It would be really difficult to design new buildings,it would mess with the core balance of the engineer and the game as a whole, though it mostly depends on a lot of things
3:27 Actually it's very common for a Scout to switch to Engineer when defending a Last Point and recenetly there's been a developed Sap and Sack strategy for dealing with sentries on last holds where a Scout switches to Spy, saps the sentry, and while it's down the Soldier is able to bomb in without being denied by a Sentry. All because Spy has a Sapper, the matchups of a last hold fight are shaken up. This is in competitive 6's, in Highlander you're required to run one of each class so, obviously they get time to shine.
All of your Competitive TF2 resentment is misplaced and misconceived. However it is totally accurate for European Competitive. Those bastards drain the fun out of everything, mostly because they'll exploit the hell out of any miniscule buff of an unlock, and get it banned because no one can play responsibly and with mind to the other teams fun. Getting a single kill in sixes is really impactful because it takes out a whole sixth of the enemy team. Preventing death than is also massively more significant than in casual tf2, and coordination is the norm, so it makes broken weapons like the Kunai pretty weak and weak weapons like the Quixk-Fix a whole wall that stops anything from happening.
Or keep their judgement on weapons without really thinking about if said judgement still wholly applies to the modern meta or even the modern game environment. I can think of the huntsman as the prime example of this but I’m sure there’s more examples around here somewhere.
While I do not find placing sappers particularly fun (especially since they have a tendency to not place at all), the things you can do with them are a lot of fun. Using a sapper to bait an engie to predictably rush to a building so you can get an easier stab is very useful and extremely powerful if you’re acting out your disguses, or the footsies of 1v2ing a sentry and an engie. Will the engie smack it repeatedly and be basically afk? Will he ignore it completely and blast you in face, or will he use the Dane method of hitting it once then switching aggro to kill you and preserve the sentry? And what if you predict his choice and can counter it? Or using it to get an engie to repair his exit for a telefrag, and how if they predict it you tp right into their crosshair? There is a lot of nuance between the 2 classes that wouldn’t exist if the sapper was different, and that’s why it is neither boring nor badly designed
didint know people find the sapper boring and i dont see it as a evil either, all they did was give a class a direct counter to engineer buildings to stop them from being a menace on demand and to balance this the sapper is melee range. spy is the best class for it since he can easily sneak to most sentry spots undetected and is the only class that can fool a sentry.
I play pyro a LOT(usually with the homewrecker) and I enjoy asking a friendly spy to sap the sentry so I can go in and “wreck house”, extinguishing the spy if needed. I also play a lot of engie, and I have no issue with the sapper existing. I see it as an extremely fair and balanced way to keep sentries in check. When fighting a spy, I have to choose to either save the sentry and potentially let the spy escape, or kill the spy at the cost of up to 530 metal.
wow so there’s literally nothing wrong with the design of sappers at all, you’re probably the first person to ever complain about how they were implemented, and their removal would make the game much worse? what was the point of this video. nothing is wrong with sappers
@@Lonqudor no? this sounds like you coping. I play spy a lot and sappers are pretty interesting to just use. Like using a sapper to get a engi to walk a preditible path to his gun for a easy backstab, or using sappers to counter turtlers, or just a simple team push while the sentrys sapped. Cant forget to mention how you seem to just completely gloss over the fact that those moments when a spy is sapping your building and you engage in a 1v1 with em, its incredibly fun and challenging and yet you play it of as boring. And sappers arent even close to evil, its been shown a lot of times sappers arent that effective, and those 1v1s cant really be done if theirs more engies around which is what your teams for. The real issue with sappers is that its the only support option spy has thats why its boring, not because the sapper itself is boring.
I think they should make zappers that either play with how they disable a building or do something entirely different in case there's no engi or the spy doesn't care to deal with him. Maybe have have him place a bomb that deals no damage until it explodes the building, or a dart gun that places a marker on one enemy without breaking disguise. Something to shake up the "damage building" and "level down building" stuff we've had for a decade now.
I think more sapper sidegrades could be cool. Like perhaps a sapper than doesn't damage but just disables a building for an extended time and plays an audio cue for your team. To prevent spammability give it a cooldown.
I’m simply trying to have a discussion over an aspect of the game that could be better. It’s not up to me whether you want to have the maturity to engage in the discussion though
No? Like, I'm not saying you're wrong in your own experiences, but in my experience the Sapper is fun on both ends. It's not some complex weapon or anything, but... It never needed to be. That's not the point. Some things kinda should be simple as hell. It's kinda like saying the stock shotgun is boring to play with/against. Like, sure, it's not complex in its design, and how you end up fighting with it (just shooting someone with hitscan) or fighting against it (trying to dodge hitscan) is dead simple, but that's just fine. To me, the Sapper is a highly interesting tool to use, not due to its design, but due to the context it lies within. The circumstances you're currently in, and how you approach the situation with it, I mean. To me, using a sapper is just as complex as backstabbing someone, and that's a good thing. Frankly, the only real issue is Spy never got too many alternatives to it... mostly. But we don't talk about that one...
