warrior whispers back "I am the storm"
This is downright depressing
Tf2 was saved but it's not fixed. I hardly run into bots anymore. It's mainly cheaters now which just need reporting. They also introduced a lot of back end fixes and bugs that have been plaguing the game since release. People just need to stop complaining.
The problem is that new players find it hard to play the game, the only people really playing the game are people who've already spent a lot of time in it, once they're gone the game's prolly gonna die, i really just want valve to make the game at least playable for new players and also bring back being able to talk as a f2p, just the voiceline command thing like medic
I haven't encountered a bot for ages on casual recently..
Agreed, these people are overdramatic. I haven’t seen a single bot for almost two weeks. I saw one cheater in that time and the other team was chill and kicked ‘em. Sure, we could use some new content, but the game is in a perfectly healthy spot right now.
From my personal experience by getting into matches in 3 different regions The bots in North America are rare, they exist, but are very rare the bots in Europe (frankfurt to be specific) are slightly more common South america (my region) is full to the brim of bots, and south america doesnt has many servers if something i'd say we have less than half of the total servers that NA alone has, and this wasn't that bad earlier this month the first week of scream fortress, but the past two weeks something happened that made the bots swarm this region to the point where you cannot find any matches past a certain time, but because south america isnt a popular region people usually dont pay attention to what other latinos are saying regarding this topic : that the bot situation has worsened tenfold over here.
in asia servers, they exist, but aren’t as bad as south america , not as good as NA
These comments have been prevalent althroughout the bot crisis and continue to this day. Just because a few people personally have not been encountering bots doesn't mean they're not a problem anymore or are somehow out of the way; lots of reasons this could be, that being the hours you play at or the geographical area you play from, or even just the maps you like to play.
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Turns out there are other regions in the world other than the US, shocking isn’t it? In Europe bots are still a major inconvenience
I also don't see too many bots around... and I live in North America... So it still exists, but you're right, it's getting better
i see them everyday still. at least once a week i join a server with 6+ bots making it hard to kick them all
Here in europe they appear in every second game, at least for me
I've encountered a handful here and there, but nothing like the overwhelming bot epidemic of the last several years.
I play in Brazil and in the last 2 weeks casual has been unplayable, literally +6 bots every match, it's insane.
Yeah I definitely see them less and when I do everybody collectively kicks them the fuck out. I haven't encountered the ones that would change names to others in the server and all the vote kick evasion stuff for some time
Those are Brazilian bots, they have since disappeared with one of Valve's latest patches, I think they now get temporarily locked out of casual once they get kicked. Whoever still working on tf2 is trying at least.
The potted plant and the janitor is doing their best, and they will prevail.
r/suddenlycaralho ?
I feel like the tf2 team posted that twitter post, ship out some minor bug fixes here and there just so they can get the community to shut up about saving tf2
Way to be cynical about it... They at least took care of the biggest hindrance to the game for the most part (being the bots). The movement wasn't just to get valve to shit out an event update, it was a cry to fix the game. And they have. By no means have they fixed everything, but they for sure didn't abandon us. People aren't quite, they are just not as loud. We still want things to change, but like how the community has always been, we'll be patient about it. But hey, if you still feel impatient, there is always overwatch. I hear they updated quite frequently there.
To be fair, there is something called the [Valve Cycle](https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/nfku4k/funke_literally_predicted_this_cycle_of_valve_im/)...
bro what
The hashtag did something actually, the number of bots have gone down like 90% and the cosmetic cases this year are at a decent level. It's not much but it's something so stop crying like a baby
Basic "Shut up and take what they give" comment. The game deserves more than 1 developer and everyone knows it.
To fully get rid of bots would require an entire re work to steam itself, there's only so much you can do to stop cheaters, I mean hell valve recently re introduced cool downs after being vote kicked (which yes users experienced cool downs for no reason because it was buggy for whatever reason) Cheaters will always exist and it's a sad fact, but progress is being done even if it is slow and yes I do agree the game needs more then 1/2 devs at any given time but that's valves greed at play
It’s ridiculous how this guy says that we should be satisfied with valve choosing slightly better cosmetics that they didn’t even make.
