VSH Balancing and Suggestions: The Prelude (1 Viewer)

[Abject]

I’m a long time enjoyer of the Versus Saxton Hale gamemode and I’ve returned back once more after a bit of a break from tf2 in general.
I saw a bunch of things have been changed recently which gives me hope that maybe some of my ideas can be implemented as well. Big fan of the caber change in particular, could deal some more damage though.

I’ve given a lot of thought to vsh over the years, and posting actually well thought out suggestions has been my plan for quite a while. The voices (@Heather) keep telling me to start posting.

I’m going to post threads with more concrete suggestions in the future, this one is for gauging the general opinions of the vsh players who may frequent the forums. I’d like to see some discussion about the general state of the gamemode, things people find problematic and things that should be changed. Ideas for weapon changes are welcome too.

Few things I’d like to draw attention to:

---

Mantreads​

The extra rocket jump force provided by these is absurd and should be completely removed in my opinion. Basically gives soldier access to super jump with no cooldown.
Extra damage taken from blast jumps,when compared to gunboats, barely matters as most soldiers are running liberty launcher and most maps seem to be updated to have more health pickups than before.
Most rounds that get to the endgame are dominated by mantreads soldiers, hale struggling to catch them.
They make catching hale off guard with the mg way easier as soldier can swoop in from across the map, out of vision and hearing range.
Mantreads already has reduced fall damage, 1k stomp damage and increased air control, why does it need anything more?

Damage potential between the classes​

This one should be pretty obvious, spies and soldiers can rack up thousands upon thousands of damage each round, meanwhile heavy requires babysitting from engineers and medics,
pyro’s lackluster damage output is very apparent now that his utility has been gutted.
I would like to see higher base damage on most classes main weapons. Damage scaling of mg and backstabs might be worth looking into, although I don't feel strongly about this one.
Some classes will always be and even should be better at dealing damage than others, but that doesn't mean we can't level the playing field a bit.

Lacking weapon choices​

Ties to the previous point. Lot of weapons are completely useless or outshined by the few actually good weapons.
Sometimes unique weapons function in the same way, when they could be more distinct (e.g. mediguns, flare gun and detonator).
Part of the fun of vsh are the wacky weapon changes. Not everything needs to become the meta either; it would just be nice to have more variety in playstyles.
I would especially like stock weapons to be better. New player friendly vsh?

Taunt crits are boring​

Over the years I've come to see taunt crits as a half assed solution to the lack of damage in most classes.
Basically requires you to own a toggleable action taunt to be used effectively.
I'd rather see higher base damage and/or less damage fall off on weapons so they can deal more consistent damage over time instead of having to stop for a taunt to get a burst of damage.
Then we could start seeing more value from things like crit a cola, could even make buff banner give full crits.

Goomba stomp​

I don't get why this exists at all... People shouldn't be bouncing off of hale's head. Hale should not need to be cautious in the slightest when jumping at enemies on high ground. Crevice is actually ruined by the existence of goomba.
It's also extremely punishing for less experienced hales, especially the one's that don't super jump around too much. Without goomba there's more value in picking mantreads for the stomp damage.

Sniper​

He has it all, damage, range, knockback and wall climb. Apparently there was some adjustment to the knockback but I haven't really felt too much of a difference.
A single sniper shot still absolutely kills hale's momentum in the air. Perhaps we should go back to having to hit our headshots...
Wall climb is limited in theory by the self damage and the healing block but in reality snipers is able to travel quite a distance by wall climbing as many maps feature large walls that are easily climbable.
HHH has a limit to how many times he can wall climb until having to touch the ground, maybe implement a limit like this to sniper. Mobility should be sniper's weak suit.

Engineer​

Metal regen makes setting up brain dead easy. With it there's barely any downside to running an amp.
I dislike amplifier for variety of reasons; paired with multiple heavies it causes an insane amount of knockback and damage, it has wonky interactions with projectiles and it has enough health to tank a hit from hale without needing to be upgraded.

---

These are my opinions of course, formed by years of playing vsh. I'm not really expecting to see most of these happen, and I know some of my opinions might be very unpopular.
It may seem that all I want is to nerf and remove things, but consider that any and all weapon buffs would fall under points 2 and 3, I think potential buffs to dozens of weapons is a net positive overall.


I will discuss some of these points in more depth when I'll post some actual suggestion threads at some point in the near future. I definitely wanna do a deeper dive to each class, not just the ones singled out here.
Feel free to ask for more detail, provide feedback or share your own opinion on these topics or anything else vsh related. If this post inspired you to make your own suggestions, go for it!

Tagging my vsh consultants
@Heather @Skorpieo @Brick @meks

And the ever vigilant
@Aerial

 

[Heather]

Whoa the fabled prelude post !

I love the idea of vsh having more vocal discussion than what it was prior to my break, I can imagine it'll definitely benefit the mode if we have more people chiming in on what they want to see changed/removed/added rather than just hitting yes or no on a poll and it being dictated by whoever happens to stumble across it (I've seen polls decided by people who don't even play vsh).

As for the stuff you brought attention to, there's very little I could disagree with. That being said, I've always been fond of goomba existing, whether for a nostalgia for the old days or just "haha funny noise" I'd love to see it nerfed rather than removed.
Stuff along the lines of Mantreads have always seemed a bit insane to me and have been one of the big reasons I've avoided playing as hale for so long, whilst sniper has always been oppressive since the change to wall climb forcing you to require headshots just to compete with damage.
Sadly I don't play enough soldier to have much of an input as to the changes and no longer frequent sniper enough to have anything but a third-person perspective on the balance. Though it definitely feels impossible to compete with sniper's or soldier's damage, let alone play hale into them at times.