@@Lonqudor Making a vid that incites discussion and dismissing a person who is willing to hold said discussion isn’t the best look and also makes this entire video redundant, since it only exists as a discussion piece
This video does indirectly shed light on my long-held opinion that Spy deserves more secondary slot 'tools' that aren't just purely Sappers, or at least Sappers that disable Engineer's buildings. Imagine Spy with more general sabotage-minded things like: - A smoke bomb; Temporarily obscures enemy vision even after they leave the cloud and reveals cloaked Spies; has a cooldown. - An EMP bomb; Disables buildings for a fixed, short amount of time and slows enemy movement; can maybe disrupt Uber activation from a distance if Spy can't get in to drop the Medic; has a cooldown. - A poison bomb; Hard area denial with DoT weaker than afterburn but lingering; can potentially flush out nests and other tightly-packed areas and chokepoints; has a cooldown. - An actual bomb [like the unused beta dynamite bundle]; Placed on buildings without disabling them but makes them explode Sentry Buster-style if not dealt with; takes slightly shorter than normal Sapper to do its job. Not trying to get into an argument about whether or not all of these in execution would be created equal or whether or not they're completely balanced alternatives coexisting with the Sapper, but more just that Spy deserves to have more options for "causing problems on purpose" instead of just Weapon Slot That Doesn't Do Anything If There Are No Engineers and also without making him into a diet power class.
Found the Engy main. Sappera are not boring. Being able to take down Sentries without being targetted is kind of essential for the balance of the game and potentially a turning point to win a chokepoint.
Opinion on the sapper before watching past 10 seconds in the video: Without the sapper, Engi and Spy's relationship with each other would be far less interesting. Spy basically can't act within a sentry's range (often in the backline, where Spy wants to be) if he has no way to deal with it himself. Engi would shut him down entirely. The sapper puts them on even ground. That said, I don't like how an entire slot is dedicated to it. Spy could have and should have gotten something more universal for his secondary slot that opened up more unique playstyles for him, while the sapper should have been treated like an innate mechanic rather than a dedicated weapon slot. The Red Tape Recorder is also dumb and stupid and the sapper shouldn't be getting sidegrades at all.
Sappers technically count as buildings. I think it would be cool if maybe classes got access to their own unique buildings through unlocks, or Spy got to put out more gadgets that other Spies can sap. Or what if you could Sap Sappers for some interesting Spy v Spy gameplay? There's stuff you can do to make Sappers more interesting, but it more so revolves around changing the environment of the Sapper than the Sapper itself.
@@DaQuestioningCrustacean No no no, I don't mean full on building PDA's in the hands of the other classes, I just mean unlocks that replace probably the secondary slot and allow the class to place a building unique to them. Engineer gets to place down 4 buildings, I think an unlock that allows a class like Demo to place down a unique building wouldn't be stepping on any more toes than Valve already has before with certain unlocks. But imagine for a moment specifically Spy, if Spy had an unlock that allowed to place down four cameras he was able to set up and look through with a tablet, or was able to set up laser trip wires that when set off highlight whoever set it off through walls, as alternatives to the Sapper. Engineer gets to have 4 proper and powerful Buildings that define him as a class, but there's potential in buildings outside of the Engineer's arsenal. Specifically with Spy, as he already has a "building", or more accurately an Anti-Building in his repertoire that can be replaced and/or built off of.
I've been playing since 2015. Just because my channel is young, does not mean I am and, it does not mean I am inexperienced. Also, the entire point of the video is that I don't want Sappers removed, but ok.
I heavily disagree with the notion that sappers being spammable is a flaw. Cooldowns should be an absolute last resort in game design, because they are an incredibly boring and overly simplistic solution that almost never leads to any interesting gameplay. Being able to quickly sap multiple buildings is pretty much the only way spy would ever be able to take down multiple engineers working together, and giving the sapper a cooldown would make disabling even 2 sentries basically impossible if there is even a single enemy near.
My only problem with sappers is when a spy saps your teleporter entrance and continues to spam sappers while you try to remove them. You can't outheal the sapper damage if they're being spammed, and spy has unlimited sappers while engineer has limited metal. You can pray that a teammate respawns and kills the spy or goes back to help you out, but in that encounter there is no counter play. You lose. When you go back to spawn to rebuild your teleporter, the spy saps the rest of your nest. It's a lose-lose for engineer, and one that could be easily solved by giving spy limited sappers (3 is my vote, so spy can sap an engie nest if its unguarded or the engie is killed) or give them a few seconds cool down so the teleporter can be repaired, requiring the spy to actually do something instead of spam M1.
I wish they could make a new building schematic thing for engineer that gives him launch pad type things instead of teleporters. Engineer isn't exactly great when it comes to movement, so I think giving him a launchpad that sends him vertically - along with one that launches him at a diagonal angle - would be great for a little bit of variety, and it could lead way for some funny nest spots.
I have fun with Sappers ngl. I like watching my points go up :) They’re quite useful at disrupting engineer’s productivity and makes spy a stronger support class.
It would be cool if spy had a “jammer” instead of a sapper, this could be an ability in cool-down which allows you to disable weapons on every class and also disable buildings.
Maybe the real issue is lack of variety when it comes to buildings and sappers, NOW granted Team Fortress 2 Classic is experimenting with new sappers and buildings, I will say the jump pads would be overpowered as hell letting classes such as soldiers and heavies free blast jumps without taking damage to get to higher ground. Spy has a few new sappers such as one that allows reconnaissance so teammates can see the enemy around corners, etc. #Diversity for Sappers/Buildings.