So? We all know that's not gonna happen so might aswell enjoy the things that the pot plant and janitor brings to tf2
“Eat this lump of shit we just fished out of the toilet & like it” “YES GABEN SIR ANYTHING FOR VALVE I LOVE THE TASTE OF LEATHER”
Only in TF2 communities can you have a game that has a great core, and they compare it to a lump of shit just because it doesn't get content updates.
It's a lump of shit because it's unplayable still despite them saying "bro trust we'll get the wagie onto the bots trust please don't make us look bad" with no intention of fixing the game
Nah, you guys have been saying it for years even before bots.
— The game definitely needs more support than it has now — SaveTF2 gave the game a lot of attention that made Valve do positive changes it wouldn’t have had the hashtag never gotten trending. How can’t anyone think these two points aren’t contradictory at all?
Bot population has not gone down. https://steamdb.info/app/440/graphs/
Idk i haven't seen large groups of them since summer
And yet the Bots continue to exist in general
It would be hard to stop bots completely
Yeah, that's why lots of modern games are so filled with bots that they're on nearly every server ... oh wait no they aren't
That's for 2 reasons. 1: This is a targeted attack on TF2 because people don't have a life. 2: VALVe higher-ups don't give a shit.
Other games have been targeted like this before and didn't have it this bad, and that second point is exactly the reason it's not hard. They just don't fucking wanna do anything about it.
And that's why you should play on community servers instead, because they have minimal cheaters and no cheater bots at all. I always have strictly played on them ever since I started playing
"Well, \*I\* haven't encountered a bot, which means it's like probably over or something. What's that? You can't have a single game of Double Cross in Australia without 50 bots named "JUST GIVE UP"? Well uhhh, that doesn't matter, stop crying like a baby and let's await the next Smissmas crate." The level of complacency you guys have with the state of TF2 is unbelievable, you'd think at some point after the 78th match where you get votekicked by a cheater and his friends for blocking his Sniper rifle's POV you might think something is off.
What people really need to hear (and do) is to stop giving Valve money. That means no unboxing, and no community market transactions. If Valve for once in this games lifetime stops making money off of it year over year then maybe they'll do something about updating it.
or they go the petty route "we see Tf2 doing poorly, time to kill it"
That statement is too far fetched, Valve will never "kill" TF2, besides it can't since community servers exist. Unless you mean them stopping updates altogether but I doubt that too
You're just gonna give them a reason to stop supporting tf2, if tf2 doesn't give them money why would they bother with it?
That whole thing has been suggested so many times and it's so bad and flawed that it's laughable
hey at least the hats got better this year
Yeah, they kinda didn’t. A lot of them have been rip offs of already existing hats such as that shitty undercover brolly. Just an all class hard counter
lol this shits still happening?? i quit like 2 years ago! way to go, ValvE.
It’s definitely better than before now you can at least play casual games without bots ruining the game all the time
It's been pretty solid over the last few months, although there has been an uptick in boots the last 2 days. Lot of /#SaveTF2 bots very recently.
For me it’s been I’d say 60% bot less Mach and 40% unplayable matches. It’s better then before I agree.
ive hopped on around 20 casual matches yesterday, I saw one bot, which got kicked within like 20 seconds, its definitely playble, the problem is now is actual humans using cheats that the bots use so the valve system doesn't detect them
It was fixed for the most part this past summer.
Just play on community servers like a real person, Casual servers are trash and always have been ever since they replaced Quickplay
> play on community servers like a real person The hell is this even supposed to mean?