If there was anything I'd add to this list, it'd be making Hale more accessible to newer players, people shouldn't have to practice to the lengths that Skillerz, Kikka and such just to manage to play during a round, let alone win it.

 

[Aerial]

I’m a long time enjoyer of the Versus Saxton Hale gamemode and I’ve returned back once more after a bit of a break from tf2 in general.
I saw a bunch of things have been changed recently which gives me hope that maybe some of my ideas can be implemented as well. Big fan of the caber change in particular, could deal some more damage though.

I’ve given a lot of thought to vsh over the years, and posting actually well thought out suggestions has been my plan for quite a while. The voices (Heather) keep telling me to start posting.

I’m going to post threads with more concrete suggestions in the future, this one is for gauging the general opinions of the vsh players who may frequent the forums. I’d like to see some discussion about the general state of the gamemode, things people find problematic and things that should be changed. Ideas for weapon changes are welcome too.

Well Hello there Abject ,

Brilliant work, As Heather said, Giving the idea to discuss the changes on a specific thread is a great move rather than just threading an Idea and waiting for people to yes/no it.

Mantreads​

The extra rocket jump force provided by these is absurd and should be completely removed in my opinion. Basically gives soldier access to super jump with no cooldown.
Extra damage taken from blast jumps,when compared to gunboats, barely matters as most soldiers are running liberty launcher and most maps seem to be updated to have more health pickups than before.
Most rounds that get to the endgame are dominated by mantreads soldiers, hale struggling to catch them.
They make catching hale off guard with the mg way easier as soldier can swoop in from across the map, out of vision and hearing range.
Mantreads already has reduced fall damage, 1k stomp damage and increased air control, why does it need anything more?

Yes, Mantreads Are ridiculously strong, Just the fact that it gives you the mobility to become a pair match to Hale's high jump and even Faster than Hale himself is Absurd.
This Leads to a prolonged 1v1 sometimes and takes around 5 minutes to be done, The mantreads single handedly devided soldier into two playstyles(which is something I consider it boring), You either put them and start Market gardening, Or battalion, Most people rather mantreads of course, because Mantreads Are a Low risk High reward,
Mantreads literally Makes soldier a Flying spy, It's Much safer than spy,
Even a guy Like Me who's been witnessed by many regulars is capable enough to land many market gardening hits or stomps
(Let it be known, That soldier is even one of my least played classes)

As hale you can't just rely on the falling sound or keep looking up, you can't look up while there is 7 to 16 player infront of you,

I Currently don't have any Good changes for the mantreads, but I'll try to think of something, Of course I'm open for anyone got a good suggestion for it.


Soldier needs many changes That I Might suggest them in the near future, For Example:

Direct Rockets on hale
This has been discussed few times in the past and Either Me or some another Frustrated regular will open the topic Again,

Direct shots on hale stuns/interrupt hale(critted or not), The stun effect isn't just on direct hit(the weapon), It's on all rocket launchers, They all Stun hale, It's Really frustrating getting stunned in the middle of the crowd, It maybe hard to land a shot on hale mid air, but its way easy to do it while hale is just casually walking, anyone can do that, Some says "Well its the reward you get for landing a direct shot on hale", This is true but wrong at the same time, I would say the stun should be ONLY on Direct hit(The weapon) Not all rocket launchers, Like why would anyone use direct hit at that point, Stock can stun, Liberty The reduced damage Launcher can stun, Hell even black box can stun, This shouldn't continue any further.

So yes, That's one of the examples about soldier in my head.

Damage potential between the classes​

This one should be pretty obvious, spies and soldiers can rack up thousands upon thousands of damage each round, meanwhile heavy requires babysitting from engineers and medics,
pyro’s lackluster damage output is very apparent now that his utility has been gutted.
I would like to see higher base damage on most classes main weapons. Damage scaling of mg and backstabs might be worth looking into, although I don't feel strongly about this one.
Some classes will always be and even should be better at dealing damage than others, but that doesn't mean we can't level the playing field a bit.

Yes, true some classes will always be and even should be better at dealing damage more than the others, its how the game should be, nothing wrong with that.

Spy, my only issue with spy is Cloaking, I don't play him that much so I'm not very sure about it, but spy can tank 1 hit with the cloak watch, While Dead ringer can tank I think more than that(That is of course if the spy is using a Kunai), also spy can survive a 1 goomba which is total BS, He is a high risk high reward, The moment he get caught He should be 85% Dead, but this is not the case here, Percentage is much less than that, Which is again.. Ridiculous.

Soldier, I got many issues about soldier, He should be cracked down somehow too Just like pyro, otherwise He is Hands down the strongest VSH class By faaar.

Pyro, After his rework, His pick rate heavily dropped, and many regular pyro mains even quitted, I have many Changes in my mind on him, Like enabling the crits on secondary while equipping the phlog, or removing the penalty from the phlog, and many other ideas, Pyro shouldn't be played in VSH of how many disadvantages he Got, but these disadvantages has been reworked and He will always be an option, he should be at least A not bad one.

Lacking weapon choices​

Ties to the previous point. Lot of weapons are completely useless or outshined by the few actually good weapons.
Sometimes unique weapons function in the same way, when they could be more distinct (e.g. mediguns, flare gun and detonator).
Part of the fun of vsh are the wacky weapon changes. Not everything needs to become the meta either; it would just be nice to have more variety in playstyles.
I would especially like stock weapons to be better. New player friendly vsh?