"there are no alternatives" does the enforcer count? It's pretty solid of shooting the gun from a safe distance. Do soldiers and demos and the tools they have don't count as an alternative?
Enforcer does definitely belong in this category, being the single best item in the game for dealing with the wrangler, and if they fixed the bug where it’s still effected by the “sapped buildings take 20% less dmg” effect the weapon would have a strong reason to exist and would be equipped quite a bit
@@gekohno I mean Enforcer is one of these weapons that ain't bad but get overshadowed by other options and thus peoples say they are bad. Enforcer is really nice and solid gun, It don't care about any kind of resistance (except saper one, yet you still deal more damage on first shot and i heard something about battalions backup) and allows you to deal with snipers the way Amby can. it's only down side is slower firing speed (which is a bit of buff cause it make it more accurate) and no random crits that most of the times are unreliable. In similar case I would say is pistol for engineer. It's solid damage dealer, but is slept on most of the time because wrangler exists. Amount of time I cached enemy of guard and pepper down with pistol is astonishing
One thing I think should have been mentioned is that Sappers are important on Spy because Sentries otherwise would make Spy unplayable. Sentries are usually in the backline, have auto aim, and basically delete you. So basically, as soon as you get a backstab without the YER or Kunai, you instantly die. At least normally, you have a chance to escape after a backstab or can chainstab too. With Sentries, nope.
You’ve covered the possibility of buffing everyone else in place of the sapper, you’ve covered the possibility of just removing the sapper… but what if you just replaced the sapper with another option for spy? What might that look like?
Yeah nah the sapper has always been interesting me in that sense that I also see it as pretty necessary despite the fact its a definitive one-class counter which is generally a bad design in my opinion. The reason I see it as necessary is more-so because if spy, a class that sticks to the enemies backlines, without an effective way to handle sentries, does severely limit the plays he can make without probably dying. In casual I agree its very important for penetrating nests on defensive holds but on the other hand nerfs to the wrangler and short circuit would have probably a roughly similar impact as the sapper in terms of making it easier for a team to break a nest. In terms of calling the sapper "boring", I get where you're coming from but I think it's execution is actually pretty decent. When a spy saps a sentry an exchange is essentially made between the engineer and spy, the spy having an advantage by placing immediate pressure on the engineer but also alerting them to where they are or who they are disguised as. While this interaction is only existent between these two classes I think it's pretty cool honestly, the sapper does counter engineer in the sense that it only affects them, but it functions as a sort of gambit made by the spy (assuming he hasnt already stabbed the engie in which case bad luck lmao). In terms of fixing the sapper's boringness, since we've already discounted removing it, additional functionalities to the item would be a good improvement for the slot I think, as to what alternative functions the sappers could have I'm not sure, but it solves what I see as the main issue with the sapper.
honestly i dont even like the spy i play more demo and pyro but.. nah the sappers are ok considering that pybros and the homewrecker exist the only thing that maaaaaaaybe i can agree is that the sapper having no cooldown sometimes can be a pain on the backery but for most of the time due to the team's inexperience in trying to kill the spy or protect the sentry nest. also if the engie is using the jag or the eureka effect even if you manage sap and destroy the sentry he can just build another one more faster especially if theres more than one engie, or if he is using the frontier most of the time they end up kill the the spy the most use i get for the sapper is when the engie use the wrangler when my team is trying to push since that fraction of a second in which the sentry is disabled can really help the team a lot. but also any good spy will try to at least kill the engineer first since, although it takes time to rebuild a sentry, it is faster than the time it takes for the engineer to respawn, return to where the nest was, and that is if he does not die again on the way. that's why sometimes it's better to try to sap and stab the engineer than just spam the sapper ¨oh no you sap and destroy my stuff what i gonna do now?, build another one¨ besides spy is a SOFT counter for the engineer, the HARD counters are the demoman and Soldier(sometimes the sniper if the building is on a spot easy to sniper) if the engie decide to counter both classes by using the short circuit guess what item helps a lot the both for taking down the sentry the sappers
I like your editing style and I appreciate the effort that you put into the video but your arguments against the sapper's design are pretty much all subjective takes that aren't even explained well at all. Even in the comments you're just being dismissive and condescending towards any comments critical towards the video. First off sappers being a "boring and one sided fight for the sentry" isn't even remotely an argument. The engagement comes from the spy correctly putting himself in the position to get the successful sap, not the action of placing the sapper itself. You're confusing your own subjective opinions as objective facts here. As for your three main arguments for sappers being boring, the last two (sapper only countering buildings and sappers being a half assed solution) just fundamentally misunderstand the design of the sapper. The sapper doesn't exist as a solution to keep engie's balance in check (demo and uber are really what keeps him in line), it exists because it gives spy more utility and it just works on a character that is meant to screw with the enemy team in the backlines. As for it being spammable, this is the best argument out of the three but it still isn't good. Your demonstration of the sapper technique proposes that a spy managing to successfully take down a sentry at close range while it's being protected by a character with a shotgun is a problem, but again this is a subjective opinion. Most people find successful saps in a 1v1 fine but it's fine that you dislike these engagements but stop trying to paint your opinions as objective issues.