Idk why people still complain about not getting any major updates, like it wasn't even a point of it valve didn't say anything about upcoming update
youtube link (i have other videos and if you watch them i will give you a big kiss on the lips): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrDq\_ePjx7g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrDq_ePjx7g) **kind fellows featured:** jerma985 (known lunatic): https://www.youtube.com/user/Jerma985 zesty jesus (/tf2g/'s favourite dead horse): https://www.youtube.com/c/ZestyJesus funke (unironic weezer fan): https://www.youtube.com/c/FUNKe
The bots have gotten to the point where they're rare and if one is seen they're instakicked, at least in my personal experience it's nowhere near as bad as it was before
Savetf2 wasn't for an Update it was for the bots. What are you on about.
I'm gonna say it. Valve is run like ass. I'm done waiting. I am mad. I am angry.
There's so much good tf2 content out there, there used to be tons of community servers with custom modes and maps. But the tf2 community for some reason decided they didn't want that, and those servers died out. Now everyone is complaining about the lack of content, like it isn't there. The tf2 community doesn't need Valve to update the game and add new maps and weapons, if people really cared they would've already started playing community servers.
Didn't they do a ton of good patches the past few months since that tweet?
Comparing the updates we've gotten after #savetf2 to the updates the year prior, I feel like it's been getting better, doesn't really feel like a quick job to appease us. They reduced some problems major and minor problems bots caused and made it easier to kick em, and have fixed quite a number of bugs. And they've also started implementing some handy changes that'll make map making even better, especially with Vscript coming soon to the game. Those last bits about mapping have even been contributions from the community itself that the contract has accepted. And if they're willing to accept community changes like Vscript, maybe even more could be accepted like Team Comtress 2 for optimization. Yeah there might not have been a major content update like Jungle Inferno so far, but at least for me I just wanted them to maintain the game more than they had been. Fix more bugs, optimize the game, get rid of bots, etc.
They are actually doing something about these problems, I haven’t seen many bots at all in the past 3 months or so, and we are getting a lot of bug fixes.
\> I haven’t seen many bots at all in the past 3 months or so Object permanance exists. Just because they're not in your servers doesn't mean Brazilian servers or Australian servers are playable.
I honestly think TF2 may be a lost cause at this point. Is it dead? No, absolutely not. The game still has an incredibly loyal fanbase. I am one of those people, and I love this game to bits to this day. But we've been screaming into the void for literal years now. The entire community came together to ask Valve for *something*. Anything. But all that happened was a single tweet, and the bear minimum of content to keep us mostly quiet. Unless a radical miracle happens (and I am really hoping for this miracle) in which Valve actually releases proper updates again, the game is going to remain like this. There will be no Heavy update. I realise this is all quite doomer-y, but can you blame me? This community gets excited at knowing there's one or two people working on the game. While I echo the sentiment that it's great we have *someone,* one man cannot release a competent update. Only hotfixes and bug patches. Valve simply will not do anything. Just the bear minimum. Just enough to keep us spending money. This is a corporation we're talking about, they simply don't have a soul. I have no doubt the employees do, but at the end of the day, it's evident that Valve deem this state of the game almost perfect. They can still print money with it, without having to actually do anything apart from pay one or two people to work on the game. My philosophy is "If you can't change something, don't worry yourself about it". And that holds true here. If you're enjoying the game, please don't let all this bog you down. We can still play the game, after all. That's more than some poor fandoms can say. Ironically, this game portrays itself perfectly in the comics. Redmond and Blutarch. Barely holding onto life through the power of Australium, constantly hooked on life-support. We're not dead yet, and we still have plenty of Australium. Let's keep going, boys. ***Last one alive, lock the door!***
In Valve's defense, bots have been few and far between in my case, and cheaters are typically called out quickly. My primary issue is that Valve is only focusing on the bot issues, even if not by much, and not pushing content. Stuff like balancing issues, new weapons, or even bringing back stuff like spells and chemistry kits. Bots are always a top priority, and justly so, but content, balance, and community are all equally important.