True, I've always been a fan of shotguns, but they're Insanely useless on VSH, on all classes, Engie heavy pyro soldier, having an equipped shotgun(not critted and doesn't have anything special) is pointless.
that applies on many many other weapons and examples.

Taunt crits are boring​

Over the years I've come to see taunt crits as a half assed solution to the lack of damage in most classes.
Basically requires you to own a toggleable action taunt to be used effectively.
I'd rather see higher base damage and/or less damage fall off on weapons so they can deal more consistent damage over time instead of having to stop for a taunt to get a burst of damage.
Then we could start seeing more value from things like crit a cola, could even make buff banner give full crits.

Technically, If the crits got disabled on taunting, it will solve many many unbalanced stuff lol, but idk if its going to be fun anymore, Can't judge without trying, and tbh I like taunting to gain crits, I might be baised yea ehm "":>, still.. I think its kinda cool to have such feature.

Goomba stomp​

I don't get why this exists at all... People shouldn't be bouncing off of hale's head. Hale should not need to be cautious in the slightest when jumping at enemies on high ground. Crevice is actually ruined by the existence of goomba.
It's also extremely punishing for less experienced hales, especially the one's that don't super jump around too much. Without goomba there's more value in picking mantreads for the stomp damage.

Why does this exactly exist btw? I was more surprised that goomba was 1500 damage, I wouldn't mind a complete removal, Actually it would be better to make it just available only for hale, only hale can goomba ppl, not ppl can goomba him, or Maybe reduce the damage for both goomba and stomp to 500, to make it worthless attempting and too risky to just gain 500.

for the stomp tho again this should be allowed to hale and for red team only soldier and demoman(but not dealing 1k damage, this should get reduced, maybe to 500 damage or less).

Sniper​

He has it all, damage, range, knockback and wall climb. Apparently there was some adjustment to the knockback but I haven't really felt too much of a difference.
A single sniper shot still absolutely kills hale's momentum in the air. Perhaps we should go back to having to hit our headshots...
Wall climb is limited in theory by the self damage and the healing block but in reality snipers is able to travel quite a distance by wall climbing as many maps feature large walls that are easily climbable.
HHH has a limit to how many times he can wall climb until having to touch the ground, maybe implement a limit like this to sniper. Mobility should be sniper's weak suit.

Ah yes.. The unsolved broken role of every shooting game.
My thread on changing sniper didn't do anything, Knockback is still massive,
Damage is still 450 on bodyshot and headshot
and for sydney its 450 and 608 headshot...
Machina bodyshot is 518 -_-
and some of his weapons are even bugged, like C.A.P.P.E.R, It doesn't have the buffed normal damage(means its full shot doesn't deal 450, it deals less. like a normal rifle in casual)
I'll definitely Make a big thread again on sniper in the future.

Engineer​

Metal regen makes setting up brain dead easy. With it there's barely any downside to running an amp.
I dislike amplifier for variety of reasons; paired with multiple heavies it causes an insane amount of knockback and damage, it has wonky interactions with projectiles and it has enough health to tank a hit from hale without needing to be upgraded.

And finally Last but not least, Engie.. my second most played class, and my fourth favourite class..
well first, we need to disable metal regen, then I'll try to think of other stuff.. because that alone is broken.




Regardless.. before any weapon fun ideas.. We have to do smth about soldier and sniper, so people can actually enable the queue for hale.. and newer people won't get absolutely demolished.

 

[Skorpieo]

Oh yes, i like this.

I really want the mantreads to be nerfed because as Aerial said "Low Risk, High Reward" its takes no skill to use them.
Myself abused the crap out of them in the past but was aswell the only one who said they need a Nerf and even made a Post on this Forum years ago. Im tired of those "Wannabe Pro Market Garden" Soldiers when they never ever touched the dam Gunboats.
Also non of this sollies use the Mantreads to its limit because you they never need to aswell dont know how, unlike the Gunboats where 1 missclick, 1 failed jump 1 missed ammo/hp Pack means death for the Soldier.

Goomba Stomp, oh yea pls take it away. It would make so many maps better. Aswell would make the Hunt for Sniper so much better, now they just walljump and Goomba the Hale.

Sniper? Dam i once played with 1 Hand and ate a nice Hot Bowl of Potato/Pumpkin Soup and still made 4-5k dmg per Round. Sniper should have the Movement or the Dmg and not Both. In the Past you could Walljump with Bushwaka but normal Sniper dmg, or you picked any other melee and gave up the Good Mobility for better Dmg. Its should be again like this.

Cant say anything to Engie because dont play him that much.

There was a Time where the Hale was a real threat and now he is a Joke.

 

[Scudi37]

I’m a long time enjoyer of the Versus Saxton Hale gamemode and I’ve returned back once more after a bit of a break from tf2 in general.
I saw a bunch of things have been changed recently which gives me hope that maybe some of my ideas can be implemented as well. Big fan of the caber change in particular, could deal some more damage though.

I’ve given a lot of thought to vsh over the years, and posting actually well thought out suggestions has been my plan for quite a while. The voices (@Heather) keep telling me to start posting.

I’m going to post threads with more concrete suggestions in the future, this one is for gauging the general opinions of the vsh players who may frequent the forums. I’d like to see some discussion about the general state of the gamemode, things people find problematic and things that should be changed. Ideas for weapon changes are welcome too.