Apparently a few people think the sapper is a poorly designed item for the reasons you named at the start of the video, and I can understand that, but I don’t agree. To me, it’s always made total sense for the spy class, a character built on espionage and disrupting enemy fortresses, to carry an item designed for malfunctioning turrets. If a spy can get close to an engineer, he deserves an item capable of stunning his buildings. It’s his job to get in there and mess things up. Engineer is a stationary class and spy is a class that punishes sedentary defense, it’s a very fair direct counter tool.
its less of a direct counter to the engineer and more of allowing spy to have a reasonable and fair way to deal with engis if he manages to find an opening or mistake to exploit. a counter would have significantly less counterplay or prevention
All Imma say is Sappers should NOT be spammable. Either have them take a few seconds to attach onto a building, or give them a cooldown. Can't tell you how frustrating it is when three engineers on one end of a teleporter can't beat one spy/sapper spamming the other end of the teleporter...
I'm not so sure the "games have to be fun 100% of the time" debate is as open and shut as you make out. I think it's more than fair to argue that having unfun elements in a game can be a good thing, for example one of the least fun games I've ever played in my life is Spec Ops: The Line, which is a game that is actively uncomfortable and miserable experience for large chuncks of time as a deliberate choice by the developers, and yet in context on the larger game those unfun parts ultimately make the overall work so much stronger. Now admittedly Team Fortress 2 is a very different game so its not exactly a one-to-one comparison here, but all I'm saying is that unfun elements are automatically a unambiguous negative in a game- in most cases they are don't get me wrong, but like once out of every hundred times there's an example of it being a good and purposeful thing.
If sappers are a necessary evil, but are simply too boring and simple… what if we got more sappers added? Make them fundamentally different in how they’re used?
That might be fun. I’ve just been very unimpressed with their design for a very long time, so I would like to see what other kind of Sapper could exist
An idea I had, was making separate sappers for stunning and damaging the sentry. One sapper could slowly damage it whilst it remains active, and another could disable buildings but do no damage.
@@Lonqudor You fundamentally misunderstood that the fun of the sapper comes from the context surrounding sapping a building and not the actual act of sapping itself (the 1v1s with engies protecting their nests, weaving through an enemy team to get to the nest, pushing a sentry with a teammate that couldn't take it out otherwise). You call them terribly designed, but giving a sort of sabotage mechanic to an espionage class that forces encounters and allows him to support the team beyond just getting picks is just excellent game design, and was executed beautifully. Also, you acted like the sapper was supposed to be the main counter to the sentry gun when Demo, Soldier, and Uber exists.
![[TF2] Why the Shotgun is Soldier's BEST Secondary Weapon](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/deuTMQy_nno/mqdefault.jpg)
never saw sappers as any sort of evil, especially as "necessary evil".
never saw sappers as a bad thing that cant be replaced.
I do think they should give it some other usage or maybe a side-grade for when there are no sentries. Something would be nice.
@@thunderspark1536 mvm 😃👍 (sarcastic)
@@thunderspark1536 sap the medic
In my opinion there really should be more sappers and more buildings
It would be really difficult to design new buildings,it would mess with the core balance of the engineer and the game as a whole, though it mostly depends on a lot of things
Sappers? Yes
Buildings? That sounds difficult
Personally, I'd prefer to have slightly different models for buildings built with different wrenches
@@ultracummer that would be really cool
@@VortexFnot really, just don’t make them objectively better then stock
if we removed sappers we would lose ap sap so that’s a automatic lost
Without Wheatley tf2 is unplayable
"Sentries and sappers aren't seen much in competitive"
The entirety of Highlander:
Most people assume 6s is the only format it seems like
3:27 Actually it's very common for a Scout to switch to Engineer when defending a Last Point and recenetly there's been a developed Sap and Sack strategy for dealing with sentries on last holds where a Scout switches to Spy, saps the sentry, and while it's down the Soldier is able to bomb in without being denied by a Sentry. All because Spy has a Sapper, the matchups of a last hold fight are shaken up. This is in competitive 6's, in Highlander you're required to run one of each class so, obviously they get time to shine.
All of your Competitive TF2 resentment is misplaced and misconceived. However it is totally accurate for European Competitive. Those bastards drain the fun out of everything, mostly because they'll exploit the hell out of any miniscule buff of an unlock, and get it banned because no one can play responsibly and with mind to the other teams fun. Getting a single kill in sixes is really impactful because it takes out a whole sixth of the enemy team. Preventing death than is also massively more significant than in casual tf2, and coordination is the norm, so it makes broken weapons like the Kunai pretty weak and weak weapons like the Quixk-Fix a whole wall that stops anything from happening.
1:03 idk man I was having fun
you were bullying a moron :/
I find it very fun knowing I have made an Engineer slightly more miserable
Especially with the red tape recorder
You've gotta give us engies something to do when we're not in the action
This video makes me realize that most people including me don't really judge or think about weapons a lot if they've been in the game for a while.
Been playing since 2015. Never really had a problem with Sappers until a couple years ago
Or keep their judgement on weapons without really thinking about if said judgement still wholly applies to the modern meta or even the modern game environment.