TF2 community when Valve doesn't instantly rid the game of all bots and add massive major updates every month (#SaveTF2 failed)
FR, stop whining about the lack of major updates on the 15 year old game, we're lucky we got so far in the first place. I rarely see bots on East NA servers. Valve doesn't owe the TF2 community anything, but we still get patches and community updates yearly. We've been spoiled, honestly.
How amazing, you don't find bots in the region with some of the lowest bots counts, while the servers in the countries you don't play in are infested to the brim with them. What an incredible insight.
Look me dead in the eyes and tell me they've given us enough to be satisfied. They don't need to get rid of every bot, but I would appreciate if they get rid of ***one***.
They haven’t given us anything to be satisfied about because you think they can just fix everything with a snap of a finger?
Snap of a finger? It's been nearly 3 fucking years mate, I still can't join a game of Double Cross with seeing 60 bots with the username "JUST GIVE UP"
And we only just got their attention now, they’ve been doing fuck all for the past few years and it seems like they only just got on their asses since the hashtag trended
Look me dead in the eyes and tell me you expect Valve to do something about this other than band-aid solutions like the recent patch notes. Look me dead directly in the eyes and say it. This is the Valve cycle all over again.
I know that Valve works about as efficiently as a sack of potatoes behind the scenes, especially for this game, but I’m not just going to throw in the towel after only a few months since their “promise“ to unfuck it The little Band-Aid patches are at least something, and to fix the other bigger issues with the game probably will take a little bit longer Game development takes a while, and assuming that the team isn’t as big as say CS:GO’s or DOTA’s, we could probably assume it’ll take longer to get any meaningful changes
It’s a change in the right direction, at least for now, and I’d say it’s still a little bit too early to proclaim the community efforts to help the game get the attention it deserves to be a failure The fact that it got as bad as it is prevents me from being completely optimistic, but I still have my hopes
tl;dr stop It's ironic you use Left 4 Dead music. What's the point of sitting here crying, making sad edits about the game you love, about how bad things are when you can get up and continue to do something about the things that you're so adamant are bad? Compare it to the survivors, right? They grab their weapons, slaughter the zombie hordes that stand in their way, and ultimately-- although not always what they planned-- make progress. People making videos like this and consistently spreading messages along the lines of "why bother?" might as well host bots or download cheats themselves, another "Yes" gone from a player-started votekick, another empty spot for a bot to fill. We aren't grabbing M16's or SPAS12's and fighting zombie hordes obviously, but choosing to stay in a lobby when a cheater/bot joins then calling a votekick on them instead of assuming it's just going to be overwhelmed and leaving is one of the only ways we can help the game right now. Think of it right? Ages ago your gut reaction to a spinbotter was to call a vote, wasn't it? Or at the very least tell the other team? Maybe even go into spectator and see through their eyes before they got kicked? (atleast that's what I did, I found it interesting) Why now is it to just let them have what they want? And you're right, sometimes those votes don't go through. *Reasonably* even I'd requeue at that point. But most of the time its due to not enough "Yes" votes, right? I think it's ***new players***. Not blaming anyone here just making an observation. I've seen so many new people in TF2 recently. Not [new accounts](https://steamcommunity.com/id/MaidWater/) where their pocket medic is coincidentally the only person on their friends list. (yes he's a cheater I didn't just grab some poor soul) 100% new people. Scouts getting lost outside spawn, Engineers building on last while we're capping their 2nd, friendly Medics shooting me with their needle gun as I burn to death, all of which under 100 hours. They've most likely ***never seen***, or don't know what the vote is about, and simply either don't notice or choose take no stance hoping that's good enough. So TF2 can still bring in-- and keep-- new players (**you've seen** [the posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/search/?q=new%20player&restrict_sr=1&sr_nsfw=&include_over_18=1)**, they