Few things I’d like to draw attention to:

---

Mantreads​

The extra rocket jump force provided by these is absurd and should be completely removed in my opinion. Basically gives soldier access to super jump with no cooldown.
Extra damage taken from blast jumps,when compared to gunboats, barely matters as most soldiers are running liberty launcher and most maps seem to be updated to have more health pickups than before.
Most rounds that get to the endgame are dominated by mantreads soldiers, hale struggling to catch them.
They make catching hale off guard with the mg way easier as soldier can swoop in from across the map, out of vision and hearing range.
Mantreads already has reduced fall damage, 1k stomp damage and increased air control, why does it need anything more?

Damage potential between the classes​

This one should be pretty obvious, spies and soldiers can rack up thousands upon thousands of damage each round, meanwhile heavy requires babysitting from engineers and medics,
pyro’s lackluster damage output is very apparent now that his utility has been gutted.
I would like to see higher base damage on most classes main weapons. Damage scaling of mg and backstabs might be worth looking into, although I don't feel strongly about this one.
Some classes will always be and even should be better at dealing damage than others, but that doesn't mean we can't level the playing field a bit.

Lacking weapon choices​

Ties to the previous point. Lot of weapons are completely useless or outshined by the few actually good weapons.
Sometimes unique weapons function in the same way, when they could be more distinct (e.g. mediguns, flare gun and detonator).
Part of the fun of vsh are the wacky weapon changes. Not everything needs to become the meta either; it would just be nice to have more variety in playstyles.
I would especially like stock weapons to be better. New player friendly vsh?

Taunt crits are boring​

Over the years I've come to see taunt crits as a half assed solution to the lack of damage in most classes.
Basically requires you to own a toggleable action taunt to be used effectively.
I'd rather see higher base damage and/or less damage fall off on weapons so they can deal more consistent damage over time instead of having to stop for a taunt to get a burst of damage.
Then we could start seeing more value from things like crit a cola, could even make buff banner give full crits.

Goomba stomp​

I don't get why this exists at all... People shouldn't be bouncing off of hale's head. Hale should not need to be cautious in the slightest when jumping at enemies on high ground. Crevice is actually ruined by the existence of goomba.
It's also extremely punishing for less experienced hales, especially the one's that don't super jump around too much. Without goomba there's more value in picking mantreads for the stomp damage.

Sniper​

He has it all, damage, range, knockback and wall climb. Apparently there was some adjustment to the knockback but I haven't really felt too much of a difference.
A single sniper shot still absolutely kills hale's momentum in the air. Perhaps we should go back to having to hit our headshots...
Wall climb is limited in theory by the self damage and the healing block but in reality snipers is able to travel quite a distance by wall climbing as many maps feature large walls that are easily climbable.
HHH has a limit to how many times he can wall climb until having to touch the ground, maybe implement a limit like this to sniper. Mobility should be sniper's weak suit.

Engineer​

Metal regen makes setting up brain dead easy. With it there's barely any downside to running an amp.
I dislike amplifier for variety of reasons; paired with multiple heavies it causes an insane amount of knockback and damage, it has wonky interactions with projectiles and it has enough health to tank a hit from hale without needing to be upgraded.

---

These are my opinions of course, formed by years of playing vsh. I'm not really expecting to see most of these happen, and I know some of my opinions might be very unpopular.
It may seem that all I want is to nerf and remove things, but consider that any and all weapon buffs would fall under points 2 and 3, I think potential buffs to dozens of weapons is a net positive overall.


I will discuss some of these points in more depth when I'll post some actual suggestion threads at some point in the near future. I definitely wanna do a deeper dive to each class, not just the ones singled out here.
Feel free to ask for more detail, provide feedback or share your own opinion on these topics or anything else vsh related. If this post inspired you to make your own suggestions, go for it!

Tagging my vsh consultants
@Heather @Skorpieo @Brick @meks

And the ever vigilant
@Aerial

Hi,

Thanks for making this thread.

My take on your points:

Soldier and manthreads
I can't say anything about it, i dont play MG soldier.

Damage potential between the classes
I agree, heavy really needs amp and medic to be good and pyro is useless right now. People only play them, because soldier and other limited classes are full.

Lacking weapon choices
I agree.

Taunt crits
I disagree, thats the only way to play non-meta classes. Like heavy can still play OK around normal dispenser with taunt crits, pyro flamethrower can do some dmg with taunt crits or Demo stickies traps.
That is still risk and reward mechanic, you can still catch by surprise players, because they decides to taunt for crits.
I understand, it also works in other direction: OP can be more OP, but i mean removing it will put less-played classes even further down.
Maybe changing the mechanic to like taunt for 2-5 sec for mini crits, 5+ sec for normal crits.
Also I have found that crits knockback are more devastating for hale that damage from it.

Goomba stomp
I am ok with courrent state, damage is low right now so its not worth to play goomba scout, but you still got something if you really want to risk.
Crevice problem is more map design flaw (very few rotation routes from bottom without cover) rather of goomba that exploit it.
For me goomba mostly helps while playing as hale, it helps break heavy amp nest (instead of hitting 2-3 times heavy in heat zone, just stomp on him), jumping higher than sniper climbing the walls, and jumping on them.
It was nerfed enough in my opinion.

Sniper
I agree, he hurts by his damage and with sydneysleeper jarate effect, he push with knockback while approach him on top of the tree, he annoys when climbing the wall.
Only small/closed maps can slow him down, but most popular maps are very sniper friendly, he really needs a nerf.