I can think of the huntsman as the prime example of this but I’m sure there’s more examples around here somewhere.
While I do not find placing sappers particularly fun (especially since they have a tendency to not place at all), the things you can do with them are a lot of fun. Using a sapper to bait an engie to predictably rush to a building so you can get an easier stab is very useful and extremely powerful if you’re acting out your disguses, or the footsies of 1v2ing a sentry and an engie. Will the engie smack it repeatedly and be basically afk? Will he ignore it completely and blast you in face, or will he use the Dane method of hitting it once then switching aggro to kill you and preserve the sentry? And what if you predict his choice and can counter it? Or using it to get an engie to repair his exit for a telefrag, and how if they predict it you tp right into their crosshair? There is a lot of nuance between the 2 classes that wouldn’t exist if the sapper was different, and that’s why it is neither boring nor badly designed
Exactly how I feel.
didint know people find the sapper boring and i dont see it as a evil either, all they did was give a class a direct counter to engineer buildings to stop them from being a menace on demand and to balance this the sapper is melee range. spy is the best class for it since he can easily sneak to most sentry spots undetected and is the only class that can fool a sentry.
They don't. This is his bad take.
I play pyro a LOT(usually with the homewrecker) and I enjoy asking a friendly spy to sap the sentry so I can go in and “wreck house”, extinguishing the spy if needed.
I also play a lot of engie, and I have no issue with the sapper existing. I see it as an extremely fair and balanced way to keep sentries in check. When fighting a spy, I have to choose to either save the sentry and potentially let the spy escape, or kill the spy at the cost of up to 530 metal.
Imagine not being able to support your team and making pushes easier
wow
so there’s literally nothing wrong with the design of sappers at all, you’re probably the first person to ever complain about how they were implemented, and their removal would make the game much worse?
what was the point of this video. nothing is wrong with sappers
They're boring to use. That is a completely valid critique of their design.
@@Lonqudor no? this sounds like you coping. I play spy a lot and sappers are pretty interesting to just use. Like using a sapper to get a engi to walk a preditible path to his gun for a easy backstab, or using sappers to counter turtlers, or just a simple team push while the sentrys sapped. Cant forget to mention how you seem to just completely gloss over the fact that those moments when a spy is sapping your building and you engage in a 1v1 with em, its incredibly fun and challenging and yet you play it of as boring.
And sappers arent even close to evil, its been shown a lot of times sappers arent that effective, and those 1v1s cant really be done if theirs more engies around which is what your teams for.
The real issue with sappers is that its the only support option spy has thats why its boring, not because the sapper itself is boring.
@@Astranomical5 stay mad spy main x+2 m1
I love the improvement in the editing style, keep it up mate. The jokes, jumpcuts and jumpscares are great!
As a TF2 Sapper fan, I'm really angry...
I think they should make zappers that either play with how they disable a building or do something entirely different in case there's no engi or the spy doesn't care to deal with him.
Maybe have have him place a bomb that deals no damage until it explodes the building, or a dart gun that places a marker on one enemy without breaking disguise. Something to shake up the "damage building" and "level down building" stuff we've had for a decade now.
I think more sapper sidegrades could be cool. Like perhaps a sapper than doesn't damage but just disables a building for an extended time and plays an audio cue for your team. To prevent spammability give it a cooldown.
tf2 players trying not to cry about every single aspect of their favourite videogame challenge:
I’m simply trying to have a discussion over an aspect of the game that could be better.
It’s not up to me whether you want to have the maturity to engage in the discussion though
@@Lonqudor "it's not up to me if you want to have the maturity to engage in discussion"💅
Crazy how people say they love this game and then afterwards finding every specific thing wrong with the game
@@Lonqudor i think you fell for some sort of bait
Is it really bait if it’s played so straight?
No? Like, I'm not saying you're wrong in your own experiences, but in my experience the Sapper is fun on both ends. It's not some complex weapon or anything, but... It never needed to be. That's not the point. Some things kinda should be simple as hell. It's kinda like saying the stock shotgun is boring to play with/against. Like, sure, it's not complex in its design, and how you end up fighting with it (just shooting someone with hitscan) or fighting against it (trying to dodge hitscan) is dead simple, but that's just fine. To me, the Sapper is a highly interesting tool to use, not due to its design, but due to the context it lies within. The circumstances you're currently in, and how you approach the situation with it, I mean. To me, using a sapper is just as complex as backstabbing someone, and that's a good thing.
Frankly, the only real issue is Spy never got too many alternatives to it... mostly. But we don't talk about that one...
Not reading all that. But I agree. Or disagree, idk
@@Lonqudor Damn, that's crazy.
I suppose it’s not up to me whether you want to have the maturity to engage in the discussion though, right? ;)
@@Lonqudor Making a vid that incites discussion and dismissing a person who is willing to hold said discussion isn’t the best look and also makes this entire video redundant, since it only exists as a discussion piece
@@Lonqudor Jesus Christ you are immature
@@Lonqudor I really thought you were better than this. Especially after snobbing someone with the maturity line in another comment on this video
This video does indirectly shed light on my long-held opinion that Spy deserves more secondary slot 'tools' that aren't just purely Sappers, or at least Sappers that disable Engineer's buildings. Imagine Spy with more general sabotage-minded things like:
- A smoke bomb; Temporarily obscures enemy vision even after they leave the cloud and reveals cloaked Spies; has a cooldown.