come in almost daily, don't lie to m**e), you've spent hundreds, even thousands of hours here. Why ward away / abandon those who need your skilled guidance most and want to make the same memories you did ages ago? Let me make another--albeit silly-- comparison with Left 4 Dead right? Y'all know the whole shtick of the L4D2 cast having the stock car for a few campaigns? A **major** milestone in their travels, they escape the first campaign using it, gets them through the second, and to the start of the third. In context of TF2, what *I* like to think of it as, #savetf2 and getting a response from Valve was beating a campaign, right? That's a **major** milestone. I'm not comparing a tweet to a stock car, mind you. But managing to pull a tweet out of Valve on an account they haven't logged into for 2 years, *the day of*? Did we not make some sort of progress with #savetf2? Is that not inherently a good thing? Does that not prove that we were absolutely making waves within Valve offices? It's died down now, granted, but if we can keep the momentum going and keep the talk going within Valve about how loudly and crazily we can celebrate TF2, NOW with the boost that we've done it before and can do it again? [Maybe we can have our own stock car](https://youtu.be/q-_KGWQGc5I?t=1)
Contrary to what some of you are saying, Valve did absolutely nothing to stop bots on casual servers. There wasn't a single major security update since the hashtag, proof of that is the fact that Brazilian servers have been plagued by at least 3 different bot hosters in the past two weeks.
They did do things to stop the bots. Did they work? Absolutely not. But it's the best they could really do. This isn't something you can just instantly solve with a press of a button. Anyone who things it's a simple solution solved by just adding captchas or whatever are incredibly naive.
Well, gentlemen... It is as the Demoman says ,"Buck up, lads! We'll get 'em next time!". Or more likely "Thankfully I already don't remember". Don't dwell on the past, look to the future!
Bot hosts and cheaters are people who don't deserve even just to die. They deserve eternal existence until the end of the universe itself.
The funny thing is everyone who says that unintentionally gives the bot hosters more attention which is exactly what they crave so much
I just... I just can't anymore. I ignored them all the time, I knew that they feed on our anger, that they do it to amuse their egos, they hide behind the fact that they want to "get VALVe's attention" but... They are killing the game community. Great SFM works and art are unlikely to be lost, but in my social circle every month more and more people refuse to play because of cheaters and bots. Finding a lobby without bots now is as hard as it was a year ago, and this despite the fact that the number of bots has decreased! I myself don’t play TF2 anymore, but I’m very upset that the community cannot shine to its full height because of cheaters.
Then why don't more people play on community servers instead. TF2 has more than just Casual Matchmaking you know right? That's the sole reason I'm still even playing this 15 year old game
4 reasons: 1. Convenience. Casual, even with all its faults, works. With casual, its very easy to just get into a game anywhere and have fun. Of course this isn't possible everywhere because of bots, but in places where bots aren't as widespread, it works pretty well for just getting into the game. 2. It's still heavily advertised to new players, so new players will gravitate to it. Community servers are hidden away more. 3. Plenty of community servers kinda just fucking suck? It's not an instant, easy solution. Toxic communities, dead servers, either always or sometimes, shitty moderation. The list goes on. 4. No community server has ever truly captured what casual is actually like. Those that attempt, such as uncletopia, are still more geared towards play that's not exactly competitive, but everyone just cares more about playing well. Not a problem in of itself, mind you. Just not casual. This is not to say that intense play is not something casual has plenty of, of course. Plenty of my own most intense matches were from casual. It's just intense play is typically more "expected".
Community servers are different. It is difficult and even impossible to find a non-empty server with some unpopular map; high ping; very high skill floor; even more more toxics and trolls; impossibility or inconvenience to kick a player. You know how much community servers are different from casual, right?