Engineer
I agree, i remember playing server without it. It will slow down building nests, It helps teammates because engis are forced to build dispensers to gets metal, It makes you think more about available metal on map and encourages engis to help each other (like instead of building your sentry lvl 1, help your colleague gets lvl 2 faster). I will be happy for metal regen to get removed.

I hope more players will join this discussion, for me playing hale right now is only possible with low players numbers or when pros are not around. The fact that the best players stopped playing hale, is something to talk about to fix.

Cheers.

 

[meks2]

Mantreads​

I've always liked them, been a distinguished feature for years on the server and flying across the entire map is just fun.
However it does get really annoying, when e.g. last 3 men standing are Mantreads + MG Soldiers.
Maybe reducing flying height and stomp damage might be an acceptable fix.
The damage you take while jumping with them is balanced enough I'd say.

Classes​

Scout:
In general I'd say I'm fine with the class except the Force-A-Nature.
Reduce the knockback or just completely remove it, takes no skill. Shoutout to Shalev.

Goombas are ok in my opinion, compared to the 3.5k damage back in the day 1k is fine.
I also play Winger Scout.

Scatter + Cleaver is a great combo, too.

Soldier:

Direct shots on hale stuns/interrupt hale(critted or not), The stun effect isn't just on direct hit(the weapon), It's on all rocket launchers, They all Stun hale, It's Really frustrating getting stunned in the middle of the crowd, It maybe hard to land a shot on hale mid air, but its way easy to do it while hale is just casually walking, anyone can do that, Some says "Well its the reward you get for landing a direct shot on hale", This is true but wrong at the same time, I would say the stun should be ONLY on Direct hit(The weapon) Not all rocket launchers, Like why would anyone use direct hit at that point, Stock can stun, Liberty The reduced damage Launcher can stun, Hell even black box can stun, This shouldn't continue any further.

Yes.

Maybe mini-crits instead of crits when taunting?

unlike the Gunboats where 1 missclick, 1 failed jump 1 missed ammo/hp Pack means death for the Soldier.

Yes, I agree. Can't complain about Soldiers like that.

could even make buff banner give full crits.

Yes.

Pyro:

Super ass now.
Airblast just builds rage with no useful purpose.
Can't time to escape the rage since our beloved Flare Gun is fucked.
And powerjack won't save you after all those fail.

Like enabling the crits on secondary while equipping the phlog

Yes.

Demo:

Other than reducing Loose Cannons knockback, I'm fine with demo.

Heavy:

Only strat is taunt crit, camp next to AMP or wait for uber.
Buff base damage like Abject said would be a reasonable suggestion.

Engi:

Metal regen makes setting up brain dead easy. With it there's barely any downside to running an amp.
I dislike amplifier for variety of reasons; paired with multiple heavies it causes an insane amount of knockback and damage, it has wonky interactions with projectiles and it has enough health to tank a hit from hale without needing to be upgraded.

Yes, yes, yes.

Sentry knockback been fucked for ages, if some little sniper shots, some direct rockets, crit revolver shots hit you, it's nearly impossible to jump - or get near - onto the nest.
Raging is an option, of course. But not at all times.
Very frustrating and no fun.


Medic:

I'd say balanced enough.
If you're using needle gun something ain't right.
And if Medics uber chain, it is what it is.
I would dislike the revive feature being added if that's gonna come up somewhere.

Sniper:

He has it all, damage, range, knockback and wall climb. Apparently there was some adjustment to the knockback but I haven't really felt too much of a difference.
A single sniper shot still absolutely kills hale's momentum in the air. Perhaps we should go back to having to hit our headshots...
Wall climb is limited in theory by the self damage and the healing block but in reality snipers is able to travel quite a distance by wall climbing as many maps feature large walls that are easily climbable.
HHH has a limit to how many times he can wall climb until having to touch the ground, maybe implement a limit like this to sniper. Mobility should be sniper's weak suit.

Yes, yes, yes.
Maybe set Huntsman to mini-crits.
Oh and fix Razorback

Spy:

Nerf the shit out of taunt crit + primary.
Bring back @Aerial suggestion -> goomba = one hit while cloaked.
Ban L'Etranger.
Backstabs are fine, respect to the real Spies.

Taunt crits​

Make them mini-crits.


That's it from my side.

 

[Heather]

Classes​

Scout:
In general I'd say I'm fine with the class except the Force-A-Nature.
Reduce the knockback or just completely remove it, takes no skill. Shoutout to Shalev.

Iirc FaN ignores the base gamemode's knockback reductions for each hale, along with sentries. I might be mistaken since its been a while, nor do I know how easy that might be to change

 

[Brick]

Hey @Abject nice thread!

I love VSH. this gamemode has been without underselling it, a huge part of my life and it means a lot to me, That being said its not perfect. I've dealt with the same issues for so long i kinda became numb to them, and besides the occasional complaint i really stopped caring about the balance in general because i felt it was never going to change anyways. Then for a while i quit tf2 and now ive come back and theres all kinds of new map tweaks, balance changes and new people like @Aerial who are keeping the server alive and changing it for the better, which gives me hope. That being said i have a lot of opinions on VSH in general, some of which are probably more popular than others, so enjoy reading my organised rant on things ive been coping with for the past 7,5 years.

First of all i'll comment on the things i personally have the most experience with on vsh, which is Hale and Spy.