- An EMP bomb; Disables buildings for a fixed, short amount of time and slows enemy movement; can maybe disrupt Uber activation from a distance if Spy can't get in to drop the Medic; has a cooldown.
- A poison bomb; Hard area denial with DoT weaker than afterburn but lingering; can potentially flush out nests and other tightly-packed areas and chokepoints; has a cooldown.
- An actual bomb [like the unused beta dynamite bundle]; Placed on buildings without disabling them but makes them explode Sentry Buster-style if not dealt with; takes slightly shorter than normal Sapper to do its job.
Not trying to get into an argument about whether or not all of these in execution would be created equal or whether or not they're completely balanced alternatives coexisting with the Sapper, but more just that Spy deserves to have more options for "causing problems on purpose" instead of just Weapon Slot That Doesn't Do Anything If There Are No Engineers and also without making him into a diet power class.
You lost me in the first minute. I see no issue with the sapper
Found the Engy main.
Sappera are not boring. Being able to take down Sentries without being targetted is kind of essential for the balance of the game and potentially a turning point to win a chokepoint.
For all the hate on the stock revolver, you sure got a few clean kills with it starting here 0:41
Opinion on the sapper before watching past 10 seconds in the video:
Without the sapper, Engi and Spy's relationship with each other would be far less interesting. Spy basically can't act within a sentry's range (often in the backline, where Spy wants to be) if he has no way to deal with it himself. Engi would shut him down entirely. The sapper puts them on even ground. That said, I don't like how an entire slot is dedicated to it. Spy could have and should have gotten something more universal for his secondary slot that opened up more unique playstyles for him, while the sapper should have been treated like an innate mechanic rather than a dedicated weapon slot. The Red Tape Recorder is also dumb and stupid and the sapper shouldn't be getting sidegrades at all.
i think sappers are funny so they should stay
They seem fine this feels redundant
Sappers technically count as buildings. I think it would be cool if maybe classes got access to their own unique buildings through unlocks, or Spy got to put out more gadgets that other Spies can sap. Or what if you could Sap Sappers for some interesting Spy v Spy gameplay? There's stuff you can do to make Sappers more interesting, but it more so revolves around changing the environment of the Sapper than the Sapper itself.
We do not need more classes with buildings, engineer is supposed to be unique with buildings because he is otherwise a much slower scout with gimmicks
@@DaQuestioningCrustacean No no no, I don't mean full on building PDA's in the hands of the other classes, I just mean unlocks that replace probably the secondary slot and allow the class to place a building unique to them. Engineer gets to place down 4 buildings, I think an unlock that allows a class like Demo to place down a unique building wouldn't be stepping on any more toes than Valve already has before with certain unlocks. But imagine for a moment specifically Spy, if Spy had an unlock that allowed to place down four cameras he was able to set up and look through with a tablet, or was able to set up laser trip wires that when set off highlight whoever set it off through walls, as alternatives to the Sapper. Engineer gets to have 4 proper and powerful Buildings that define him as a class, but there's potential in buildings outside of the Engineer's arsenal. Specifically with Spy, as he already has a "building", or more accurately an Anti-Building in his repertoire that can be replaced and/or built off of.
@@redactedoktor ah I see, could be interesting even if it could be hard to balance
You wouldn't download a sentry?
A cool idea for a sapper would be one that you have limited uses of, maybe even just one, but it destroys buildings quicker
The sapper is the counter to turtling
why is lonq using the diamondback??? 5:12
What is with the new generation of tf2 players who demand entire game mechanics be removed?
I've been playing since 2015. Just because my channel is young, does not mean I am and, it does not mean I am inexperienced. Also, the entire point of the video is that I don't want Sappers removed, but ok.
I heavily disagree with the notion that sappers being spammable is a flaw. Cooldowns should be an absolute last resort in game design, because they are an incredibly boring and overly simplistic solution that almost never leads to any interesting gameplay. Being able to quickly sap multiple buildings is pretty much the only way spy would ever be able to take down multiple engineers working together, and giving the sapper a cooldown would make disabling even 2 sentries basically impossible if there is even a single enemy near.
What is it with new spy videos and horrid, manufactured takes?
My only problem with sappers is when a spy saps your teleporter entrance and continues to spam sappers while you try to remove them. You can't outheal the sapper damage if they're being spammed, and spy has unlimited sappers while engineer has limited metal. You can pray that a teammate respawns and kills the spy or goes back to help you out, but in that encounter there is no counter play. You lose. When you go back to spawn to rebuild your teleporter, the spy saps the rest of your nest. It's a lose-lose for engineer, and one that could be easily solved by giving spy limited sappers (3 is my vote, so spy can sap an engie nest if its unguarded or the engie is killed) or give them a few seconds cool down so the teleporter can be repaired, requiring the spy to actually do something instead of spam M1.
Brother, not everything needs a video essay
I wish they could make a new building schematic thing for engineer that gives him launch pad type things instead of teleporters. Engineer isn't exactly great when it comes to movement, so I think giving him a launchpad that sends him vertically - along with one that launches him at a diagonal angle - would be great for a little bit of variety, and it could lead way for some funny nest spots.