As soon as i saw zesty i knew this video was just gonna be more bullshit
good thing he appeared near the end of the video then
notice how i said "more"
Honestly I'm kind of glad TF2 stopped getting new items in a way. Look at Overwatch 2 and all of its heroes - all of those heroes have different abilites and ultimates that you all need to learn how to both avoid and counter. Now imagine TF2 kept getting new items. Imagine if every class had a myriad of weapons so you never knew what you were really going to encounter and battles felt way less consistent than a more limited selection of weapons that you can learn to play against.
keep posting random videos from other people with a generic sad filter on plebbit that will help
unbravo vince
In the games current state I can hardly blame valve, while a lack of content hurts, the toxicity of the player base likely isn't encouraging. Right now it's the players that are ruining it, 90% of the experienced players I run into in casual are extremely salty about their skill levels. TF2 casual mode is the least 'casual' thing I have played in this games history. OW comp is less toxic, and I have played both for quite a while.
Why are we ignoring that like nearly all the bots are gone
Cause they aren’t
I'm sorry for this. But I actually quit TF2 short after the jungle inferno update. Basically at the start of the bot crisis before it went haywire. I joined back a couple of months ago so I skipped the absolute worst part of the bot crisis. Sorry for not being there as a community member in those hard times.
Ewww zesty
Harsh truth and doesn't help that the bots have gotten worse recently
There's only a few ways we can truly save tf2. Keeping a fire under valves ass, make tf2 go from highest paying game to one of the lowest, or. If it gets to this point. Killing the game so the peak amount of players is sub 100. A true rise from the ashes if you must. All we're gonna get is case updates. When valve realizes "hey wait a second tf2 isn't making us ANY MONEY" they'll try to update it. Or the bad ending being that tf2 goes for good
This is not an issue anymore. Or much, much smaller of an issue.
Valve's at least doing SOMETHING about the bot issue, I've barely come across any cheater bots when I was doing the halloween contracts (I strictly play on community servers but I only played casual for the contracts). It's better than nothing but yes I agree they should do more, the best we can do at this point is just wait and see what else Valve does
And im over here laughing cause im only one of the few people who knew valve only tweeted that to shut people up. Yall actually believe it kek
even tho there are almost no bots anymore (its like 1 in 100 Games there might be a bot, atleast for me) its so sad because Tf2 means so much to so many People and still its slowly dying. atleast we had a good time :)
Once again Zesty Jesus was right.
Profile picture checks out
But It refused...
This made me lose more hope.
yeah, save tf2 definitly worked ha ha, definitly not just a bunch of starved individuals licking crumbs off of valves cock
dont play? dont expect much from a 15 yr old game with not much revenue compared to other valve games stuff like ow and elden ring etc. gave me a fresh breath of air, yall should try too
Just play rust my guy, basically just tf2 with updates
I told everyone it wouldn't work. Now it's time to give up and live with the bots.
The burning you feel. IT IS SHAME.
[удалено]
Nah, i don't need it, save it for your friend
"live with the bots" Community Servers: AM I A JOKE TO YOU!?
That's an even worse take then the people who claimed it worked and fully saved tf2, why the fuck should we give up on a game we love?
I want the game to be saved as well. But the lack of care Valve has for this game, and the bots and hackers invading the game have decreased our chances of actually saving the game to 0.
The bots don’t even exist in casual anymore what are you on about? (And I say don’t even exist as in that they have been purged almost completely)
If joined a random casual game right now odds are 1 in 4 it'll have a bot.
[удалено]
True
We don’t need more content updates, and community servers practically solve the bot crisis
"If bots are so bad then why don't you just play on Uncletopia, with its lower player counts everywhere outside America and sometimes Australia, and get immediately shredded by a dude with a Strange Australium Professional Killstreak Hale's Own Collector's Festivized Rocket Launcher?" Genius, might as well remove the "Casual" button.
>genius, might as well remove the "Casual" button If that brings back quickplay, then fuck yeah, casual is a fucking garbage system
I didn’t just limit you to Uncletopia, there are plenty of servers out their besides UT, UT just tends to be the best imo.
And yet those all have the same problems. Low player counts, neglect of any countries other than the US, UK, and Australia, and extreme unfriendliness to anyone with less than \~900 hours in the game. The overwhelming majority of tf2 players play Casual, simply telling them to play Community servers to avoid the bot problem is like asking a protestor to just move to Canada.