Saxton Hale

As one of the few Saxton Hale players left (we are a dying people), i feel uniquely qualified to say that Hale feels incredibly weak, the whole appeal to being saxton hale for new players is taht he's this huge bulking heap of muscle that can easily take on everyone at once and win with easy, at least that was the concept. In practicality as Hale, when you do win you feel lucky. i personally maybe win 1 in 5 times depending on the map. on some maps (militaryzone) i dont win at all, due to me being juggled in the air by Sentries, Snipers, and Amp heavies. once you do finally hit the ground you get swarmed by mantread soldiers who you can only really kill if they fuck up and land right next to you, missing their market garden entirely, and spies who deal an admittedly ridiculous amount of damage for a single backstab. These kinds of problems have always been kinda endemic with playing hale on panda
community VSH. this type of gameplay loop is really frustrating and it is not suprising that most regulars have /nohale enabled, which is really sad cuz it should be the best part of the gamemode.

-Crits
a proposed fix to this is to take a good look at crits and how they function in the gamemode, crits deal increased knockback, and on some weapons (e.g. Sniper, Revolver, Mini guns) it can kill your momentum entirely. whether that means removing the amplifier and taunt crits and replacing them with increased per shot damage on affected weapons, or giving an all around increased knockback resistance on Hale himself.

-Health
I also feel like the Hale health scaling with players is outdated, since in a game's lifetime people get gradually better and better at playing the game. I feel hale feels a lot weaker than before cuz players have simply gotten better, so maybe hale just needs more health per player to compensate for this. Its not rare that Hales, no matter the skill level lose more than half their health in the earlygame which makes the rest of the game a cat and mouse chase where you are the mouse when you should be the cat. I feel that this could maybe remedy a part of the struggle that is playing hale nowadays.

-Rage
Raging as hale is a stupid ability, its nessecary to win these days, but getting killed because the hale chose to rage always feels terrible, it also puts certain classes, like spy and demoknight at a unique disadvantage because they always need to be in proximity (rage range) from hale. I ofcourse rage all the time, im not nearly good enough to not, but i feel bad about it everytime, except for soloraging @Heather , a man's gotta do what he's gotta do.
a fix for this would be to gaev hale abilities more akin to the vanilla versus saxton hale released this summer. for a more varied and fair all around moveset, it would also heighten the hale skill ceiling and would undoubtably make it fun again to learn all the new tech you could do instead of pressing E a bunch of times whenever you feel overwhelmed. I dont know how realistic this fix would be because i am not good at computer things, but it would be worth looking into.


Spy

Spy is a controversial class in vsh, and i have a lot of conflicting feelings about my baby boy, he's been go to for as long as i can remember (literally). Just like in regular play, spy in VSH can feel very frustrating to play, you finally have the perfect opportunity and your knife is already half in the Hale's back, and then you get raged and die without having done any damage. On the flipside, spy can feel unfair when your running after a new player giving them backshots for everything theyre worth while they are helpless to stop you. But i do feel one thing above all else, spy needs a nerf to his backstab damage and invis watch needs a nerf, because running after an invisible little loser who pops up at the other end of the map peppering you with his little revolver is above all annoying as hell.

-Backstabs and the risk that comes with being in proximity to the hale all game
Backstabs are a tricky subject for me, the damage for a single backstab is massive, but the risk for going for one is also nothing to scoff at. the big thing that makes dead ringer spy one of the riskiest classes to play is that you have to deactivate ringer to go for the stab (duh). this leaves you, a little man with 70 health, slightly above average movespeed and a little butt poker as the most easily killable class in the game like i mentioned one rage is all it takes to kill a spy, unless he has his ringer up. this risk makes spy wildly inconsistent, from easily dealing 5k plus damage one round to dying without damage another. he needs a nerf to his backstab damage but a nerf too sizeable might result in his risk/reward factor skewing too far and making him not only wildly inconsistent but weak to the point of it not even being worth it to go for backstabs in the first place.

-Invis watch
Invis watch spies are one of the most annoying loadouts to play against in vsh. they don't do awhole lot of damage, relying mostly on revolver, but as previously mentioned, revolver crits can kill your entire mid-air momentum making it hard to get other players in the process. this needs to be changed. features in games that drastically affect someones enjoyment like this need to be changed, like they did for pyro, airblast didnt do much except annoy and thats why it desperately needed a rework.

-More niches
Spy is one of the most set in stone playstyles in VSH at the moment, the gameplay variety is basically non existant. revolver spy, annoying as it is is not a viable alternative to going for backstabs. out of the knives there is no reason to not use the regular butterfly knife or eternal reward over kunai, the butterfly knife has no special abilities and the YER's silent decloak sounds cool but is not anything to write home about gameplay wise. the invis watch just exists to prolong games and theres no reason to use the enforcer. Like Abject said in his post more gameplay variety class weapon wise would be really cool. we could make a thread about new weapon ideas in general if anyone wouyld be interested in contributing in that.


This is part 1 of however many parts i wanna make this post, because this took a bit to make and i'm pretty busy nowadays, feel free to reply to anything you might disagree with.

 

[Aerial]

Medic:​

I'd say balanced enough.
If you're using needle gun something ain't right.
And if Medics uber chain, it is what it is.
I would dislike the revive feature being added if that's gonna come up somewhere.

Well I play medic alot, So Ik alot ;>
anyways
I think There is a one particular problem with medic, When Medic Heals Some classes Like pyro, Pyro's burn damage(after pyro lights hale and just run away)

IF medic was healing pyro, That normal burn damage becomes Mini-crit damage
But It doesn't do anything because yea pyro sucks anyway

BUT, That's not the case with engineer


Yes.
If medic pocketed engie, Sentry's bullets turn from normal Bullets to mini-crit bullets

And this is Total bs
Whose idea is this..