I have fun with Sappers ngl.
I like watching my points go up :)
They’re quite useful at disrupting engineer’s productivity and makes spy a stronger support class.
It would be cool if spy had a “jammer” instead of a sapper, this could be an ability in cool-down which allows you to disable weapons on every class and also disable buildings.
Disable weapons? How the fuck would that work? Deny the laws of chemistry and physics?
Sappers are mostly the mosquitoes of tf2
Maybe the real issue is lack of variety when it comes to buildings and sappers, NOW granted Team Fortress 2 Classic is experimenting with new sappers and buildings, I will say the jump pads would be overpowered as hell letting classes such as soldiers and heavies free blast jumps without taking damage to get to higher ground. Spy has a few new sappers such as one that allows reconnaissance so teammates can see the enemy around corners, etc.
#Diversity for Sappers/Buildings.
It should been hold to apply with holding time penalty making it less spammable but only for the sentrys
"there are no alternatives" does the enforcer count? It's pretty solid of shooting the gun from a safe distance. Do soldiers and demos and the tools they have don't count as an alternative?
Enforcer does definitely belong in this category, being the single best item in the game for dealing with the wrangler, and if they fixed the bug where it’s still effected by the “sapped buildings take 20% less dmg” effect the weapon would have a strong reason to exist and would be equipped quite a bit
@@gekohno I mean Enforcer is one of these weapons that ain't bad but get overshadowed by other options and thus peoples say they are bad.
Enforcer is really nice and solid gun, It don't care about any kind of resistance (except saper one, yet you still deal more damage on first shot and i heard something about battalions backup) and allows you to deal with snipers the way Amby can. it's only down side is slower firing speed (which is a bit of buff cause it make it more accurate) and no random crits that most of the times are unreliable.
In similar case I would say is pistol for engineer. It's solid damage dealer, but is slept on most of the time because wrangler exists. Amount of time I cached enemy of guard and pepper down with pistol is astonishing
@@Jasiuc330Yeah, it’s a good all-rounder. Good dps, 2-tap snipers, and res piercing as a cherry on top
One thing I think should have been mentioned is that Sappers are important on Spy because Sentries otherwise would make Spy unplayable. Sentries are usually in the backline, have auto aim, and basically delete you. So basically, as soon as you get a backstab without the YER or Kunai, you instantly die. At least normally, you have a chance to escape after a backstab or can chainstab too. With Sentries, nope.
Just backstab the sentry vro, is not that hard
such a random tf2 take bro especially one of the arguments being something as suggestive as "it isn't fun for either party"
Spy’s sapper in TF2 has always been a weird case to me…
Fine video Conquistador
red tape recorder 🤤🤤
You’ve covered the possibility of buffing everyone else in place of the sapper, you’ve covered the possibility of just removing the sapper… but what if you just replaced the sapper with another option for spy? What might that look like?
Thursday
Yeah nah the sapper has always been interesting me in that sense that I also see it as pretty necessary despite the fact its a definitive one-class counter which is generally a bad design in my opinion. The reason I see it as necessary is more-so because if spy, a class that sticks to the enemies backlines, without an effective way to handle sentries, does severely limit the plays he can make without probably dying.
In casual I agree its very important for penetrating nests on defensive holds but on the other hand nerfs to the wrangler and short circuit would have probably a roughly similar impact as the sapper in terms of making it easier for a team to break a nest.
In terms of calling the sapper "boring", I get where you're coming from but I think it's execution is actually pretty decent. When a spy saps a sentry an exchange is essentially made between the engineer and spy, the spy having an advantage by placing immediate pressure on the engineer but also alerting them to where they are or who they are disguised as.
While this interaction is only existent between these two classes I think it's pretty cool honestly, the sapper does counter engineer in the sense that it only affects them, but it functions as a sort of gambit made by the spy (assuming he hasnt already stabbed the engie in which case bad luck lmao).
In terms of fixing the sapper's boringness, since we've already discounted removing it, additional functionalities to the item would be a good improvement for the slot I think, as to what alternative functions the sappers could have I'm not sure, but it solves what I see as the main issue with the sapper.
honestly i dont even like the spy i play more demo and pyro but..
nah the sappers are ok considering that pybros and the homewrecker exist the only thing that maaaaaaaybe i can agree is that the sapper having no cooldown sometimes can be a pain on the backery but for most of the time due to the team's inexperience in trying to kill the spy or protect the sentry nest. also if the engie is using the jag or the eureka effect even if you manage sap and destroy the sentry he can just build another one more faster especially if theres more than one engie, or if he is using the frontier most of the time they end up kill the the spy the most use i get for the sapper is when the engie use the wrangler when my team is trying to push since that fraction of a second in which the sentry is disabled can really help the team a lot.
but also any good spy will try to at least kill the engineer first since, although it takes time to rebuild a sentry, it is faster than the time it takes for the engineer to respawn, return to where the nest was, and that is if he does not die again on the way. that's why sometimes it's better to try to sap and stab the engineer than just spam the sapper
¨oh no you sap and destroy my stuff what i gonna do now?, build another one¨
besides spy is a SOFT counter for the engineer, the HARD counters are the demoman and Soldier(sometimes the sniper if the building is on a spot easy to sniper) if the engie decide to counter both classes by using the short circuit guess what item helps a lot the both for taking down the sentry the sappers
I have always felt that sappers were never any kind of evil just good game design
Sappers are fun and they are creating a lot of decisions and interaction with both your and enemy teams. You are not cooking
Hey, which HUD do you use?