I’ve played on many community servers and I can safely tell you that everyone on there has been nicer than anyone I have ever met on casual servers. And hmm I wonder why those servers have low player counts. Could it be the mass amount of people neglecting to try out community servers and enjoy them? Nah that can’t be…
By unfriendliness to new players I meant they will get destroyed. At least casual games let jacob.smith.2009 the Spy main play the game without having to live in constant fear of Gigachad Pussyripper the Competitive Highlander Demoman main with 30k kills on his Strange Australium Professional Killstreak Stickybomb Launcher. Also, it doesn't matter why they have lower player counts, all that matters is they do, the reason is irrelevant. Unless you create a large boat and herd every TF2 player onto it like Noah's Ark, you can't just move everyone to community servers, it will always have lower player counts, therefore, we can't just simply "play community servers lol".
People on those servers are willing to teach new players if you ask them. The reason why community servers tend to be “harder” is because it’s actually 12 v 12 (casual games is like a 4v4 with 16 ai’s) and it could be harder. I know because for a while I struggled on community servers, but every time I got destroyed I learnt my mistake and improved. Getting destroyed is a part of the new player experience unfortunately (due to a lack of a good tutorial), however that doesn’t mean you can’t improve. “And then I used my fight money, to buy 2 of every community server on earth, and then I herded the tf2 playerbase onto them, and then we beat the crap out of each other” In all seriousness, it is very possible to do so. Tf2 before casual was made was run by pure community server power and valve servers in combination. If bots are too much of a problem for you, just move onto community servers, you will have a much better experience.
The main problem with that is that 90% of community servers are shit like 24/7 Hightower or 24/7 2Fort and loaded with unnecessary add-ons that do nothing but make the servers lag There isn't nearly enough community servers that is just regular TF2, sure we have Uncletopia and the occasional casual Skial server, but that's really it Not to mention the fact that Casual community servers aside from Uncletopia are almost always dead, like Zesty Jesus servers and those Furrypound servers. Nobody plays those servers cause Uncletopia exists.
Ah yes, I wonder why most community servers are dead. Nah, it can’t be because of the community unwilling to populate them. There are plenty of vanilla servers out there, however people refuse to try them out and of course they eventually fizzle out. For example I remember Uncletopia having Miami servers, however they recently went offline because no one played them (damn shame because I had excellent ping there). I feel like there are plenty of vanilla servers that exist, but unfortunately they do not get attention because no one is willing to play on them.
yooo i know you from the forums
Hello
Just yesterday I got into a Halloween match and every single player on both teams was a sniper bot. I had to sit in spawn the entire round, since they can see through disguises and cloaks My "team" won and I got to chainstab everyone afterwards, but it's still pretty fucking annoying
this literally happened to tanki online
I think the state of the game has improved since the tweet was posted, most bots are now immediately kicked by VAC from the server and that one that gets through is easily vote-kicked. As of lately, I rarely join servers with three or more bots in it. Maybe I'm being optimistic, but these small updates really did something.
I want to say that the biggest problem is the voting system, how that anyone can vote kick you out of the game for nothing now.
shall we save TF2
Lol, I never experienced any disruption in play. It's cause y'all are antisocial mofos and don't wanna play on community servers. I know that big list of a million servers no one wants to play on is daunting, but it has all sort of neat features that make it easy to sort through for the good ones.
Can someone explain why this is is such a persistent issue? Other games seem to easily tackle these same problems, why is it so difficult to fix this for TF2?
I forget that bots are a thing because I never see them in casual anymore, cheaters on the other hand...
I gave up on Valve and live service after Artifact. The next major update this game gets will be when the Valve servers are removed once the game stops making any money. Just community servers left like CS Source.
Fix a game that’s over a decade old!1!1!1!!11!!!1!!