 

[Jiji]

Even though I don't administrate VSH anymore or play it regularly anymore I'd still like to comment on some of the suggested changes here.

Mantreads​

The extra rocket jump force provided by these is absurd and should be completely removed in my opinion. Basically gives soldier access to super jump with no cooldown.
Extra damage taken from blast jumps,when compared to gunboats, barely matters as most soldiers are running liberty launcher and most maps seem to be updated to have more health pickups than before.
Most rounds that get to the endgame are dominated by mantreads soldiers, hale struggling to catch them.
They make catching hale off guard with the mg way easier as soldier can swoop in from across the map, out of vision and hearing range.
Mantreads already has reduced fall damage, 1k stomp damage and increased air control, why does it need anything more?

Hard to not agree, playing with mantreads makes mg soldier way too easy in this mode. I guess just significantly reducing the self damage force on the mantreads would fix the issue. Was planning to suggest that but just kinda forgot.

Sniper​

He has it all, damage, range, knockback and wall climb. Apparently there was some adjustment to the knockback but I haven't really felt too much of a difference.
A single sniper shot still absolutely kills hale's momentum in the air. Perhaps we should go back to having to hit our headshots...
Wall climb is limited in theory by the self damage and the healing block but in reality snipers is able to travel quite a distance by wall climbing as many maps feature large walls that are easily climbable.
HHH has a limit to how many times he can wall climb until having to touch the ground, maybe implement a limit like this to sniper. Mobility should be sniper's weak suit.

I believe the knockback modifier on sniper rifles doesn't work due to a missing plugin, it's supposed to be 80% reduction iirc. The insanely high damage plays a role here too and is partly responsible for the high knockback. I think it should be like on FF2 where the bodyshot damage is reduced but headshot damage is still high.

I agree about the wallclimbing, it's just completely broken. Increasing cooldown after touching the ground OR adding cooldown between climbs could work (or maybe both).

sm_playerclimb_cooldown [#.#] - (Default: 0.0) Time in seconds before the player may climb the wall again, this cooldown starts when the player touches the ground after climbing.
sm_playerclimb_nextclimb [#.#] - (Default: 1.56) Time in seconds in between melee climbs.

There's also this:

sm_playerclimb_maxclimbs [#] - (Default: 0) The maximum amount of times the player can melee the wall (climb) while being in the air before they have to touch the ground again. 0 = Disabled, 1 = 1 Climb... 23 = 23 Climbs.

Engineer​

Metal regen makes setting up brain dead easy. With it there's barely any downside to running an amp.
I dislike amplifier for variety of reasons; paired with multiple heavies it causes an insane amount of knockback and damage, it has wonky interactions with projectiles and it has enough health to tank a hit from hale without needing to be upgraded.

I'm not sure if removing metal regen would be the best thing since we still have some maps with barely any ammo packs, or just small ammo packs. Perhaps the cooldown could be increased? Or changing the amount of metal players get.

sm_rmetal_rate "5.0" - Time in seconds to wait between each tick.
sm_rmetal_size "5" - How much metal to add or subtract from players each tick.

Yeah the amplifier is another big problem... But I'm not sure what could be done to it, perhaps changing it to full mini-crits instead of normal crits? Not sure if people would like if it was just completely removed.

amplifier_condition (def.33) - Condition that The amplifier dispenses (11=full crits, 16=mini crits, etc...).

 

[Aerial]

Yeah the amplifier is another big problem... But I'm not sure what could be done to it, perhaps changing it to full mini-crits instead of normal crits? Not sure if people would like if it was just completely removed.

Yes! If changing Amp to Mini-crits is possible then thats great.

Also reduce the amp hp to 200 aswell
So it takes a while to build, and one hit to destroy.

 

[TWC]

One thing i would like to be brought back is the delay on rage on hale i personally hate the change since it forces the hale to solo rage and it is unfun to do and to play against.

 

[Heather]

I'm not sure if removing metal regen would be the best thing since we still have some maps with barely any ammo packs, or just small ammo packs. Perhaps the cooldown could be increased? Or changing the amount of metal players get.

I don't see this being that drastic of a change, before metal regen, engineer was still very dangerous but actually allowed Hale time to play around it. Dispenser had its worth rather than being neglected.

If Metal regen was to stay, it'd have to be slow or incredibly low metal count per second to make a significant difference

 

[Aerial]

One thing i would like to be brought back is the delay on rage on hale i personally hate the change since it forces the hale to solo rage and it is unfun to do and to play against.

I'm pretty Neutral To this, I Never had an issue With

before delay change(screams then takes like 0.5 sec to actually rage after pressing E)
or After delay change(screams then it was changed to 0.1 sec to rage after pressing E)


However, I think This will ruin the Megaheal in a way

@Pixie right?

 

[Jiji]

I'm pretty Neutral To this, I Never had an issue With
before delay change(screams then takes like 0.5 sec to actually rage after pressing E)
or After delay change(screams then it was changed to 0.1 sec to rage after pressing E)


However, I think This will ruin the Megaheal in a way

@Pixie right?

Honestly the rage delay was never a good thing and I don't know why it was ever there. Yes it would make the megaheal useless if there's a competent pyro, sniper or any other high-knockback class on the other team (90% of the time).

 

[TWC]

Honestly the rage delay was never a good thing and I don't know why it was ever there. Yes it would make the megaheal useless if there's a competent pyro, sniper or any other high-knockback class on the other team (90% of the time).