I like your editing style and I appreciate the effort that you put into the video but your arguments against the sapper's design are pretty much all subjective takes that aren't even explained well at all. Even in the comments you're just being dismissive and condescending towards any comments critical towards the video.
First off sappers being a "boring and one sided fight for the sentry" isn't even remotely an argument. The engagement comes from the spy correctly putting himself in the position to get the successful sap, not the action of placing the sapper itself. You're confusing your own subjective opinions as objective facts here.
As for your three main arguments for sappers being boring, the last two (sapper only countering buildings and sappers being a half assed solution) just fundamentally misunderstand the design of the sapper. The sapper doesn't exist as a solution to keep engie's balance in check (demo and uber are really what keeps him in line), it exists because it gives spy more utility and it just works on a character that is meant to screw with the enemy team in the backlines. As for it being spammable, this is the best argument out of the three but it still isn't good. Your demonstration of the sapper technique proposes that a spy managing to successfully take down a sentry at close range while it's being protected by a character with a shotgun is a problem, but again this is a subjective opinion. Most people find successful saps in a 1v1 fine but it's fine that you dislike these engagements but stop trying to paint your opinions as objective issues.
yeah, he does this a lot.
Apparently a few people think the sapper is a poorly designed item for the reasons you named at the start of the video, and I can understand that, but I don’t agree.
To me, it’s always made total sense for the spy class, a character built on espionage and disrupting enemy fortresses, to carry an item designed for malfunctioning turrets.
If a spy can get close to an engineer, he deserves an item capable of stunning his buildings. It’s his job to get in there and mess things up.
Engineer is a stationary class and spy is a class that punishes sedentary defense, it’s a very fair direct counter tool.
its less of a direct counter to the engineer and more of allowing spy to have a reasonable and fair way to deal with engis if he manages to find an opening or mistake to exploit. a counter would have significantly less counterplay or prevention
@@crouton7070 you’re right. Yes that.
All Imma say is Sappers should NOT be spammable. Either have them take a few seconds to attach onto a building, or give them a cooldown. Can't tell you how frustrating it is when three engineers on one end of a teleporter can't beat one spy/sapper spamming the other end of the teleporter...
I'm not so sure the "games have to be fun 100% of the time" debate is as open and shut as you make out. I think it's more than fair to argue that having unfun elements in a game can be a good thing, for example one of the least fun games I've ever played in my life is Spec Ops: The Line, which is a game that is actively uncomfortable and miserable experience for large chuncks of time as a deliberate choice by the developers, and yet in context on the larger game those unfun parts ultimately make the overall work so much stronger. Now admittedly Team Fortress 2 is a very different game so its not exactly a one-to-one comparison here, but all I'm saying is that unfun elements are automatically a unambiguous negative in a game- in most cases they are don't get me wrong, but like once out of every hundred times there's an example of it being a good and purposeful thing.
THATS WHAT I'M SAYINNNN
If sappers are a necessary evil, but are simply too boring and simple… what if we got more sappers added? Make them fundamentally different in how they’re used?
That might be fun. I’ve just been very unimpressed with their design for a very long time, so I would like to see what other kind of Sapper could exist
An idea I had, was making separate sappers for stunning and damaging the sentry. One sapper could slowly damage it whilst it remains active, and another could disable buildings but do no damage.
Just wondering. What’s you hud?
DARHud
@@Lonqudor thanks!
This was a debate?
Why can't you just try to remove them? What's stopping you?
Literally the entire second part of the video:
Nah, like why can't Lon just break into the Valve Offices and delete the Sapper?
I should do that
What HUD is that?
DARHud
1:24 who is THAT 😫😫😫
Fine video but it’s pretty much an answer to a question no one asked.
I don’t disagree. Still thought it’d be interesting to talk about
I am Pyro. I became real.
Get unReal
I am the space pyro I come from space
I am Walter Foog, I am either from space, or I am real, have fun figuring out which I am
lonq yap dor 🙄
D:
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Engie main detected
You are wrong.
In what way? Would you rather they be removed? Or do you think there could be an alternative?
@@Lonqudor You fundamentally misunderstood that the fun of the sapper comes from the context surrounding sapping a building and not the actual act of sapping itself (the 1v1s with engies protecting their nests, weaving through an enemy team to get to the nest, pushing a sentry with a teammate that couldn't take it out otherwise). You call them terribly designed, but giving a sort of sabotage mechanic to an espionage class that forces encounters and allows him to support the team beyond just getting picks is just excellent game design, and was executed beautifully. Also, you acted like the sapper was supposed to be the main counter to the sentry gun when Demo, Soldier, and Uber exists.
stop making videos bro
yeah i mean they are boring and yeah they are necessary but this feels the same as saying "hitler wasnt a very good guy" or "sniper is annoying"
Do you really have to pronounce your Ls like that?
There are other accents out there besides American. When you come to learn this, you might enjoy UA-cam more
you have no idea what you're talking about