I just feel like before there was some skill around using rage now there isnt, as an example before you were able to see when the hale was going to rage and if you react fast enough you could dead ringer etc, and the hale had to rage in the air then stomp/falldown and it catches people off guard which was fun to do

 

[Abject]

Taunt crits
I disagree, thats the only way to play non-meta classes. Like heavy can still play OK around normal dispenser with taunt crits, pyro flamethrower can do some dmg with taunt crits or Demo stickies traps.
That is still risk and reward mechanic, you can still catch by surprise players, because they decides to taunt for crits.
I understand, it also works in other direction: OP can be more OP, but i mean removing it will put less-played classes even further down.
Maybe changing the mechanic to like taunt for 2-5 sec for mini crits, 5+ sec for normal crits.
Also I have found that crits knockback are more devastating for hale that damage from it.

My current stance on taunt crits is admidedly somewhat recent, and I don't necessarily see them as being OP or anything. Here's some thoughts:

Medic and sniper gain practically nothing from taunt crits, engineer's shotguns aren't amazing with them and he already has perma crits on pistol and rr. I also really like how frontier justice functions in vsh, these kind of conditional crits are what I would much rather see.

Pyro's crit damage isn't anything to write home about when you consider how close to hale you have to be to actually deal damage and airblasting is kinda counter productive to this, now that flare jumping has been nerferd you even have to be taunting fairly close to hale to get the most out of them. They are pretty good on df I suppose, and the way phlog currently works kinda requires them.

Spy's revolver crits are able to fuck up hale's super jumps as they deal respectable knockback and are perfectly accurate when timed right.
Scout gets some decent mileage out of crits as he can approach hale pretty safely and shortstop is actually massively slept on. FaN crits are pretty wild too.

Soldier is probably the best user of taunt crits, as crockets deal good damage and massive knockback.
Stickytraps don't seem to be too popular these days but they remain the highest source of burst damage, aside from telefrags, and the knockback obviously sends hale flying to the ceiling of the map.

Heavy gets a really short taunt crit duration which is shortened further by the spin up time.

The point I was really getting at, is that I wish to reduce some of the easy knockback and make classes less reliant on taunt crits (the ultimate goal being not needing them in the first place).

I think it'd be much more fun to just be able to deal respectable damage as a heavy without needing to stop to taunt and then getting couple of seconds of burst damage and knockback.
Feels kinda the opposite of what heavy is supposed to be about, the constant damage output. I have some ideas for spicing up heavy gameplay otherwise too.

Scout almost feels complete without taunt crits, maybe up the damage ramp up to really incentivize getting in those meatshots. Rewards aggressive gameplay and good aim, no need to stop for a dance and interrupt the flow of gameplay.
Crit a cola would remain an option, right now it barely gives you more crit time than taunts and has a considerable cooldown.

Stickies would obviously need something to compensate for the lack of taunt crits, base damage could be upped but then again demo relies on the knockback to stay safe too. Should taunt crits stay I would probably consider lowering the amount of active stickies... OR if there was no crits and less stickies you could even have stickies turn critical after a short while on the ground.

Overall I would agree that it's the knockback from crits that's the main problem. Damage not so much, and I'd like to up the damage output of most characters.

 

[KronKrian]

Tbh there's been endless talking about Sniper nerf and barely any action. Some worthless class limit of 4 which sure, it handles the groups of people going 8+ snipers at once and shaving 4k off of the Hale's health right off, but that still doesn't address the actual problem with sniper which is his insane damage, infinite range and extreme mobility outside of elimiting an extreme situation.

I am not convinced that anything short of neutering sniper in one of the aforementioned 3 categories is gonna solve anything

 

[uno]

I think adding an individual cooldown or a one-per-person cap to the goomba stomp per round would be good because I'll admit, getting a goomba on the red team is quite satisfying and I would miss it if it were completely removed. However, it is extremely frustrating when a skilled soldier or scout can goomba you relentlessly; or you have to completely steer clear of certain areas of maps like the jump pads on crevice just to avoid goomba stomps.
For most average players, I would say Hale is usually at a disadvantage compared to the red team and therefore goomba stomps aren't that overpowered for him to use. This is also because he one shots a lot of classes already with his melee anyway.

I completely agree sniper needs a nerf though. His damage is slightly frustrating but my main issue with him is his knockback/power to halt your momentum completely. Without that they would be much easier to pick off for hale, even with their melee jumps on walls. This would fix his damage problem as you could easily locate the sniper and super jump to pick him off without being knocked back on your way.

I personally love mantreads as its fun to fly around the map but I understand they are quite overpowered and a crutch. Maybe a reduction to goomba and/or melee (aka market garden) damage whilst having them equipped would be good. This doesn't really fix the problem of having to spectate the last player in the round for what feels like forever when its a mantreads soldier on a map with lots of healthpacks like military area though, in fact it would make it worse, so I'm not too sure on that front.

Taunts don't feel necessary to me either so a general increase in damage to weapons would be cool but that would be hard to balance without upsetting pretty much everyone in the community for whatever reason so again, I'm not too sure how to implement that.

Thanks for the post Abject its cool to see people more active with this server again.

 

[Jiji]

All this talk about balance changes is great, but who's gonna make these changes? I think Uber doesn't want to develop for VSH anymore and it seems like Kevin went into hibernation again so no chance for changes anytime soon if ever (no offense Kevin if you're reading this, that's just sadly the truth).